Jane Ribbens McCarthy is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the Open University. She has long-standing interests in family sociology, particularly around parent-child relationships, and her research has included, among other things, mothers and their children, parenting and step-parenting, and the family lives of young people aged 16-18. She has published extensively on these areas, on qualitative methodologies, including auto/biography, and on theories of public and private. Her most recent book, with Rosalind Edwards and Val Gillies, is Making Families: Moral Tales of Parenting and Step-Parenting, Sociologypress, 2003. She is currently engaged on a literature review on 'Young People, Bereavement and Loss'. Further details of her work can be found at http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/jribbens-mccarthy/
Key Concepts in Family Studie's individual entries introduce, explain and contextualize the key topics within the study of the family. Definitions, summaries and key words are developed throughout with careful cross-referencing allowing students to move effortlessly between core ideas and themes. Each entry provides:• Clear definitions• Lucid accounts of key issues• Up-to-date suggestions for further reading• Informative cross-referencing Relevant, focused and accessible this book will provide students with an indispensible guide to the central concepts of family studies.
