Sociology of Family

Based on a unique longitudinal study and offering a critical visual methodology of “collaborative seeing”, this book shows how a diverse community of young people in Worcester, MA used cameras at different ages (10, 12, 16, 18) to capture the centrality of care in their lives, homes and classrooms.

Drawing from forty years of experience, Julia Brannen offers an invaluable account of how research in family studies is conducted and ‘matters’ at particular times. An exceptional resource for family scholars and those interested in the methodology of social research.

Using Sweden as a case study, this book combines theories of family practices, care and childhood studies with the personal perspectives of nannies, au pairs, parents and children to provide new understandings of what constitutes care in nanny families.

Bringing together the voices of leading experts in the field, this edition offers an up-to-date and diverse review of the best in social policy scholarship over the past year.

This volume provides an international perspective on parental leave policies in different countries, goes beyond this to examine a range of issues in depth, and aims to stimulate thinking about possible futures and how policy might underpin them.

This exciting collection presents an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the unprecedented phenomenon of increasing numbers of grandparents worldwide, co-existing and interacting for longer periods of time with their grandchildren.

Ann Oakley interviewed 60 women to find out what it’s really like to have a baby. She discusses whether and why women want to become pregnant, how they imagine motherhood to be, the experience of birth, post-natal depression, feeding and caring routines and the challenges for the domestic division of labour and to fathers.

Taking a life course and generational perspective, this collection examines topics such as work-life balance, transnational families, digital storytelling and mobile parenting. It offers tools that allow for an informed and critical understanding of ICTs and family dynamics.

Paving the way for a government to fulfil its responsibility to families, this authoritative and critical account of the Troubled Families Programme reveals the inconsistencies and contradictions within it, and issues of deceit and malpractice in its operation.

Covering a wide range of subjects from non-resident fathers to father engagement in child protection, this major contribution to the field offers unique insights into how to research fathers and fatherhood in contemporary society.

Women are encouraged to believe that they can occupy top jobs in society by the example of other women thriving in their careers. This book shows that having a mother as a role model does not predict daughters progressing in their own careers. It offers a timely and original perspective on the debate about gender equality in leadership positions.

Based on involved creative, qualitative work with families in India and the UK who live in different contexts, this book illuminates how environmental practices are negotiated within families, and how they relate to values, identities, and society.