Series: Sociology of Children and Families
Series Editors: Esther Dermott and Debbie Watson, University of Bristol, UK
The Sociology of Children and Families international monograph series brings together the latest international research on children, childhood and families and pushes forward theory in Sociology of childhood and family life. Books in the series cover major global issues affecting children and families.
The series appeals to an international and interdisciplinary audience of academics, researchers and students across sociology, social policy, childhood and youth studies, social work, politics, social and cultural geography, children’s geographies and anthropology.
Sociology of Children and Families
In the absence of public provision, many governments rely on the market to meet childcare demand. But who are the actors shaping this market? What work do they do to marketize care? And what does it mean for how childcare is provided?
Based on an innovative theoretical framework and an in-depth study of the New Zealand childcare market, Gallagher examines the problematic growth of private, for-profit childcare. Opening the ‘black box’ of childcare markets to closer scrutiny, this book brings to light the complex political, social and economic dynamics behind childcare provisioning.
Attachment parenting is an increasingly popular style of childrearing that emphasises ‘natural’ activities such as extended breastfeeding, bedsharing and babywearing. Such parenting activities are framed as the key to addressing a variety of social ills. Parents’ choices are thus made deeply significant with the potential to guarantee the well-being of future societies.
Examining black mothers’ engagements with attachment parenting, Hamilton shows the limitations of this neoliberal approach. Unique in its intersectional analysis of contemporary mothering ideologies, this outstanding book fills a gap in the literature on parenting culture studies, drawing on black feminist theorizing to analyse intensive mothering practices and policies.
Black Mothers and Attachment Parenting is shortlisted for the 2021 BSA Philip Abrams Memorial Prize.
Drawing on detailed qualitative research, this timely study explores the experiences of fathers who take on equal or primary care responsibilities for young children.
The authors examine what prompts these arrangements, how fathers adjust to their caregiving roles over time, and what challenges they face along the way.
The book asks what would encourage more fathers to become primary or equal caregivers, and how we can make things easier for those who do. Offering new academic insight and practical recommendations, this will be key reading for those interested in parenting, families and gender, including researchers, policymakers, practitioners and students.
We routinely judge how well children are doing in their lives by how they spend their time, yet we know remarkably little about it.
This rigorous review of four decades of data provides the clearest insights yet into the way children use their time. With analysis of changes in the time spent on family, education, culture and technology, as well as children’s own views on their habits, it provides a fascinating perspective on behaviour, wellbeing, social change and more.
This is an indispensable companion to the work of policy makers, academics and researchers, and anyone interested in the daily lives of children.
Nordic countries lead the way in facilitating better work-family integration through their design of parental leave policies that encourage men towards life courses with greater care responsibilities.
Based on original research, this compelling book offers a novel analysis of the everyday parental practices of fathers and parents in Norway as a way of understanding the workings of labour market and welfare policies, whilst considering how migrant fathers might relate to the expectations such laws generate. The authors showcase how this style of men’s care work constitutes a re-gendering of men by promoting ‘caring masculinities’.
From the vantage point of forty years in social research and the study of families, Julia Brannen offers an invaluable account of how research is conducted and ‘matters’ at particular times. This fascinating work covers key developments in the field that remain of vital concern to society and demonstrates how social research is an art as well as a science – a process that involves craft and creativity.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence
Paying privately for childcare is a growing phenomenon worldwide, a trend mirrored in Sweden despite the prevalence there of publicly funded daycare. This book combines theories of family practices, care and childhood studies with the personal perspectives of nannies, au pairs, parents and children to provide new understandings of what constitutes care in nanny families.
The authors investigate the ways in which all the participants experience the caring situation, and expose the possibilities and problems of nanny and au pair care. Their study illuminates the ways in which paid domestic care workers 'do' family and care; in doing so, it contributes to wider political and scientific discussions of inequalities at the global and local level, reproduced in and between families, in the context of rapidly changing welfare states.
