Acknowledging the increasing diversity and complexity of families, this innovative book proposes a new conceptual framework for understanding families and other relationships that both challenges and attempts to reconcile traditional and contemporary approaches. Using the notion of ‘boundaries’, the book shifts thinking from ‘families as entities’ to ‘families as relationship processes’. Emphasising the processes that underlie boundary construction and reconstruction suggests that the key to understanding family life is the process of relationship formation. The ideas of entity, boundary, margins and hybridity provide a framework for understanding the diverse, and often contradictory, ways in which families contribute to society. Families in society makes a significant contribution to the academic literature on families and is essential reading for social science students, social researchers, policy makers and practitioners interested in families and relationships.
About the author
Sarah Cunningham-Burley is a co-director of the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships (CRFR) and Reader in Public Health Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests span the sociology of the family, health and illness, and she has a particular interest in the use of qualitative research methods. Linda Mc Kie is an associate director of CRFR and Research Professor in Sociology at Glasgow Caledonian University. Her research interests include: gender, violence and social change; ethics of care; qualitative evaluation and power and participation in healthcare innovations.
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