Families, Relationships and Intimate Life

by Deborah Dempsey, Jo Lindsay

Families, Relationships and Intimate Life, Second Edition is a thorough exploration of the controversies, contradictions and broad patterns that characterize contemporary relationships and families. Beginning with the conceptual scaffolding of families in their historical and cultural context this text includes the key cultural differences of ethnicity, class and sexuality. Theoretical perspectives including functionalism, feminist approaches and reflexive modernization are also clearly outlined. Once the groundwork has been established this book delves into examining the complexity of contemporary family life, covering key elements in the life course - childhood, youth, partnering, parenting and ageing and both the positive and negative sides of family life including intimacy and violence.

This edition has been extensively updated with contemporary examples from pop culture and current affairs and incorporates developments currently reshaping families including new technologies and social mobility.

New to this edition:
More material on culturally diverse and transnational families, adoption and surrogacy.
New emphasis on social media and mobile phone use throughout.
New theoretical perspectives on family relationships.
New discussion on child abuse and elder abuse in chapter 12: Violence in Intimate Relationships.
Updated discussion questions, contemporary examples and further reading.

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2015

Reviews

[D J Rout · Rating 2 out of 5]

One of the major reasons I dropped the class that required it, this book is typical of the modern university textbook. Like Political Ideologies: An Introduction, it appears to contain a lot of information in its pages, but in reality has a lot of superficial blather, in text citations and discussion questions that do not lead to further research or provide useful links.

Buy it if your course requires it, but don't expect to get any useful information out of it. Even if you can find it in an accessible format.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting guide to the history of and contemporary families and relationships. I found there was more opinion on others work than original insights, however it provided a thorough grounding for further research.