What Is a Family?

by Sheila Stewart

Overview

Single-parent families. Blended families. Gay or lesbian-parent families. Traditional families. Grandparents raising grandchildren. There are so many types of families today, all of them with their own challenges. Are nontraditional families new? Or did they exist throughout history in some form or other? And what makes some families strong, while others struggle? Are some families so nontraditional that they can't really even be considered families? These are some of the questions this book addresses.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781422297155
Publisher:	Mason Crest
Publication date:	02/03/2015
Series:	The Changing Face of Modern Families
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	64
File size:	2 MB
Age Range:	6 - 18 Years

Table of Contents

Introduction 6

1 What's the Difference Between a Traditional and a Nontraditional Family? 8

2 Nontraditional Families Throughout History 17

3 What Makes a Good Family? 29

4 The Expanding Definition of Family 42

Find Out More 60

Bibliography 62

Index 63

About the Author and the Consultant 64

Editorial Reviews

In this book in "The Changing Face of Modern Families" series, Stewart examines the make-up of families. Differences between "traditional" and "nontraditional" families are explained. Also, family dynamics throughout history are considered. The book doesn't just explain characteristics of families, it gives examples of families. Multiple stories are scattered through the text, letting readers get a taste for various families with a plethora of backgrounds. There are also "Headlines" in the book which show what successful families are like, summarize studies done on families, and conjecture about what some "new" families might be like in the future. This book is text-heavy. There are few pictures. Each page has a full-color graphic; however, it is the same generic graphic over and over again. The sidebars and extras (i.e., "terms to understand" and "headlines") are text on top of a colored box. With further resources, a bibliography, and an index, this is a good source for information on families if readers can only get past the text-heavy, boring layout. Reviewer: Joella Peterson

Children's Literature - Joella Peterson

Gr 6 Up—Immigrant Families discusses the challenges for children of living in two cultures, speaking two languages, and adapting to their new country more quickly than their parents. Religious Communities discusses the advantages and disadvantages of "being different" from the mainstream. All of the books have the same introduction, which cites research and statistics in Gallup Polls about the American family. Subsequent chapters present background information in the form of historical data as well as current trends relating to each type of family. Highlighted words are defined throughout in "Terms to Understand" boxes. Other boxes include graphs with statistical information, headlines from various articles published in newspapers and online journals, and questions designed to spark discussion. Colorful photographs and sidebars appear throughout. These books are good introductions to the study of sociology and interpretation of data.—Denise Moore, O'Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD

School Library Journal