Relationships and Resources – serie

Sibling Identity and Relationships explores the special place that siblings occupy in the lives of children and young people, providing new insights into sibling identity and relationships. Drawing on social constructionist and psychodynamic perspectives, it discusses who constitutes a sibling, emotional connections and separations, conflict and aggression and how siblings construct and conduct their relationship out of the home, at school and in local communities.Shedding light on broader debates about social and psychic divisions in wider society, this book explores the ways that siblings are important for children and young people’s social and emotional sense of self in relation to others. Reviewing current literature on sibling relationships as well as proposing alternative theoretical perspectives, Sibling Identity and Relationships will be a valuable resource to academics and students of childhood studies and social work as well as health and social care professionals.

Sibling Identity and Relationships explores the special place that siblings occupy in the lives of children and young people, providing new insights into sibling identity and relationships. Drawing on social constructionist and psychodynamic perspectives, it discusses who constitutes a sibling, emotional connections and separations, conflict and aggression and how siblings construct and conduct their relationship out of the home, at school and in local communities.Shedding light on broader debates about social and psychic divisions in wider society, this book explores the ways that siblings are important for children and young people’s social and emotional sense of self in relation to others. Reviewing current literature on sibling relationships as well as proposing alternative theoretical perspectives, Sibling Identity and Relationships will be a valuable resource to academics and students of childhood studies and social work as well as health and social care professionals.

Successive moral panics have cast poor or socially excluded mothers - associated with social problems as diverse as crime, underachievement, unemployment and mental illness - as bad mothers. Their mothering practices are held up as the antithesis of good parenting and are associated with poor outcomes for children.Marginalised Mothers provides a detailed and much-needed insight into the lived experience of mothers who are frequently the focus of public concern and intervention, yet all too often have their voices and experiences overlooked. The book explores how they make sense of their lives with their children and families, position themselves within a context of inequality and vulnerability, and resist, subvert and survive material and social marginalisation. This controversial text uses qualitative data from a selection of working class mothers to highlight the opportunities and choices they face and to expose the middle class assumptions that ground much contemporary family policy. It will be of interest to students and researchers in sociology, social work and social policy, as well as social workers and policymakers.

Successive moral panics have cast poor or socially excluded mothers - associated with social problems as diverse as crime, underachievement, unemployment and mental illness - as bad mothers. Their mothering practices are held up as the antithesis of good parenting and are associated with poor outcomes for children.Marginalised Mothers provides a detailed and much-needed insight into the lived experience of mothers who are frequently the focus of public concern and intervention, yet all too often have their voices and experiences overlooked. The book explores how they make sense of their lives with their children and families, position themselves within a context of inequality and vulnerability, and resist, subvert and survive material and social marginalisation. This controversial text uses qualitative data from a selection of working class mothers to highlight the opportunities and choices they face and to expose the middle class assumptions that ground much contemporary family policy. It will be of interest to students and researchers in sociology, social work and social policy, as well as social workers and policymakers.

The introduction of compulsory citizenship education into the national curriculum has generated a plethora of new interests in the politics of childhood and youth. Citizenship for Teenagers explores teenagers’ acts of and engagement with citizenship in their local communities and examines the role of citizenship education in creating future responsible citizens. The first half of the book provides the context for teenagers’ experiences of citizenship, discussing issues around the ideas of childhood and citizenship, as well as the curriculum. The second half goes on to explore teenagers’ experiences of citizenship education, practising citizenship and exclusion from citizenship. The book concludes with a call for a new cumulative approach to citizenship which upgrades the status of teenagers, particularly within the classroom.Susie Weller’s important book will throw new light on how teenagers engage with citizenship education and take on civic responsibility. It is an interesting and useful read for all those involved with education and youth policy as well as those studying for a PGCE or researching in citizenship education.

Recent years have seen a concern with how family and community relationships have changed across the generations, whether for better or worse, and particularly how they have been affected by social and economic developments. But how can we think about and research the nature of the present in relation to the past and vice versa? Researching Families and Communities: Social and Generational Change explores the concepts and perspectives that guide research and the methods used to explore change during the last half of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. It highlights the complexities of continuities alongside change, the importance of the perspectives that shape investigation, and the need to engage with situated data. This edited text includes contributions from experts in their field who: address these overarching trends explore the possibilities and practice of secondary analysis or replication studies, as well as longitudinal large scale data sets discuss varied aspects of family and community life, including sexuality, ethnicity, parenting resources, older people, intergenerational family life, solo living and many others. This book will appeal to academics and students interested in family and community across a range of social science disciplines, and to those in the social research field.

Recent years have seen a concern with how family and community relationships have changed across the generations, whether for better or worse, and particularly how they have been affected by social and economic developments. But how can we think about and research the nature of the present in relation to the past and vice versa? Researching Families and Communities: Social and Generational Change explores the concepts and perspectives that guide research and the methods used to explore change during the last half of the twentieth century and into the new millennium. It highlights the complexities of continuities alongside change, the importance of the perspectives that shape investigation, and the need to engage with situated data. This edited text includes contributions from experts in their field who: address these overarching trends explore the possibilities and practice of secondary analysis or replication studies, as well as longitudinal large scale data sets discuss varied aspects of family and community life, including sexuality, ethnicity, parenting resources, older people, intergenerational family life, solo living and many others. This book will appeal to academics and students interested in family and community across a range of social science disciplines, and to those in the social research field.

Interdependency and Care over the Lifecourse draws upon theories of time and space to consider how informal care is woven into the fabric of everyday lives and is shaped by social and economic inequalities and opportunities. The book comprises three parts. The first explores contrasting social and economic contexts of informal care in different parts of the world. The second looks at different themes and dynamics of caring, using fictional vignettes of illness and health, child care, elderly care and communities of care. The book examines the significance to practices of care throughout the lifecourse of: understandings and expectations of care emotional exchanges involved in care memories and anticipations of giving and receiving care the social nature of the spaces and places in which care is carried out the practical time-space scheduling necessary to caring activities.Finally the authors critically examine how the frameworks of caringscapes and carescapes might be used in research, policy and practice. A working example is provided. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of care work, health and social care, geography, sociology of the family and social policy as well as those in business and policy communities trying to gain an understanding of how work and informal care interweave.

Interdependency and Care over the Lifecourse draws upon theories of time and space to consider how informal care is woven into the fabric of everyday lives and is shaped by social and economic inequalities and opportunities. The book comprises three parts. The first explores contrasting social and economic contexts of informal care in different parts of the world. The second looks at different themes and dynamics of caring, using fictional vignettes of illness and health, child care, elderly care and communities of care. The book examines the significance to practices of care throughout the lifecourse of: understandings and expectations of care emotional exchanges involved in care memories and anticipations of giving and receiving care the social nature of the spaces and places in which care is carried out the practical time-space scheduling necessary to caring activities.Finally the authors critically examine how the frameworks of caringscapes and carescapes might be used in research, policy and practice. A working example is provided. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of care work, health and social care, geography, sociology of the family and social policy as well as those in business and policy communities trying to gain an understanding of how work and informal care interweave.

Contemporary Western society is changing and, controversially, migration is often flagged up as one of the reasons why. The nature of population change challenges the conventional understandings of family forms and networks whilst multiculturalism poses challenges to our understanding of social change, families and social capital. This innovative book provides an overview of the emergence of new understandings of ethnicities, identities and family forms across a number of ethnic groups, family types, and national boundaries. Based on new empirical data from fairly distinct sets of transnational family networks in minority communities with a substantial presence in the United Kingdom – principally, Caribbean and Italian, but also drawing on others such as Indian – it examines their lived experiences and uses the concept of social capital to explore how these families manage to maintain close and meaningful links. Transnational Families discusses, explains and illustrates the substantial problems and issues confronted by communities and families, academics and policy-makers/implementers, and non-governmental organisations within a transnational world. It will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families and globalisation.

People from a ‘mixed’ or ‘inter’ racial and ethnic background, and people partnering and parenting across different racial and ethnic backgrounds, are of increasing political, public and intellectual interest internationally. Contributors to this interdisciplinary collection interrogate notions of mixedness and mixing, and challenge stereotypical assumptions. They advance debates in the field through illuminating the complexity of specific historical trajectories, administrative practices and lived experience.Recurrent themes woven throughout the chapters include: boundaries and categorisation in terms of administration and government, and also of lived experience the explicit and implicit politics of mixedness and mixing in terms of nation state interests, agenda and policies, as well as ‘on the ground’ social relations the ways that mixedness and mixing shift in meaning and implications across time and place, shaped by different national, regional and or local contexts. This volume shows that who is and is not ‘mixed’ is contested and understandings of mixedness and mixing, however conceived, need to be situated in the larger complex of ideas about race and its classification. International Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Mixedness and Mixing is an invaluable book for students and scholars of race and ethnicity.

What does ‘care’ mean in contemporary society? How are caring relationships practised in different contexts? What resources do individuals and collectives draw upon in order to care for, care with and care about themselves and others? How do such relationships and practices relate to broader social processes? Care shapes people’s everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course. Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.

Drawing on both sociological and anthropological perspectives, this volume explores cross-national trends and everyday experiences of ‘parenting’. Parenting in Global Perspective examines the significance of ‘parenting’ as a subject of professional expertise, and activity in which adults are increasingly expected to be emotionally absorbed and become personally fulfilled. By focusing the significance of parenting as a form of relationship and as mediated by family relationships across time and space, the book explores the points of accommodation and points of tension between parenting as defined by professionals, and those experienced by parents themselves. Specific themes include: the ways in which the moral context for parenting is negotiated and sustained the structural constraints to ‘good’ parenting (particularly in cases of immigration or reproductive technologies) the relationship between intimate family life and broader cultural trends, parenting culture, policy making and nationhood parenting and/as adult ‘identity-work’.Including contributions on parenting from a range of ethnographic locales – from Europe, Canada and the US, to non-Euro-American settings such as Turkey, Chile and Brazil, this volume presents a uniquely critical and international perspective, which positions parenting as a global ideology that intersects in a variety of ways with the political, social, cultural, and economic positions of parents and families.

Contemporary Western society is changing and, controversially, migration is often flagged up as one of the reasons why. The nature of population change challenges the conventional understandings of family forms and networks whilst multiculturalism poses challenges to our understanding of social change, families and social capital. This innovative book provides an overview of the emergence of new understandings of ethnicities, identities and family forms across a number of ethnic groups, family types, and national boundaries. Based on new empirical data from fairly distinct sets of transnational family networks in minority communities with a substantial presence in the United Kingdom – principally, Caribbean and Italian, but also drawing on others such as Indian – it examines their lived experiences and uses the concept of social capital to explore how these families manage to maintain close and meaningful links. Transnational Families discusses, explains and illustrates the substantial problems and issues confronted by communities and families, academics and policy-makers/implementers, and non-governmental organisations within a transnational world. It will be of interest to students and scholars of migration, transnationalism, families and globalisation.

People from a ‘mixed’ or ‘inter’ racial and ethnic background, and people partnering and parenting across different racial and ethnic backgrounds, are of increasing political, public and intellectual interest internationally. Contributors to this interdisciplinary collection interrogate notions of mixedness and mixing, and challenge stereotypical assumptions. They advance debates in the field through illuminating the complexity of specific historical trajectories, administrative practices and lived experience.Recurrent themes woven throughout the chapters include: boundaries and categorisation in terms of administration and government, and also of lived experience the explicit and implicit politics of mixedness and mixing in terms of nation state interests, agenda and policies, as well as ‘on the ground’ social relations the ways that mixedness and mixing shift in meaning and implications across time and place, shaped by different national, regional and or local contexts. This volume shows that who is and is not ‘mixed’ is contested and understandings of mixedness and mixing, however conceived, need to be situated in the larger complex of ideas about race and its classification. International Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Mixedness and Mixing is an invaluable book for students and scholars of race and ethnicity.

What does ‘care’ mean in contemporary society? How are caring relationships practised in different contexts? What resources do individuals and collectives draw upon in order to care for, care with and care about themselves and others? How do such relationships and practices relate to broader social processes? Care shapes people’s everyday lives and relationships and caring relations and practices influence the economies of different societies. This interdisciplinary book takes a nuanced and context-sensitive approach to exploring caring relationships, identities and practices within and across a variety of cultural, familial, geographical and institutional arenas. Grounded in rich empirical research and discussing key theoretical, policy and practice debates, it provides important, yet often neglected, international and cross-cultural perspectives. It is divided into four sections covering: caring within educational institutions; caring amongst communities and networks; caring and families; and caring across the life-course. Contributing to broader theoretical, philosophical and moral debates associated with the ethics of care, citizenship, justice, relationality and entanglements of power, Critical Approaches to Care is an important work for students and academics studying caring and care work in the fields of health and social care, sociology, social policy, anthropology, education, human geography and politics.