Arguably all humans invent or accept forms of family beyond those that are close biological kin. These fictive forms of kinship may vary across diverse cultures and serve different purposes. This book explores a wide variety of such kinship-forming, from expedient daylong pseudo-marriages to notions of deities as everlasting parents for humankind and life on earth. These range from the purely abstract to the bricks and mortar of college fraternities and sororities. Family Beyond Family observes and examines the principles and purposes of such fabricated connections.

A familiar, yet contentious topic, the subject of family can present difficulties in the classroom, on levels ranging from personal to political and social. Understanding Family Meanings attacks this dilemma head-on, focusing on family meanings in diverse contexts to enhance our understanding of everyday social lives. Ranging over such issues as power, inequality, and values, this instructive text serves as an ideal introduction to family studies as it explores the shifting and subtle ways individuals, researchers, policymakers, and professionals make sense of the idea of family.

There is a lot of talk these days about how churches need to become more "missional" and "Kingdom-focused"--but what about the families that make up our churches and often reflect the surrounding culture more than the Kingdom of God? Christian families know that God has a better purpose for marriage and family but often don't have the slightest idea how to get there. And while many books on Christian marriage and family are inwardly focused on simply getting along "better," this book addresses the cultural influences that have taken our focus away from God's intended purpose for marriage and family and, through analysis and practical suggestions, recalls marriages and families to the purpose for which God intended them in the first place--namely, to serve God's Kingdom as witnesses to a world desperately seeking deeper purpose and authenticity.

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This book examines, through a multi-disciplinary lens, the possibilities offered by relationships and family forms that challenge the nuclear family ideal, and some of the arguments that recommend or disqualify these as legitimate units in our societies.That children should be conceived naturally, born to and raised by their two young, heterosexual, married to each other, genetic parents; that this relationship between parents is also the ideal relationship between romantic or sexual partners; and that romance and sexual intimacy ought to be at the core of our closest personal relationships - all these elements converge towards the ideal of the nuclear family. The authors consider a range of relationship and family structures that depart from this ideal: polyamory and polygamy, single and polyparenting, parenting by gay and lesbian couples, as well as families created through assisted human reproduction.

With a synthesis of research on issues key to understanding family interaction, as well as an analysis of many theoretical and methodological choices made by researchers studying family communication, the Handbook serves to advance the field by reframing old questions and stimulating new ones. The contents are comprised of chapters covering: theoretical and methodological issues influencing current conceptions of family; research and theory centering around the family life course communication occurring in a variety of family forms individual family members and their relationships dynamic communication processes taking place in families family communication embedded in social, cultural, and physical contexts. Key changes to the second edition include: updates throughout, providing a thorough and up-to-date overview of research and theory new topics reflecting the growth of the discipline, including chapters on "singles" as family members, emerging adults, and physiology and physical health. Highlighting the work of scholars across disciplines--communication, social psychology, clinical psychology, sociology, family studies, and others--this volume captures the breadth and depth of research on family communication and family relationships. The well-known contributors approach family interaction from a variety of theoretical perspectives and focus on topics ranging from the influence of structural characteristics on family relationships to the importance of specific communication processes.

First published in 1981. This volume is unique as to date no previous book, and no collection of papers one could assemble from the literature, addresses or achieves for the field of family therapy what is accomplished in this handbook. It responds to a pressing need for a comprehensive source that will enable students, practitioners and researchers to compare and assess critically for themselves an array of major current clinical concepts in family therapy.

An informative anthology of recent theory and research developments pertinent to family stress.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence Paying privately for childcare is a growing phenomenon worldwide, a trend mirrored in Sweden despite the prevalence there of publicly funded daycare. 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. The authors investigate the ways in which all the participants experience the caring situation, and expose the possibilities and problems of nanny and au pair care. Their study illuminates the ways in which paid domestic care workers 'do' family and care; in doing so, it contributes to wider political and scientific discussions of inequalities at the global and local level, reproduced in and between families, in the context of rapidly changing welfare states.

Family Problems: Stress, Risk, and Resilience presents an interdisciplinary collection of original essays that push the boundaries of family science to reflect the increasingly diverse complexity of family concerns in the modern world. Represents the most up-to-date family problem research while addressing such contemporary issues as parental incarceration, same sex marriage, health care disparities, and welfare reform Features brief chapter introductions that provide context and direction to guide the student to the heart of what’s important in the piece that follows Includes critical thinking questions to enhance the utility of the book for classroom use Responds to family problem issues through the lens of a social justice perspective