The Changing Faces of Families: Diverse Family Forms in Various Policy Contexts

With a focus on nine different national contexts, this book explores contemporary family diversity. With attention to the different welfare states and cultures of care in each setting, it problematizes the pre-eminence of research and policy centered on heteronormative families, showing the extent to which family diversity exists cross-nationally in relation to different gendered and "family-friendly" policies. Considering variations in family forms, including differences in the number and marital status of parents, their gender, sexual orientation and biological relationship to the children (adoption), multicultural families, and families created by technological assistance or surrogacy, it presents demographic information, alongside quantitative and qualitative research, across a number of advanced countries. A contribution to our understanding of the diversity of family forms, how diversity is lived in families, and what family diversity means in various international policy contexts. The Changing Faces of Families will appeal to scholars with interests in the sociology of the family.

The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.

Marina A. Adler is Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Public Health at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, US and the co-editor of Father Involvement in the Early Years: An International Comparison of Policy and Practice.

Karl Lenz is Professor of Microsociology at the TU Dresden, Germany and the co-editor of Father Involvement in the Early Years: An International Comparison of Policy and Practice.