Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextual Approach

Origins We call this book on theoretical orientations and methodological strategies in family studies a sourcebook because it details the social and personal roots (i.e., sources) from which these orientations and strategies flow. Thus, an appropriate way to preface this book is to talk first of its roots, its beginnings. In the mid 1980s there emerged in some quarters the sense that it was time for family studies to take stock of itself. A goal was thus set to write a book that, like Janus, would face both backward and forward a book that would give readers both a perspec tive on the past and a map for the future. There were precedents for such a project: The Handbook of Marriage and the Family edited by Harold Christensen and published in 1964; the two Contemporary Theories about theFamily volumes edited by Wesley Burr, Reuben Hill, F. Ivan Nye, and Ira Reiss, published in 1979; and the Handbook of Marriage and the Family edited by Marvin Sussman and Suzanne Steinmetz, then in production.

Table of Contents:
Overview.- Family Theories and Methods.- Metatheory and Family Studies.- The Emergence of Family Theories and Methods.- Family Theory and Methods in the Classics.- Historical Methods in Family Research.- Comparative Methods in Family Research.- Family Theories and Methods Emerging during 1918–1929.- Symbolic Interactionism and Family Studies.- Qualitative Family Research.- Family Theories and Methods Emerging during 1930–1945.- Quantitative Measurement in Family Research.- Structural-Functionalism.- Family Theories and Methods Emerging during 1946–1960.- Family Development Theory.- Longitudinal Research Methods and Family Theories.- Theoretical Contributions from Developmental Psychology.- Simulation and Experimentation in Family Research.- Family Theories and Methods Emerging during 1960–1980.- Systems Theory.- Social Conflict Theories of the Family.- Exchange and Resource Theories.- Human Ecology Theory.- Analysis of Covariance Structures Applied to Family Research and Theory.- The Life Course Perspective Applied to Families Over Time.- Theories Emerging from Family Therapy.- Theoretical Contributions from Social and Cognitive-Behavioral Psychology.- Family Theories and Methods Emerging during the 1980s.- Communication Theory and the Family.- Feminist Theories.- Reframing Theories for Understanding Race, Ethnicity, and Families.- Phenomenology, Ethnomethodology, and Family Discourse.- Emerging Biosocial Perspectives on the Family.- Emerging Methods.