|
Showing 1 - 4 of
4 matches in All Departments
"Instead of seeing the family as a "monolithic" entity, as though
separate from its surroundings, this new approach draws attention
to assemblages of various types that in different constellations
and through different transactions relate people to each other as
families and kin"--
This book takes a novel approach to family, exploring in detail how
status is inherited and maintained within families; the process of
upward social mobility; and how the roots of social decline start
within families. The author also examines how rigidly status
equivalence determines choice of spouse. Exceptionally extensive in
its coverage, the book ranges from the seventeenth century to the
present day, across a large range of European countries and part of
the United States, and across several class groups, including
royalty, nobility and entrepreneurial dynasties, as well as
families of professionals, artists and those in lower ranks. The
book also discusses the viability of the central sociological
concepts of class and status. The book will be of interest to
scholars and students in the areas of family sociology, history,
social equality and inequality and class and elitism research.
Instead of seeing the family as a 'monolithic' entity, as though
separate from its surroundings, this new approach draws attention
to assemblages of various types that in different constellations
and through different transactions relate people to each other as
families and kin.
The importance of significant family contexts that are not easily
circumscribed with reference to a household or a limited set of
family roles has been underlined throughout the last two decades by
researchers. A strong interest for family relationships beyond the
nuclear family has emerged in the social sciences. The various
contributions to this book develop a configurational approach to
families, which emphasizes interdependencies existing among large
numbers of family members, and reconsiders some of the central
issues of family life in this light: fertility projects, childcare
and socialization, monetary transfers across generations and
support for the elderly, relationships with grandparents, uncles,
aunts and in-laws, gender inequalities, divorce and other family
disruptions, and the importance of friends and acquaintances for
families. Beyond very real changes affecting the structures of
family life since the sixties, the book reveals that basic forms of
togetherness still underlie much of what is going on in family
configurations.
|
|