Contemporary Family Perspectives (CFP) – serie

A brief, impactful book that provides a contemporary analysis of how economics and social class affects the concept of family today

This book focuses on the impact of economic systems and social class on the organization of family life. Since the most vital function of the family is the survival of its members, the author give primacy to the economic system in structuring the broad parameters of family life. She explains how the economy shapes the prospects families have for earning a decent living by determining the location, nature, and pay associated with work.

This interdisciplinary text examines five different components of family health--biology, behavior, social-cultural circumstances, the environment, and health care--and the ways they affect the abilities of family members to perform well in their homes, workplaces, and communities. Special awareness is paid to health disparities among individuals, families, groups, regions, and nations. The author discusses how health of individual families influences our local, national, and global communities. Families and Health argues that family health is not a privilege for the few, but a personal, national, and global right and responsibility.

Family Policy and the American Safety Net shows how families adapt to economic and demographic change. Government programs provide a safety net against the new risks of modern life. Family policy includes any public program that helps families perform their four universal obligations of caregiving, income provision, shelter, and transmission of citizenship. In America, this means that child care, health care, Social Security, unemployment insurance, housing, the quality of neighborhood schools, and anti-discrimination and immigration measures are all key elements of a de facto family policy. Yet many students and citizens are unaware of the history and importance of these programs. This book argues that family policy is as important as economic and defense policy to the future of the nation, a message that is relevant to students in the social sciences, social policy, and social work as well as to the public at large.

Part of the SAGE Contemporary Family Perspective series, this book presents a comprehensive yet accessible understanding of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender families today by drawing upon and making sense of the burgeoning scholarly literature about LGBT families from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. It pays particular attention to how structures of race, class, gender, sexuality, and age shape LGBT families, and how members of such families negotiate the social landscapes within which they exist. The book will help readers better understand the formation, experiences, challenges, and strengths of LGBT families, and address two main questions: Why are new family forms so threatening to certain groups of people in society? and How are new family forms beneficial to the society in which they exist? Here is what author Nancy Mezey had to say in a recent interview: ?

“LGBT people are creating families in a society that simultaneously demonizes and embraces them. With a desire to understand and perhaps deconstruct this rocky terrain, I decided to write LGBT Families, a comprehensive overview based on solid research so that readers can form their own opinions.”

“This book stands in solidarity with all diverse family forms – families that developed out of particular social and economic contexts, and that contribute to the society around them, despite the hardships that some in society may level at them.”