Family policy in Sweden

Sweden has a well-developed family policy, organized around the goals of family economic security and physical well-being, voluntary parenthood, gender equality, and children's rights. This article provides a comprehensive analysis of family policy in Sweden, beginning with a brief history of the development of family policy goals and a consideration of the reasons for the consensus on family policy goals that has arisen. Details are provided on programs designed to reach goals, and the success of these programs is evaluated. The impact of recent economic and political developments on the future of family policy making in Sweden is also discussed.She is also Adjunct Professor of Women's Studies. Her research interests focus on work-family linkages in industrial societies and their implications for gender equity. She is currently researching the impact of corporate culture on men's participation in child care in Sweden. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.     

Family Studies and Intergenerational Studies

ABSTRACT

This paper reviews key sources in the field of family studies in order to identify, in research and program development, intersections of theoretical, methodological, or programmatic interests. The purpose of the paper is to begin a dialogue between researchers and practitioners in the fields of family studies and intergenerational studies to foster collaborative projects in research and programming. The authors have chosen to limit the literature reviewed to sources that contain landmark reviews of research on intergenerational relationships from the perspective of the family studies field: Decade reviews that appeared in the primary journal of the National Council on Family Relations, the Journal of Marriage and the Family(Broderick, 1971a; Berardo, 1980; Booth, 1990; Milardo, 2000); the Handbook of Marriage and the Family(Sussman & Steinmetz, 1987; Sussman, Steinmetz, & Peterson, 1999); Families: Intergenerational and Generational Connections(Pfeifer & Sussman, 1991).     

Psychological Abuse in Family Studies

Abstract

One of the first documented psychoeducational programs to educate college students about the perils of psychological abuse is described. The intervention was designed to help students examine their personal experiences of psychological abuse and consider how the information could be used in their careers. The process of creating the intervention and publicizing it to the campus community is discussed. The content of the intervention, participants, implementation, and evaluation processes are described. Operational definitions and dramatic skits of psychological abuse are described along with historical context and current research findings. Ways of working through psychological abuse, and services available to recover from it, are presented. Evaluation data, immediately after workshop completion and one week later, indicated that participants positively evaluated this intervention and reported both positive attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Limitations and implications of this psychoeducational program for the prevention of interpersonal violence are discussed.     

Generalized Linear Models in Family Studies

Generalized linear models (GLMs), as defined by J. A. Nelder and R. W. M. Wedderburn (1972) , unify a class of regression models for categorical, discrete, and continuous response variables. As an extension of classical linear models, GLMs provide a common body of theory and methodology for some seemingly unrelated models and procedures, such as the logistic, Poisson, and probit models, that are increasingly used in family studies. This article provides an overview of the principle and the key components of GLMs, such as the exponential family of distributions, the linear predictor, and the link function. To illustrate the application of GLMs, this article uses Canadian national survey data to build an example focusing on the number of close friends among older adults. The article concludes with a discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of GLMs.     

Historical Perspectives on Family Studies

This article explores the relationship of historical research to contemporary family studies. Family history was influenced greatly by fields such as sociology and anthropology, leading it to make several contributions to those fields in turn. The continuing collaboration of these disciplines can significantly enrich current family research, practice, and policy making. History's specific contribution lies in its attention to context. Although historical research confirms sociologic and ethnographic findings on the diversity of family forms, for example, it also reveals that all families are not created equal. The advantage of any particular type of family at any particular time is constructed out of contingent and historically variable social relationships. Historical research allows researchers to deepen their analysis of family diversity and family change by challenging widespread assumptions about what is and what is not truly new in family life. Such research complicates generalizations about the impact of family change and raises several methodological cautions about what can be compared and controlled for in analyzing family variations and outcomes.     

Theorizing in Family Studies: Discovering Process

This paper makes the case that theorizing in family studies might be different if scholars asked the types of questions that now are asked in the physical sciences. Initial efforts to move toward a more abstract explanatory level in family studies led to inventorying and verification. This paper argues that the recognition of a realm of discovery, allowing for the creative and disciplinary use of imagination and metaphor, would extend the scope and quality of questioning. To ground the argument, the paper focuses on the problematics associated with the conceptualization of process in marriages and families.     

The Visibility of Feminist Thought in Family Studies

We assessed feminist visibility in family journals by tallying the feminist content of articles in Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Family Issues, and Family Relations. There was an increase in feminist visibility from 1972 to 1992, at which point the growth of visibility stalled. From 1992 to 2002, almost 1 out of 4 articles appeared to be influenced, at least minimally, by feminist scholarship when including in our tally a measure of articles' mentioning of gender in its abstract or title without a detectable feminist perspective in the article. Only about 6% of articles, however, involved an explicit feminist analysis. We offer explanations for this apparent glass ceiling for feminist visibility and make suggestions for future research.     

Individual Coping Efforts and Family Studies

No abstract available for this article.     

A Conscious and Inclusive Family Studies

I argue that family scholars must take bolder steps to engage the tensions between our heritage of positivist science and its postmodern challenges. I also argue that constructing theories, utilizing research methods, and examining substantive issues should be relevant to the diversity of the families we study and to ourselves as members of families. I offer examples of developing an informed reflexive consciousness to broaden the rationalist foundation that dominates family scholarship. For a more inclusive, balanced, and invigorated family studies, our subjective experiences and commitments as researchers should be acknowledged, confronted, and integrated. A family studies that is responsible to our readers, students, selves, and the people whose lives we study requires that we engage the critical intersections of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and age as they define family diversity.     

Development of Family Studies in the Eighties in Kuwait

The development of social scientific investigation in Kuwait falls into the pre-oil and post-oil periods. During the pre-oil period, research was largely historical and local. Following the dis- covery of oil, Kuwaiti society captured the interest of investigators from outside Kuwait. The study of family was seen as a minor area of social science, but was supported by various Kuwaiti institutions. Prominent in the literature on family in Kuwait are studies of aging, the phenomenon of expatriate housemaids, womens studies, and child development studies. This review concludes with the sugges- tion that family research in Kuwait is at the threshold of theoretical development. The next step is to improve the quality of research methods in order to build sound theory.     

It's All About Power: Integrating Feminist Family Studies and Family Communication

Feminist family studies bring a framework of power and intersectional analysis to unpack the issue of gender in families. Moving beyond the concept of gender as either benign or simply one of difference between men and women, a feminist perspective offers a way of conceptualizing the multiple contexts in which families are situated and where conflict and care inevitably comingle. A feminist lens has challenged family scholars to investigate and understand individuals, relationships, family structures, communities, and society in more complex and contested ways. We argue that feminist family studies offers insights for the discipline of family communication in order to contextualize the ways in which family dynamics are theorized and studied.     

Towards a Cultural Analysis of the Modern Family: Beyond the Revisionist Paradigm in Japanese Family Studies

Under the influence of the "new history of the family" of the past few decades, a revisionist view of the "modern family" has emerged among family theorists in Japan. In spite of the significant merits of this new paradigm, I have argued that the failure of its proponents to address certain theoretical and presuppositional issues has discouraged a cultural analysis of the modern family. In recent years, one of the foremost theorists to attempt to bring cultural analysis fully into sociological discourse has been Jeffrey Alexander. I have drawn extensively on Alexander's discussion of Durkheim's later thought as the key to a cultural program in the field of sociology. In doing so, I have suggested that one effect of the transition to modern society is the sacralization of what Durkheim termed the "domestic order". Furthermore, in considering the mechanism by which the central emotional axis of the family comes to revolve around either the parent–child bond or the conjugal bond, I have postulated the existence of a "sacred" dyad—in the Durkheimian sense—within the family unit.     

The Social Relations Model in Family Studies: A Systematic Review

The Social Relations Model (SRM) allows for examination of family relations on three different levels: the individual level (actor and partner effects), the dyadic level (relationship effects), and the family level (family effect). The aim of this study was to present a systematic review of SRM family studies and identify general patterns in the results. Results of reanalyses of 17 data sets showed that characteristics of the person who reports on the relationship and the unique characteristics of the relationship were most important explanations of differences in family relationships. The present systematic review contributes to a better understanding of who is driving relationship outcomes in families and provides suggestions concerning the application of the SRM to family data.     

Studies of the maintenance of subsidized foster placements in the Casey Family Program

The Casey Family Program provides a planned, long-term approach to subsidized foster care for the underachievers of the child welfare system. Its concept is a marriage of what foster care professionals know about effectively helping children and what managers know about effectively running organizations. The purpose of our studies of The Casey Family Program was to determine whether the outcomes of its foster placements were predictable from factors that could be known, at least in principle, at the time the placements were made. We built statistical models of placement maintenance based upon characteristics of (a) the foster child; (b) his or her biological family; and (c) the foster family. We used two main sources of data to construct models: archival material on the child and his or her biological family, and caseworker ratings of various aspects of the child and his or her foster family. Information was derived from a sample of 51 children served by the Montana Division of The Casey Family Program to build the models, which in general provided accurate predictions of placement outcomes. The models were then cross-validated with a sample of 55 children from the Idaho Division. There was a substantial amount of shrinkage in the variance accounted for in the cross-validation sample, but outcomes remained largely predictable. To determine whether predictions of placement outcomes could be based upon brief assessments of factors that could be evaluated at the time placements were made, a third study was undertaken. The results of that study implied that ratings of salient characteristics of foster children and foster families based upon as little as a single day's observation could be used to effectively predict placement outcomes. Several aspects of these studies deserve special emphasis. First, the research confirmed that the children served by the Montana and Idaho divisions of TCFP were among the underachievers of the child welfare system whom Jim Casey desired to reach. It also confirmed that the Montana and Idaho divisions were doing an effective job of serving those children. Their placements were generally stable and both foster children and foster families were rated as functioning at levels that ranged from acceptable to good.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Intergenerational Initiatives in Sweden

ABSTRACT

It is pointed out in this report that the intergenerational perspective is conspicuous by its absence in Sweden, compared to several other countries where specific programmes exist for activities across generational boundaries. Activities across generational boundaries have also been a specific area where financial incentives for local projects have been provided in recent years through the government's project, Freedom of Choice/Older People and Public Health. But despite these efforts, comprehensive and systematic measures to develop and strengthen contacts across generational boundaries have been few and far between in Sweden. Instead, official measures within various areas have targeted different groups, often defined in terms of their age and stage of life course.     

Personal assistance in Sweden

This article provides an overview of the Swedish personal assistance program for persons with severe impairments, introduced in 1994. The personal assistance program makes it financially possible for people with severe disabilities to appoint a personal assistant, by themselves or through a provider, to create support adapted to the individual and to optimize the person's influence over how the support is arranged. The article describes how the reform has increased the opportunity for people with severe disabilities to choose their own way of living. Overall, the personal assistance has enhanced the quality of life for people with severe disabilities and their families.     

Men,Resources, and Family Living: The Determinants of Union and Parental Status in the United States and Sweden

Household fatherhood (living with a partner and her children) is increasingly common, which also increases the types of family situations men can choose. This paper examines factors distinguishing men's partnership and parental statuses in the United States and Sweden. These countries differ in state support to families. Unlike the United States, in Sweden the presence of a man in a relationship with a woman with children has little effect on receipt of alternative forms of income support and health insurance, lowering the cost of men's membership in families. We examine how resources (earned income and education) affect men's family relationships in these two countries.