Attachment and loss -- Biology -- Care -- Child development -- Childhood/children -- Comparative approaches -- Conflict theories -- Coupledom : marriage/partnership/cohabitation -- Demography -- Division of labour -- Domestic violence and abuse -- Families of choice -- Family as discourse -- Family change and continuity -- Family effects -- Family forms -- Family law -- Family life cycle and life course -- Family policies -- Family practices -- Family systems -- Fatherhood/fathers/fathering -- Feminisms -- Functionalism -- Grandparents -- Home -- Household -- Individualization -- Intimacy -- Kinship -- Motherhood/mothers/mothering -- Negotiation -- New right -- Parenthood/parents/parenting -- Personal -- Phenomenological approaches -- Post-coupledom : separation/divorce/widowhood -- Power -- Problem families -- Public and private -- Rationalities -- Role theory -- Siblings -- Social division -- Socialization -- Transnational families.

This title's individual entries introduce, explain and contextualize the key concepts and related debates in studying families. Definitions, summaries and key words are developed throughout with careful cross-referencing allowing students to move effortlessly between core ideas and themes.