Book Description

Overview: 007-086413-2 /Softcover / 448 pp/ Copyright 2001, (11,2000) / ($41.95)Revised to ensure up-to-date coverage of key issues in accordance with its high academic reputation while introducing a new, reader-friendly design, Families: Changing Trends in Canada has always been a widely adopted text for the first course in Sociology of the Family. Maureen Baker's aim as general editor has been to create a Canadian textbook in family studies for post-secondary students, which incorporates an interdisciplinary, historical, comparative and mainly structural perspective, but which is inclusive of various theoretical perspectives. The newly added pedagogical elements will engage students taking the course at universities and community colleges.The fourth edition of Families reflects the evolving nature of the family by paying increased attention to gay, lesbian and multicultural issues. It includes updated statistics and discussion of recent legal reforms, providing students with background on three censuses and other demographic surveys, new studies in social history, recent legal debate, and the growing focus on cultural variations in families. The fourth edition also offers new theoretical approaches that incorporate poststructuralist and feminist theory in order to help students understand how family, gender relations and personal life have been influenced by "post-industrial" or "post-modern" society. Most contributors are sociologists but several have formal qualifications or a research background in psychology, education, women's studies, history and social policy. The result is a text that shows that family life in Canada, as elsewhere, is in a constant state of change.