This title was first published in 2000: This book is based on selected papers from a major international congress of the same name that was held at the University of Calgary in July 1997. The contributors come from Canada, England, Italy, United States, Hong Kong and New Zealand where they are researchers at major universities. The papers are organized into four sections: 1) Context of Families, 2) Family Adjustment and Transitions, 3) Child and Adolescent Development, and Attachment. The book sets out to bring together advanced research by psychologists, social workers, physicians, sociologists and other social scientists on the interface between society, the family, children, adolescents and other family members.

The editors maintain that there is a compelling need to explore the child's role in major familial decisions such as divorce, moving house, employment or childcare.

This volume considers the impact that changing family norms have had on the responsibilities that the law allocates to people in family relationships. Contributions are drawn from a wide variety of jurisdictions in which scholars, lawyers, judges and policy-makers have been trying to discern what the appropriate correlation should be between the responsibilities that people undertake in family settings and the law that regulates family responsibilities. Part I looks at the changes that have occurred in adult relationships and what they have done for our sense of the family responsibilities that adults take for one another. Part II reflects on the changing nature of the parental relationship in order to reconsider the way in which changing family structures affect the responsibilities we think people raising children should have. The third part brings the rights discourse that has dominated jurisprudence for much of the last fifty years into the discussion of family transformation and the responsibilities to which it gives rise. In the final section the authors reflect on the difficulties of trying to resolve the meaning of responsibility in a world of changing families. The collection brings together some of the most eminent and imaginative scholars and judges working in this area. It will be a valuable resource for all those interested in the legal regulation of the transforming family.

The Japanese family is shifting in fundamental ways, specifically in terms of attitudes towards family and societal relationships, and also the role of the family in society. Changing Japanese Family explores these significant changes which include an ageing population, delayed marriages, a fallen birth rate, which has fallen below the level needed for replacement, and a decline in three-generational households and family businesses. The authors investigate these changes and the effects of them on Japanese society, whilst also setting the study in the context of wider economic and social changes in Japan. They offer interesting comparisons with international societies, especially with Southern Europe, where similar changes to the family and its role are occuring. This fascinating text is essential reading for those with an enthusiasm in Japanese studies but will also engage those with a concern in Japanese culture and society, as well as appealing to a readership with a wider interest in the sociology of the family.

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.

Recent decades have seen spectacular increases in the levels of divorce and separation across the Western world. This important development is having a radical impact on the conduct and nature of family relationships. This book offers an original investigation of these critical transformations through an ethnographic analysis of post-divorce family life in Britain and provides insightful answers to vexing questions, such as:- What cultural values and ideologies motivate and shape concerns over relationships when marriage ends?- Which relationships continue and why?- What cultural values underpin the financial transactions that take place or (more commonly) fail to take place after divorce?Drawing on extensive interviews with those most affected by divorce, the author argues that the positive sentiments traditionally associated with the notion of kinship are wholly inadequate when it comes to understanding divorce, but that kinship can provide an illuminating window through which to consider the breakdown of marital relations.This book represents a significant contribution to current debates over the changing form and expression of relationships in Western society in the late twentieth century.

The 1950s religious boom was organized around the male-breadwinner lifestyle in the burgeoning postwar suburbs. But since the 1950s, family life has been fundamentally reconfigured in the United States. How do religion and family fit together today? This book examines how religious congregations in America have responded to changes in family structure, and how families participate in local religious life. Based on a study of congregations and community residents in upstate New York, sociologist Penny Edgell argues that while some religious groups may be nostalgic for the Ozzie and Harriet days, others are changing, knowing that fewer and fewer families fit this traditional pattern. In order to keep members with nontraditional family arrangements within the congregation, these innovators have sought to emphasize individual freedom and personal spirituality and actively to welcome single adults and those from nontraditional families. Edgell shows that mothers and fathers seek involvement in congregations for different reasons. Men tend to think of congregations as social support structures, and to get involved as a means of participating in the lives of their children. Women, by contrast, are more often motivated by the quest for religious experience, and can adapt more readily to pluralist ideas about family structure. This, Edgell concludes, may explain the attraction of men to more conservative congregations, and women to nontraditional religious groups.

South Korea has been recognised as a pivotal economic force within its region. This book explores the key areas of management, exploring the opportunities and challenges that managers face. Incorporating expert contributions, this book provides a complete overview of the current state of management in South Korea.

This volume brings together seminal essays which examine the meaning, forms and trajectory of the Indian family, and which go beyond the stereotypical joint/nuclear dichotomy that tends to dominate studies on the family. Using various methodological, conceptual and analytical tools, the essays cover both patrilineal and matrilineal family forms in different regions of India, and cover a wide range of historical and social situations. This book is one of the Indian Sociological Society: Golden Jubilee Volumes.