Sociology of Family

This book looks at political attempts to create a 'modern family' and the aspiration to regulate the family and establish gender equality, examining the regulation of the family in Sweden between 1930 and today.

New Labour had a momentous impact on British family policy. In this timely book, Clem Henricson asks whether its aspirations were met, or were indeed realisable, and formulates radical proposals for the future.

This book analyses the specific ways in which family lives have changed and how they have been affected by the major structural and cultural changes of the second half of the twentieth century.

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 compelling book examines parental leave policies in Nordic countries, looking at how these laws encourage men towards life courses with greater care responsibilities. It considers the impact that these policies have had on gender equality and how they have led to a re-gendering of men by promoting ‘caring masculinities’.

Fowler provides an innovative critical exploration of ethical issues in children’s upbringing through the lens of political philosophy, calling for a radical new understanding of what constitutes wellbeing, the duties of parents and the collective obligations of state and society in guaranteeing children flourishing lives.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.