Families, Relationships and Societies (FRS) is a vibrant social science journal advancing scholarship and debates in the field of families and relationships. It explores family life, relationships and generational issues across the life course. Bringing together a range of social science perspectives, with a strong policy and practice focus, it is also strongly informed by sociological theory and the latest methodological approaches. The title encompasses the fluidity, complexity and diversity of contemporary social and personal relationships and their need to be understood in the context of different societies and cultures. Read more about Families, Relationships and Societies.
Impact Factor: 0.981 Frequency: February, May, August and November
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Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
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Families, Relationships and Societies (FRS) is a vibrant social science journal advancing scholarship and debates in the field of families and relationships. It explores family life, relationships and generational issues across the life course. Bringing together a range of social science perspectives, with a strong policy and practice focus, it is also strongly informed by sociological theory and the latest methodological approaches. The title encompasses the fluidity, complexity and diversity of contemporary social and personal relationships and their need to be understood in the context of different societies and cultures.
International and comprehensive in scope, FRS covers a range of theoretical, methodological and substantive issues, from large-scale trends, processes of social change and social inequality to the intricacies of family practices. It welcomes scholarship based on theoretical, qualitative or quantitative analysis. High-quality research and scholarship is accepted across a wide range of issues. Examples include family policy, changing relationships between personal life, work and employment, shifting meanings of parenting, issues of care and intimacy, the emergence of digital friendship, shifts in transnational sexual relationships, effects of globalising and individualising forces and the expansion of alternative ways of doing family. Encouraging methodological innovation, and seeking to present work on all stages of the life course, the journal welcomes explorations of relationships and families in all their different guises and across different societies.
Articles and contributions are drawn from a number of disciplines and subject areas including sociology, social policy, social work, childhood studies, demography, youth studies, family studies, gender studies, ageing and gerontology, health and social care, education, psychology, social history, sociolegal studies, politics, criminology and psychosocial studies.
The applied focus of the journal embraces a diverse global field and encourage a critical engagement with policy and practice developments and issues within and across welfare regimes.
The Open Space section of the journal offers a unique opportunity to consider facets of family lives, relationships and societies from unexpected and novel (including non-academic) perspectives. The Open Space section is included in special and themed issues of the journal only, so do look out for future calls. These calls will offer and encourage dialogue with a broader community than usually found in academic journals and enable alternative perspectives and insights to be shared. Contributions to this section usually range between 1,000 and 3,000 words. Further guidance will be provided as particular calls are made. For further details please contact the Open Space editor Tina Miller (tamiller@brookes.ac.uk).
2020 Impact Factor: 0.759 (2yr), 1.084 (5yr)
Ranked 43rd out of 47 in Family Studies
2022 Scopus Cite Score: 1.5
Families, Relationships and Societies is abstracted in:
Our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion statement outlines the ways in which we seek to ensure that equity, diversity and inclusion are integral to all aspects of our publishing, and how we might encourage and drive positive change.
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of FRS, the journal will be launching a prize to recognise outstanding contributions made to the journal.
The prize is created in memory of David Morgan, former president of the British Sociological Association (BSA), and past member of the FRS editorial team.
We are delighted to announce that the 2022 winners of the David Morgan Prize are Jesper Andreasson and Marcus Herz for their article 'Family practices, deportability and administrative violence: an ethnographic study on asylum seekers’ family life in the Swedish migration context'. This article is Open Access.
We would also like to give an honourable mention to the following articles, which are free to access until the 31 January 2023
Faithfulness without sexual exclusivity: gendered interpretations of faithfulness in rural south-western Uganda, and implications for HIV prevention programmes
Dominic Bukenya, Billy N. Mayanja, Elizabeth A. Sully and Janet Seeley
Couples’ daily childcare schedules: gendered patterns and variations
Ursula Henz
Creating online participatory research spaces: insights from creative, digitally mediated research with children during the COVID-19 pandemic
Helen Lomax, Kate Smith, Jo McEvoy, Eleanor Brickwood, Katherine Jensen and Belinda Walsh
A prize of £100 worth of Policy Press/Bristol University Press books will be awarded to the winner. The paper will be made freely available for a period of three months and promoted widely.
The winning paper will be selected by the FRS Editorial Panel who will draw up an initial shortlist from articles published (or due to be published) in the current year.
The authors of the shortlisted papers are asked whether they would like to be considered for the prize ahead of final nomination. Contributions to the journal from editorial board members are excluded from the article prize selection process.
A panel involving Editorial Board members will judge the applications on the written material provided. The assessment criteria are:
"Families, Relationships, and Societies fills an important niche, providing a forum as dynamic as families themselves to enhance our understanding of the vitality and complexity of relationships today."
Jessica L. Collett, University of Notre Dame, USA
"Across the world, family practices and ways of ‘doing’ family are undergoing profound changes. This welcome addition to the field will open up new avenues for international scholarship; counter the stereotype that 'family is primarily about parenting’; and challenge us to think critically about the changing relationship between families and the state. It is also refreshing — and timely — to see older people placed centre stage in these considerations."
Professor Miriam Bernard, Emeritus Professor of Social Gerontology, Keele University, UK
Editorial office
frs-editorial@bristol.ac.uk
Editor-in-Chief
Esther Dermott: Esther.Dermott@bristol.ac.uk
Co-Editors
Isabella Crespi: isabella.crespi@unimc.it
Manik Deepak-Gopinath: manik.deepak-gopinath@open.ac.uk
Sara Eldén: sara.elden@soc.lu.se
Elena Moore: elena.moore@uct.ac.za
Open access, subscriptions and free trials:
Policy Press: bup-journals@bristol.ac.uk
Read our instructions for authors for guidance on how to prepare your submissions. The instructions include the following:
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Visit our journal author toolkit for resources and advice to support you through the publication process and beyond.
Academic articles should not be longer than 8,000 words, including abstract (150 words maximum), notes, tables, figures and references. The journal provides a forum for dialogue between research, policy and practice in the field of families and relationships across the life course. It is underpinned by sociological understandings of the fluid, complex and diverse nature of contemporary relationships, seen in varied social, cultural and historical contexts. While rooted in sociological theory and methods, submissions to Families, Relationships and Societies come from subject areas across the social sciences and related life course disciplines and from policy and practice communities. Papers are expected to have relevance to academic, policy and practitioner audiences, enabling a wide range of perspectives to be brought together in one place to foster innovation and development within disciplines and advance interdisciplinary research and practice.
Open Space: Information on how to submit an Open Space contribution
The Open Space section of the journal Families, Relationships and Societies offers a unique opportunity to consider facets of family lives, relationships and societies from unexpected and novel (including non-academic) perspectives. The Open Space section is included in special and themed issues of the journal only, so do look out for future calls. These calls will offer and encourage dialogue with a broader community than usually found in academic journals and enable alternative perspectives and insights to be shared. Contributions to this section usually range between 1,000 and 3,000 words. Further guidance will be provided as particular calls are made. For further details please contact the Open Space editor Tina Miller (tamiller@brookes.ac.uk).
Please follow the instructions below on how to submit your Open Space article to Editorial Manager. Open Space submissions do not carry abstracts. Contact the Editorial Assistant (frs-editorial@bristol.ac.uk) if you require any assistance.
Special issue guest editors will be responsible for supplying the whole issue of a journal, including Open Space articles that fit the theme of the special issue, if they wish to include these. Support from the Open Space editors will be provided if guest editors struggle to find Open Space pieces.
All articles are refereed to assess their suitability for publication.
Editorial Manager
All submissions should be made online at the Families, Relationships and Societies Editorial Manager website: http://www.editorialmanager.com/frs/default.aspx, in Word or Rich Text Format (not pdf). New users should first create an account, specify their areas of interest and provide full contact details.
Manuscripts must be in Word or Rich Text Format (not pdf). New users should first create an account, specify their areas of interest and provide full contact details.
Preparing your anonymised manuscript
Your initial submission must consist of the following separate files:
For help submitting an article via Editorial Manager, please view our online tutorial.
Once a submission has been conditionally accepted, you will be invited to submit a final, non-anonymised version.
Checklist: what to include in your final, accepted non-anonymised manuscript
The non-anonymised final manuscript including:
Editorial review process
All submissions will be subject to double anonymous peer-review processes (unless stated otherwise) by referees currently working in the appropriate field.
The editors aim to provide quick decisions and to ensure that submission to publication takes the minimum possible time. The final decision on publication rests with the editors.
At Policy Press we are committed to upholding the highest standards of review and publication ethics in our journals. Policy Press is a member of and subscribes to the principles of the Committee of Publication Ethics (COPE), and will take appropriate action in cases of possible misconduct in line with COPE guidance.
Find out more about our ethical guidelines.
Articles are considered for publication on the understanding that on acceptance the entire copyright shall pass to Policy Press as publisher of Families, Relationships and Societies. Authors will be asked to sign a copyright agreement to this effect. All authors should agree to the copyright assignment. For jointly authored articles the corresponding author may sign on behalf of co-authors provided that they have obtained the co-authors' consent for copyright assignment. When submitting online, the copyright assignment agreement is considered to be signed when the corresponding author checks the relevant box. The copyright assignment agreement can be read here.
Where copyright is not owned by the author(s), the corresponding author is responsible for obtaining the consent of the copyright holder. This includes figures, tables and excerpts. Evidence of this permission should be provided to Policy Press.
General information on rights and permissions can be found here: http://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/rights-and-permissions.
To request permission to reproduce any part of articles published in Families, Relationships and Societies please email Policy Press: pp-info@bristol.ac.uk. For information on what is permissible use for different versions of your article please see our policy on self archiving and institutional repositories.
Please also read our Journals editorial policies.
In order to improve our accessibility for people with visual impairments, we are now required to ask authors to provide a brief description known as alt text to describe any visual content such as photos, illustrations or figures. It will not be visible in the article but is embedded into the images so a PDF reader can read out the descriptions. See our guidance on writing alt-text.
Download the Endnote output style for Bristol University Press and Policy Press Journals.
Bristol University Press and Policy Press use a custom version of the Harvard system of referencing:
Example of book reference:
Dorling, D. (2010) Injustice: Why social inequality persists, Bristol: Policy Press.
Example of journal reference:
Warin, P. (2012) 'Non-demand for Social Rights: A new challenge for social action in France', Journal of Poverty and Social Justice, 20(1): 41-53.
Example of chapter within edited / multi-authored publication:
Levitas, R. (2011) 'Utopia Calling: Eradicating child poverty in the United Kingdom and beyond', in A. Minujin and S. Nandy (eds), Global Child Poverty and Well-being: Measurement, concepts, policy and action, Bristol, Policy Press. pp. 449-73.
Example of website reference:
Womensaid (2016) What is domestic abuse? https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/what-is-domestic-abuse/.
Esther Dermott, Editor-in-Chief: University of Bristol, UK
Isabella Crespi, Co-Editor; The University of Macerata, Italy
Manik Deepak-Gopinath, Co-Editor; Open University, UK
Sara Eldén, Co-Editor; Lund University, Sweden
Elena Moore, Co-Editor; University of Cape Town, South Africa
Lynn Jamieson, Editor at large; University of Edinburgh, UK
Margaret O'Brien, Chair of the Board; University College London, UK
Kathryn Almack, Associate Editor; University of Nottingham, UK
Harriet Churchill, Associate Editor; University of Sheffield, UK
Charlotte Faircloth, Associate Editor; University College London, UK
Mastoureh Fathi, Associate Editor; University College Cork, Ireland
Patricia Hamilton, Associate Editor; University of York, UK
Tina Miller, Associate Editor; Oxford Brookes University, UK
Helen Norman, Associate Editor; University of Leeds, UK
Guanyu Jason Ran, Associate Editor; Edinburgh Napier University, UK
Julie Walsh, Associate Editor; University of Sheffield, UK
Junko Yamashita, Associate Editor; University of Bristol, UK
Kristoffer Chelsom Vogt, European Regional Editor; University of Bergen, Norway
France Winddance Twine, North American Regional Editor; University of California Santa Barbara, USA
Bren Neale, Consulting Editor; University of Leeds, UK
Tess Ridge, Consulting Editor; University of Bath, UK
Julia Mortimer, Publisher; Bristol University Press and Policy Press, UK
Jessica Hung-Chieh Chang, National Taiwan University, Taiwan
Sarah Cunningham-Burley, University of Edinburgh, UK
Barbara Fawcett, University of Birmingham, UK
Tom Fletcher, Leeds Beckett University, UK
Jacques-Antoine Gauthier, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
Daniela Grunow, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Anna Gupta, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Florencia Herrera, Diego Portales University, Chile
Sarah Irwin, University of Leeds, UK
An-Magritt Jensen, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
Sibel Kalaycioglu, Middle East Technical University, Turkey
Travis Kong, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Eva Lloyd, University of East London, UK
Kate Morris, University of Sheffield, UK
Tulsi Patel, University of Delhi, India
Lars Plantin, Malmö University, Sweden
Pia Schober, Eberhard Karls University of Tuebingen, Germany
Families, Relationships and Societies invite proposals for a special issue to be published in February 2025. Please send a proposal to frs-editorial@bristol.ac.uk by June 22nd 2023.
The editorial board will decide in its July meeting which proposal should be accepted. For further information/discussion please contact our Special Issues Editor, Dr Harriet Churchill (h.churchill@sheffield.ac.uk).
We are looking for proposals on any themes that are well justified as of importance to the general concerns of the journal and of interest to our readership. The proposal may include abstracts/authors of proposed papers (7-8) but this is not a requirement. If not, then information should be included on how they will attract high quality submissions. The proposal should include the plan for the ‘Open Space’ section as well as standard academic articles. Please see here for further guidance on this section. Examples of recent special issues are available here. We encourage applications from groups of two or more people who have previous relevant editorial and publication experience.
The people who submit a successful proposal will act as guest editors for the special issue. Guest editors will ensure that papers are of high quality, that the issue contains a strong and coherent collection of papers, that they are submitted on time and that appropriate revisions are carried out. They will allocate papers for peer-review and ensure that the overall collection and the individual papers meet the normal quality standards of the journal. Papers will be peer reviewed as per our standard process and there will be oversight of the review process by our Special Issues Editor.
Please include the following information in your submission:
• Proposed title of Special Issue
• Names and institutional affiliation of guest editors
• Short proposal (c2 pages) with description and rationale of the theme and its relevance to the journal; either titles and short abstracts of articles or process for attracting submissions.
• Short CVs (2 pages maximum) for each of the guest editors
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2022 Impact Factor: 1.4 (2yr), 1.3 (5yr)
Ranking: 44/46 in Family Studies
2022 Journal Citation Indicator: 0.44
Ranking: 43/65 in Family Studies
2022 Scopus CiteScore: 1.5
Ranking: 594/1415 in Sociology and Political Science – 58th percentile