Family Theories

Front Cover
SAGE Publications, Jun 18, 2002 - Family & Relationships - 271 pages
Praise for the First Edition:

`This is an admirable text and sourcebook, but also achieves the status of an intellectually challenging confrontation with the reader. It is in many ways a model which many of us would be well advised to follow. I wish I could have written it′ - British Journal of Developmental Psychology

This revision of a best-seller remains the only single-volume book to present family theory in a clear and approachable manner, providing a thorough introduction to current theories about the family for both advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. The authors incorporate a broad scope of work from different perspectives in surveying seven major theoretical frameworks developed by key social scientists to explain variation in family life. This incisive New Edition examines the exchange, symbolic-interaction, family developmental, systems, conflict, feminist, and ecological theoretical frameworks and presents a typology for analyzing and comparing the seven frameworks while providing direction for future theory development.

About the author (2002)

James M. White is a Professor in the School of Social Work and Family Studies at the University of British Columbia and resides with his wife and three daughters in Vancouver, Canada. His research interests include family development as well as marital interaction and communication. He is the author of Dynamics of Family Development (published in the U.S. in 1991 and translated into Japanese in 1994), as well as numerous articles that have appeared in the Journal of Family Issues, Journal of Social & Personal Relationships, Journal of Marriage and Family, and elsewhere. His authored and co-authored book chapters include a chapter with R. H. Rodgers on family development in the Sourcebook of Family Theories & Methods (1993). He has served as referee for numerous journals in family relations and public health and is an Associate Editor for the Canadian Journal of Public Health, Journal of Comparative Family Studies, and The International Encyclopedia of Family Relationships. He is a past-president of the Northwest Council on Family Relations, whose membership includes academics, practitioners, and therapists from the states and provinces of the Pacific Northwest. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations. David M. Klein is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. His current research is on relationship formation, assessment, and dissolution. He co-edited the Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research, and has served as Chair and Archivist of the Theory Construction and Research Methodology Workshop. He also has been Treasurer of the National Council on Family Relations, and Chair of its Research and Theory Section. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations.