This major study examines the increasing significance of inheritance for life in ordinary families. It considers questions of individual choice versus family responsibilities, the internal dynamics of families, and broader implications for social change. This book is intended for undergraduates and postgraduates on courses in the sociology of the family, social policy, gender studies and social anthropology, as well as students and researchers within socio-legal studies and family law.

This major study examines the increasing significance of inheritance for life in ordinary families. It considers questions of individual choice versus family responsibilities, the internal dynamics of families, and broader implications for social change. This book is intended for undergraduates and postgraduates on courses in the sociology of the family, social policy, gender studies and social anthropology, as well as students and researchers within socio-legal studies and family law.

Negotiating Family Responsibilities provides a major new insight into contemporary family life, particularly kin relationships outside the nuclear family. While many people believe that the real meaning of 'family' has shrunk to the nuclear family household, there is considerable evidence to suggest that relationships with the wider kin group remain an important part of most people's lives. Based on the findings of a major study of kinship, and including lively verbatim accounts of conversations with family members concepts of responsibility and obligation within family life are examined and the authors expand theories on the nature of assistance within families and argue that it is negotiated over time rather than given automatically.

For some time access to publicly provided services has been shrinking and governments have been emphasizing the family as the first line of support, but how far do such policies accord with what people will provide for their relatives, and with contemporary ideas about what it is proper to expect from family members? This book examines patterns of support, both practical and financial, between adult members of family and kin groups, and focuses upon ideas about responsibility, duty and obligation within families and how far these underpin the support actually given. This text provides an insight into contemporary family life, particularly kin relationships outside the nuclear family. While many people believe that the real meaning of "family" has shrunk to the nuclear family household, there is considerable evidence to suggest that relationships with the wider kin group remain an important part of most people's lives. Based on the findings of a major study of kinship, and including lively verbatim accounts of conversations with family members, concepts of responsibility and obligation within family life are examined.

The third edition of this best-selling text guides students and researchers through the process of doing qualitative research, clearly explaining how different theoretical approaches inform what you do in practice. The text bridges the gap between 'cookbook' and more abstract approaches to qualitative research, by posing 'difficult questions' that researchers should be asking themselves . The book invites researchers to engage in a creative and critical practice in how they draw insights, interpret a range of types of data and craft knowledge from qualitative research. Fully revised and updated, with three new chapters, this edition: * Covers the full research process, with new material on analysing and interpreting data and research ethics * Engages with exciting new developments in the field through challenging qualitative researchers to be creative with how they research and with what they find. * Examines the potential of qualitatively-led approaches to mixed methods, and their implications for research design, research practice and the production of convincing arguments. A theoretically engaged, grounded approach to qualitative researching, this remains the ideal text to guide students to become thoughtful, creative and effective qualitative researchers.

Jennifer Mason and Angela Dale's book seeks to set out cutting-edge developments in the field of social research and to encourage students and researchers to consider ways of learning from different approaches and perspectives in such a way as to make their own research richer, more insightful and more rewarding. Social Researching brings together a wide variety of research methods - both qualitative and quantitative - to help students and researchers to consider the relative benefits of adopting different approaches for their own research work. The authors clearly identify the most appropriate methods for different research questions and also highlight areas where it might be fruitful to compliment different methods with each other or exploit creative tensions between them. The book is therefore a highly practical guide which also seeks to draw readers outside their methodological comfort zones. This book includes: - Critical coverage of issues in research design; - Expert experience in many methodological fields; - An overview of the many different ways to approach similar research problems; - Coverage of the tensions between different methodological approaches; - Examples of excellence in research design and practice; - An examination of how to turn methodological tensions into richer research practice. The methods covered include highly innovative, 'cutting-edge' approaches and they are demonstrated in terms of their transferability between the different social sciences. This inter-disciplinary approach is complimented by a wide range of strategically chosen examples which demonstrate the authors' pragmatic and creative take on research design.

Jennifer Mason and Angela Dale's book seeks to set out cutting-edge developments in the field of social research and to encourage students and researchers to consider ways of learning from different approaches and perspectives in such a way as to make their own research richer, more insightful and more rewarding. Social Researching brings together a wide variety of research methods - both qualitative and quantitative - to help students and researchers to consider the relative benefits of adopting different approaches for their own research work. The authors clearly identify the most appropriate methods for different research questions and also highlight areas where it might be fruitful to compliment different methods with each other or exploit creative tensions between them. The book is therefore a highly practical guide which also seeks to draw readers outside their methodological comfort zones. This book includes: - Critical coverage of issues in research design; - Expert experience in many methodological fields; - An overview of the many different ways to approach similar research problems; - Coverage of the tensions between different methodological approaches; - Examples of excellence in research design and practice; - An examination of how to turn methodological tensions into richer research practice. The methods covered include highly innovative, 'cutting-edge' approaches and they are demonstrated in terms of their transferability between the different social sciences. This inter-disciplinary approach is complimented by a wide range of strategically chosen examples which demonstrate the authors' pragmatic and creative take on research design.

In Civilized Creatures, Jennifer Mason challenges some of our most enduring ideas about how encounters with nonhuman nature shaped American literature and culture. Mason argues that in the second half of the nineteenth century the most powerful influence on Americans' understanding of their affinities with animals was not increasing separation from the pastoral and the wilderness; instead, it was the population's feelings about the ostensibly civilized animals they encountered in their daily lives.

Americans of diverse backgrounds, Mason shows, found it attractive as well as politic to imagine themselves as most closely connected to those creatures who shared humans' aptitude for civilized life. And to the minds of many in this period, national prosperity depended less on periodic exposure to untamed, wild nature than it did on the proper care and keeping of such animals within suburban and urban environments.

Combining literary analysis with cultural histories of equestrianism, petkeeping, and the animal welfare movement, Civilized Creatures offers new readings of works by Susan Warner, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Charles W. Chesnutt. In each case, Mason demonstrates that understanding contemporary relationships between humans and animals is essential for understanding the debates about gender, race, and cultural power enacted in these texts.

The third edition of this best-selling text guides students and researchers through the process of doing qualitative research, clearly explaining how different theoretical approaches inform what you do in practice. The text bridges the gap between 'cookbook' and more abstract approaches to qualitative research, by posing 'difficult questions' that researchers should be asking themselves . The book invites researchers to engage in a creative and critical practice in how they draw insights, interpret a range of types of data and craft knowledge from qualitative research. Fully revised and updated, with three new chapters, this edition: * Covers the full research process, with new material on analysing and interpreting data and research ethics * Engages with exciting new developments in the field through challenging qualitative researchers to be creative with how they research and with what they find. * Examines the potential of qualitatively-led approaches to mixed methods, and their implications for research design, research practice and the production of convincing arguments. A theoretically engaged, grounded approach to qualitative researching, this remains the ideal text to guide students to become thoughtful, creative and effective qualitative researchers.

How we distribute our assets after death is no longer a question for a small wealthy section of society: increasing numbers of people must now decide how to structure wills and to bequeath money and possessions across generations: not only to family and kin but to charities and institutions also. This path-breaking study offers an empirical study of 800 English wills and uses the material to reflect upon what they tell us of contemporary family and kin relationships. It will be of great interest to lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists and social historians.