Founding the New ‘Family Studies’

Abstract

By developing the concept of Multidimensional Developmental Pathways, the potential social policy consequences of such theorising are explored. In moving towards conceptualising the actual needs of people and the unity of their lives we can consciously (rather than unconsciously) contribute proposals for rebuilding social policy. With a view to generating further interest in alternative theoretical approaches to the analysis of ‘family life’, three theorems are then proposed. These three theorems constitute the first step in founding the New‘Family Studies’.

Making Lithuanian Families Across Borders

“…determined common features between family practices and the theoretical methodological approach of family configurations (Widmer, 2016). In both approaches, the family is defined by applying an open family concept where the feeling of togetherness subjectively conceived by individuals plays an important role, or, in other words, where the feeling of 'we' (Bernardes, 1988;Levin, 1999) is important.…”

We Must Not Define “The Family”!

“…Moreover, the image of universality encourages many people to try to make their own family life like the image of ''The Family'' and imitate what may be uncomfortable and unworkable images of personal behavior and gender. It is astonishing the impact sociology has had on society in glorifying and continually extolling ''The Family,'' in the oppression of huge numbers of individuals and the creation of suffering and misery on a truly grand scale (Bernardes, 1985b(Bernardes, , 1986a(Bernardes, , 1986b(Bernardes, , 1987(Bernardes, , 1988.…”

Whose ‘Family’? A Note on ‘The Changing Sociological Construct of the Family’

“…The way people use 'family' terms is enormously complicatedfar more complicated than Wilson and Pahl, like so many other sociologists, seem to wish to grasp. Firstly, there is the problem of Primacy and Immediacy (Bernardes, 1985a(Bernardes, , 1986(Bernardes, , 1988) -that we each already know too much about 'the family'. Secondly, there is the surprisingly protean nature of the concept which I have reconceptualised as ubiquity -that is, 'family' terms are 'present in a host of different situations involving different meanings all at the A Note same time'.…”

“…5 This of course, relates to their own observations that many students encounter'a sociology that is widely at variance with their own personal experience'. Beyond this, I argue elsewhere (Bernardes, 1988) that we have a professional responsibility to recognise the harm that the adoption or imposition of sociological concepts into everyday social practice may cause.…”