Balanced and comprehensive, scholarly but unintimidating, this collection captures the remarkable diversity of family life and offers a superb collection of current and classic readings for courses in family sociology.

This open access book presents the trends and patterns of demographic and family changes from all eleven countries in the region for the past 50 years. The rich data are coupled with historical, cultural and policy background to facilitate an understanding of the changes that families in Southeast Asia have been going through. The book is structured into two parts. Part A includes three segments preceded by a briefing on Southeast Asia. The first segment focuses on marital and partnership status in the region, particularly marriage rates, age at marriage, incidence of singlehood, cohabitation, and divorce. The second segment focuses on fertility indicators such as fertility rates (total, age-specific, adolescent), age at childbearing, and childlessness. The third presents information on household structures in the region by examining household sizes, and incidence of one-person households, single-parent families, as well as extended and composite households. Part B presents indicators of children and youths well-being.

Managing the transition of family wealth from generation to generation is a daunting task. Families with businesses require inheritance plans that are even more complicated because wealth and worth are often intricately woven into the business. And many transition plans focus only on financial capital and ignore a family’s less tangible assets. Other plans detail the intrinsic elements of an inheritance without satisfying the practical issues. In Family Wealth Transition Planning, Bonnie Brown Hartley and Gwendolyn Griffith guide advisers to families with small businesses through the intricate process of preparing and transferring wealth to heirs. The authors take a holistic view of transition planning, focusing on the assets that fall under the umbrella of financial capital, as well as the other key sources of family wealth: human and social capital. Advisers learn the essentials to achieving successful wealth continuity: Healthy family relationships Responsible stewardship of wealth, in all forms Creation and preservation of the family legacy Throughout the book, three fictionalized business families, based on Hartley's experience as an adviser, tell their personal stories as they navigate the estate planning process. In this way, Hartley and Griffith demonstrate how to develop wealth transition plans that are wide enough in scope to encompass all forms of wealth yet customized to manage each family's different needs.

Based on the 1996 Family Law Act, this book looks at how the therapist can work with the different professions involved in a divorce, how children might be consulted, and ways in which vulnerable family members can be protected. 78 pages.

A Clinician’s Guide to Gender Actualization provides an essential guide for mental health professionals working with gender diverse clients, delivering material that challenges clinicians to provide affirming specialized care for their clients. Gender actualization is the social, expressive, and existential process of becoming and integrating one’s authentic self through the context of gender identity, and this book introduces an effective clinical model for competent gender therapy care. Building upon the reader’s foundational knowledge, chapters provide useful assessment tools, interventions, and treatment strategies to implement in their clinical practice, with accompanying personal narratives and client experiences woven throughout. Challenging readers to explore intersectionality and the crucial awareness of their own privileges, this book is a critical read for providers working with or seeking to educate themselves regarding gender diverse clients.

This book explores the development of a new path of transition between adolescence and adulthood in recent generations. Whereas traditionally the transition into adulthood was marked by a clear and irreversible change in condition, we are now seeing a continuance in the role and influence of the family on the young adult. What consequences does this have for our society? Is the persistence of emotional bonds which previously loosened during adolescence, inhibiting young people from developing into full adulthood? The authors present a clear and in-depth analysis of the theoretical framework surrounding the transition into adulthood both from a generational point of view and a relationship-centred perspective. The findings of international research are presented and compared across generations, gender and geographical location within Europe. The different research methods of ‘family related research’ and ‘family research’ are also distinguished and analysed. This volume offers an original and multi-faceted review of this topic. The family is considered as an organization, and the interdependencies and interconnections between its members, the generations and genders investigated. It offers a unique contribution to the current literature and will appeal to an international audience of researchers, policy makers and educators both in academic and professional spheres.

The American family has come a long way from the days of the idealized family portrayed in iconic television shows of the 1950s and 1960s. The four volumes of The Social History of the American Family explore the vital role of the family as the fundamental social unit across the span of American history. Experiences of family life shape so much of an individual’s development and identity, yet the patterns of family structure, family life, and family transition vary across time, space, and socioeconomic contexts. Both the definition of who or what counts as family and representations of the "ideal" family have changed over time. Available in both digital and print formats, this carefully balanced academic work chronicles the social, cultural, economic, and political aspects of American families from the colonial period to the present. Key themes include families and culture (including mass media), families and religion, families and the economy, families and social issues, families and social stratification and conflict, family structures (including marriage and divorce, gender roles, parenting and children, and mixed and non-modal family forms), and family law and policy. Features: Approximately 600 articles, richly illustrated with historical photographs and color photos in the digital edition, provide historical context for students. A collection of primary source documents demonstrate themes across time. The signed articles, with cross references and Further Readings, are accompanied by a Reader’s Guide, Chronology of American Families, Resource Guide, Glossary, and thorough index. The Social History of the American Family is an ideal reference for students and researchers who want to explore political and social debates about the importance of the family and its evolving constructions. Key Themes: Families and Culture Families and Experts Families and Religion Families and Social Change Families and Social Issues/Problems/Crises Families and Social Media Families and Social Stratification/Social Class Families and Technology Families and the Economy Families in America Families in Mass Media Families, Family Life, Social Identities Family Advocates and Organizations Family Law and Family Policy Family Theories History of American Families

Of all concepts used by family therapists, the family development framework is among the least studied, in spite of its relevance to understanding spontaneous family change and to facilitating therapeutic intervention. The notion that a "developmental difficulty" underlies the appearance of clinical symptoms has become a time-honored tradition in family therapy just as it has been in individual therapy. Yet, unlike the well-established and well-researched models of child and adult development, those in family development are rudimentary. Despite increasing interest in the family life cycle as a framework for family therapy, relatively little has been done to elucidate the specific dimensions and processes of spontaneous and therapeutically-induced change over the family life cycle. This volume gathers original contributions of some of the most prominent family theorists, researchers, and clinicians of our time to improve our understanding of these important and hitherto neglected domains. The book opens with a comprehensive overview by the editor that outlines contributions to the family life cycle framework from family sociology, and crisis theory. This is followed by a comparative analysis of developmental thinking, explicit or implicit, in the theory and interventions of the major family therapy approaches. Then divided into four parts, FAMILY TRANSITIONS introduces new conceptual models that integrate the temporality of the life cycle approach with systems theory.By their very nature, these models cut across therapeutic orientations and have important clinical applications. In Part II, family therapy's views of development are freed from the confines of the therapist's office, and placed in the context of other disciplines. Chapters provide analysis of changing--or static--sociocultural values that can affect conceptions of development; potential misuse of the concept of "cultural identity" in health, mental health, and education; how "family identity" operates as a vehicle for cultural transmission over generations; and family therapists assumptions about women's development. The role of expected and unexpected events in the family life cycle is the focus of Part III. Chapters on clinical approaches geared to dislocations of life cycle occurrences due to unexpected crises, chronic illnesses, loss, or drug abuse provide illustrations of interventions that utilize, enhance, or potentially detract from the family's developmental flow. Part IV explores the articulation of the life cycle framework within four major family therapy orientations: intergenerational, structural, systemic, and symbolic-experiential. Each of these chapters endeavors to elucidate: what is the place of family development in each orientation; concepts of continuity and change; use of the concept of stages, transitions, or developmental tasks; the specific dimensions that change in most families over time; and the links between family dysfunction and life cycle issues. Finally, each chapter illustrates through clinical example assessment strategies, formulation of treatment goals and interventions as these emerge from a particular life cycle model. FAMILY TRANSITIONS presents a significant advance in our understanding of functional and dysfunctional family development and offers a range of interventions to promote developmental change. It is an invaluable resource for clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and counselors that will also interest human development professionals, family sociologists, and family researchers. FAMILY TRANSITIONS can serve as a developmentally oriented textbook for teaching family therapy in academic and professional settings.