Aimed at social scientists, this book discusses family policy in general and the New Federalism in particular, and experimental implementation of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWOA) in the United States. Here, emphasis in family policy is shifted from a centralized entitlement approach to an exchange of personal responsibility, work, and training for better support services.

The Handbook of Contemporary Families explores how families have changed in the last 30 years and speculates about future trends. Editors Marilyn Coleman and Lawrence H. Ganong, along with a multidisciplinary group of contributors, critique the approaches used to study relationships and families while suggesting modern approaches for the new millennium. The Handbook looks at how changes within the contemporary family have been reflected in family law, family education, and family therapy. The Handbook of Contemporary Families is an excellent resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students, researchers, educators, and practitioners who study and work with families in several disciplines, including Family Science, Human Development and Family Studies, Sociology, Marriage & Family Therapy, and Social Work.

Examines the changing face of family life, in the United States and from culture to culture. This book offers a global viewpoint about family issues and help readers to think critically about family life in cultures beyond their own. It is intended for courses on marriage and the family in disciplines such as Family Studies and Sociology.

The volume provides a unique view on multidimensional crises, their interplay, and possible resolutions for sustainable life patterns and is therefore broadly related to the Sustainable Development Goals. Traditional unidimensional and technocratic strategies often fall short. Ultimately, people, their behavior and their habits are at the source of many problems. Therefore, it is imperative to take people, their multifaceted nature and the necessary learning and educational processes into account when striving towards a better life for everyone.

Originally published in 1989, this cross-national study investigates the role and pattern of family life in fourteen countries in contemporary Europe. Providing a wealth of information on European families, it is a key source for anyone wishing to understand the changes in the family at that time. The contributors argue that, far from withering away, the family remained a very important social unit which continued to have considerable influence on other social institutions such as the state and the labour market. The central theme is the interrelation between changes in production and working life on one hand, and changes in family life and reproduction on the other. The contributors focus on the pressures and contradictions produced by the division of functions between family and work, and on problems which have arisen as a consequence of the sometimes incompatible and even conflicting demands of the two institutions. They show that the evolution of the nuclear family model in Europe had led to a great diversity of family patterns, and conclude that the family in modern European societies still had a contribution to make which no other institution could provide.

Origins We call this book on theoretical orientations and methodological strategies in family studies a sourcebook because it details the social and personal roots (i.e., sources) from which these orientations and strategies flow. Thus, an appropriate way to preface this book is to talk first of its roots, its beginnings. In the mid 1980s there emerged in some quarters the sense that it was time for family studies to take stock of itself. A goal was thus set to write a book that, like Janus, would face both backward and forward a book that would give readers both a perspec tive on the past and a map for the future. There were precedents for such a project: The Handbook of Marriage and the Family edited by Harold Christensen and published in 1964; the two Contemporary Theories about theFamily volumes edited by Wesley Burr, Reuben Hill, F. Ivan Nye, and Ira Reiss, published in 1979; and the Handbook of Marriage and the Family edited by Marvin Sussman and Suzanne Steinmetz, then in production.

Originally published in 1993. The essays in this book collectively seek to illuminate the role of communication and sex-role socialization throughout the life cycle. Section 1 addresses some important issues and behaviours that have an impact on the beginnings of the socialization process. Section 2 covers socialization later on in relationships, the workplace and the political arena while section 3 looks at manifestations of socialization through communication strategies and skills. Finally section 4 addresses ways to alter socialization through instructional practices in higher education. The approach to studying sex-role socialization varies by perspective and methodology and conclusions are interpreted in diverse ways but the results have been very similar and the research in this volume shows that the socialization of males and females continues to reinforce male dominance despite women’s advancement toward equal status in society. This work is of interest in the fields of sociology, psychology, anthropology and women’s studies as well as communication.

Covering a series of issues, this book seeks to reestablish sociology of the family as a key area in undergraduate studies. It provides a theoretical and scholarly overview of the area and includes various essays.