A paper said that people with strong family ties had a lower level of trust in strangers than people with weak family ties.
Source: John Ermisch and Diego Gambetta, Do Strong Family Ties Inhibit Trust?, Working Paper 2008-37, Institute for Social and Economic Research/University of Essex (01206 873087)
Links: Working paper
Date: 2008-Dec
A new book examined a wide range of family issues, including how people picked their partners, when and why young people left home, and the impact of unemployment on marital breakdowns and the relationships between children and their parents. It said that the traditional concept of the family should be replaced with an emphasis on individual relationships.
Source: Malcolm Brynin and John Ermisch (eds.), Changing Relationships, Routledge (01264 343071)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Dec
A report set out a multi-disciplinary perspective on the importance of sibling relationships. Policy-makers needed to be aware that siblings played a crucial role in the formation of social understanding and personal identity. Individual chapters examined issues including: sibling relationships across the life-span, birth order, identity, psychological development, 'mixed race', and disabilities.
Source: Martina Klett-Davies (ed.), Putting Sibling Relationships on the Map: A multi-disciplinary perspective, Family and Parenting Institute (020 7424 3460)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Nov
A report detailed the findings of the qualitative stage of a project designed to guide the quantified segmentation of parents and children/young people. It used detailed observation of parent-child 'pairs' who were jointly considering family and parenting issues, as well as separate focus groups of parents and young people. 12 segments were differentiated on three simple axes of care, control, and conflict between the pair.
Source: Define Research and Insight, Adult-Young Person Bonds: A Qualitative Segmentation, Research Report RW075, Department for Children, Schools and Families (0845 602 2260)
Links: Report
Date: 2008-Oct
Researchers conducted a large-scale survey of parents and carers, and of their children and young people, to develop a robust segmentation of these groups based on their attitudes, aspirations, and behaviour. High proportions of parents expressed positive feelings about their role, with 89 per cent saying they enjoyed their family life most of the time and 79 per cent happy with how close their family was. Lack of social support, low self-esteem, and feelings of being constrained by family life were strongly correlated with parental discontent. 3 out of 10 children aged 14-19 felt they had no or little control over their future, this feeling being heightened among children born to younger mothers and living in lone-parent families. While the majority of parents and children agreed with each other that they had a close bond, for a sizeable minority relationships had broken down: 16 per cent felt that communication with their parent was pointless as they never listened, and 26 per cent felt that their parent was always putting them down in some way. Parents who lacked qualifications themselves were less likely than average to be engaged in their child's education.
Source: Nick Gilby et al., National Survey of Parents and Children: Family Life, Aspirations & Engagement with Learning in 2008, Research Report RR059, Department for Children, Schools and Families (0845 602 2260)
Date: 2008-Oct
A new book examined the ways in which fatherhood had been understood, constructed, and regulated within English law. Fatherhood had an essentially fragmented status, which was intertwined in complex ways with the legal, cultural, and political contexts in which 'discourses' of parenthood were produced.
Source: Richard Collier and Sally Sheldon, Fragmenting Fatherhood: A socio-legal study, Hart Publishing (01865 517530)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Sep
A new book drew on evidence from two linked studies, one carried out in the 1960s and the other in the early 2000s, to analyze the specific ways in which family lives had been affected by the major structural and cultural changes of the second half of the twentieth century. It cast doubt on claims that families had been subject to a process of dramatic change.
Source: Nickie Charles, Charlotte Davies and Chris Harris, Families in Transition: Social change, family formation and kin relationships, Policy Press, available from Marston Book Services (01235 465500)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Jul
A survey about the relationships that adolescents had with their grandparents showed that grandparents who were involved in the upbringing of their grandchildren could contribute to a child's well-being. The findings challenged previous research showing that grandparents who were heavily committed to looking after their grandchildren could become depressed and have a negative effect on the children.
Source: Ann Buchanan and Eirini Flouri, Involved Grandparenting and Child Well-being, Economic and Social Research Council (01793 413000) Links: Summary | Oxford University press release | Telegraph report
Date: 2008-Jun
A new book examined the concepts and perspectives guiding research into how family and community relationships had changed across the generations.
Source: Rosalind Edwards (ed.), Researching Families and Communities: Social and generational change, Routledge (01264 343071)
Links: Summary
Date: 2008-Apr
A report called for better support for parents of young adults as more and more young people stayed at home for longer, increasing the pressure on families.
Source: Will They Ever Fly the Nest? What parents say about living with young adults, Parentline Plus (020 7284 5500)
Links:Report | Parentline plus press release | Telegraph report
Date: 2008-Feb
An annual survey of social attitudes found that 70 per cent of people thought that there was nothing wrong with sex before marriage, compared with only 48 per cent in 1984. Some two-thirds of people (66 per cent) believed that there was little difference, socially, between being married and living together; and only 1 in 4 – 28 per cent – thought that married couples made better parents than unmarried ones.
Source: Simon Duncan and Miranda Phillips, 'New families? Tradition and change in modern relationships' in Alison Park, John Curtice, Katarina Thomson, Miranda Phillips and Mark Johnson (eds.), British Social Attitudes: The 24th Report, SAGE Publications Ltd (020 7324 8500)
Links: Summary | NatCen press release | Telegraph report | BBC report | FT report
Date: 2008-Jan