Research in recent decades has identified a conception among fathers, and others, of a widespread qualitative change in the potential nature of fatherhood for men. This widely circulated ideal of contemporary, participatory fatherhood is characterised as new, intimate, involved and productive of new practices of ‘masculinity’ (Henwood and Procter, 2003). A belief that fathers play a major part in family life and family a major part in fathers’ lives may, first, change the nature of the life course transition entailed in becoming a father. Second, ‘new’ fatherhood is new in that it is distinguished from a model of authoritarian distance associated with ‘traditional’ fatherhood. What is new is that the primary focus of fatherhood is intimate relationships with children. Third, intimate relationships are generated through fathers’ involvement in family life alongside mothers in a more equitable sharing of the responsibilities of parenting. Finally, as distinctions between maternal and paternal are blurred, some of the lines between ‘masculine’ and ‘not-masculine’ are redrawn. These aspects which the ideal of ‘new’ fatherhood constructs as arenas of change correspond to the domains in relation to which diversity among contemporary fathers are explored in this thesis. Accounts of becoming and being fathers were generated in semi-structured qualitative interviews with a diverse sample of 31 fathers. The first dimension of fatherhood analysed is the place of visions of family and fatherhood in the process of becoming a father. Participants’ situated their orientation to fatherhood in the life course and in the partner relationship. In examining how participants construct family’s needs and parents’ responsibilities, I argue that imagined and lived family relationships are significant for men’s orientations to fatherhood, for their attitude to having further children and for evaluating the resources, material and otherwise, for doing so. The second dimension considered is intergenerational legacies. Participants with different experiences of the father-child relationship engage with their parenting heritage and characterise the legacy they would like to pass on. Connections and breaks with the previous generation of fathers are understood in terms of parent-child relationships, biographical narratives and the relational and discursive resources and constraints of the present. The relation of fatherhood to motherhood is the third dimension explored, through analysis of the different ways in which participants in couples construct, first, the relation between their own practice and their partner’s in the parenting partnership and, second, the relation between caregiving, provision, paid work and career in their own practice. I argue that fathers’ practice is worked through in the lived relationship with their partner, in terms of the division of labour and responsibilities and in the negotiation of similarity and difference, equality and authority, and with reference to a range of discursive resources. Many fathers seek to balance their commitments to the different dimensions of fatherhood in relation to paid work, but in other dimensions of personal life. The fourth aspect of the analysis examines accounts where fathers speak of co-existing contradictory orientations, to freedom and commitment, for example, and moments of ambivalence in relation to the normative articulations of ‘masculinity’ and fatherhood. On the basis of this four-fold analysis of diversity in contemporary multidimensional fatherhood, I argue for a plural focus on the practices of doing family, doing fatherhood and un/doing gender makes conceptual space for engaging critically with the diverse practices through which fathers sustain the relationships and fulfil the responsibilities of multi-dimensional fatherhood.

This dissertation examines transnational family practices between Kyrgyzstan and Russia. Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan experienced intensive internal and external mobilities. As one of the poorest Soviet republics, independent Kyrgyzstan continued to battle with poverty and high unemployment, which pushed nearly 20% of its population to seek jobs internationally. Transnational families have become a norm for Kyrgyzstan that receives the equivalent of one-third of its GDP in remittances. Using the transnational perspective, I explored the role of migration in reconstituting 'family practices' (Morgan, 1996, 2013). In a multi-sited ethnography of family life between Alcha village and Yakutsk city, the study demonstrates the everyday lives of transnational family members maintaining ties across time and space. Treating families as groups of configurations, rather than households, the study illustrates the multitude of family and kin relationships and networks that family members are embedded in. Through the examination of remittances and monetary ties, communal celebrations, arrangements of caregiving in migrants' absence, the study describes the contradictory effects of migration. I argue that migration has dramatically transformed and reconstituted family life. Divided and fragmented, Kyrgyzstani transnational families continued to maintained strong ties with home. I demonstrate that transnational families coped with the contradictory consequences of migration that shifted the family meanings, practices, constitution, and architecture of Kyrgyz family lives. The dissertation argues that Kyrgyzstani families, characterized by extended family relations, are nonetheless increasingly engaged in nuclear family type of relations in the transnational social fields.

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This dissertation is about post-divorce families. The central question is how family is constructed after divorce. The aim is to study how family relationships are negotiated, transformed and reproduced after the separation. The research is based on 24 in-depth interviews with twelve young adults, between the ages of 21 and 29, with divorced parents. Their narratives about their families are analysed using a theoretical framework inspired by the individualization theories (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim 2001; Giddens 1997, 1995) and the doing family perspective (Morgan 1996; Silva & Smart 1999a), especially focusing on the concepts of negotiation and family practices. More specific questions raised in the dissertation are how are family boundaries drawn by the young adults? How do the interviewees understand the new organization of their families, which has been renegotiated after the separation? What perception of motherhood and fatherhood can be found in the narratives? And, finally, to what extent are family relationships after divorce negotiated in the way that the individualization theories claim? The results show a quite complex picture of family life after divorce. While both parents are often described as participating parents, the family practices after divorce appear clearly gendered. The mother’s involvement in taking care of the child seems not to be negotiable in the same way as the father’s. Hence, motherhood appears natural and taken for granted to a much greater extent than fatherhood. The negotiations between the parents after divorce can be of both an explicit and implicit character according to the narratives, but yet another kind of negotiation are the indirect negotiations. In these negotiations, the child is used as a go-between or carrier, a position that seems to limit their own possibility to participate in the decision making. Another aspect that seems to diminish children’s participation is the principle of loyalty to both their biological parents. The results also show that the children’s living arrangements after divorce are characterized by changes and renegotiations rather than being permanent. The parents’ new partners are described in different ways in the narratives, however, they are often seen as turning points that have a major influence on the family relationships. The nuclear family as a normative ideal is present in all the interviews but in different ways. While some express an explicit critique of it, others regard it as something that they want for themselves in the future. What constitutes a family according to the narratives? Firstly, blood ties and formal relationships are pointed out. Secondly, the feeling of solidarity and closeness is viewed perhaps as the most evident element of family life. This feeling can be created by open communication as well as by spending time together on a regular basis. Thirdly, growing up together and/or sharing everyday life practices are also considered as vital to develop and maintain close family ties. This means that the family boundaries after divorce are renegotiated over time rather than permanent. These negotiations take place in a certain context, where gender norms, earlier experiences and other social relationships play an important role.

Yes / In this paper we examine empirically a key element of individualisation theory - the democratic family. We do so using the 'acid test' of family policy, and family practice, in Sweden. First we review the progress of family policy in Sweden since the 1960s, which has expressly promoted an agenda of gender equality and democracy in families, with individual autonomy for both adults and children as one key element. We then turn to family practice, looking particularly at negotiation and adult equality, lifelong parenting after separation, and children's autonomy. While Swedish policy makers and shapers seem to have developed the idea of the democratic family long before the sociologist Anthony Giddens, the results in practice have been more ambivalent. While there has been change, there is more adaptation to pre-existing gender and generational norms.

Yes / This paper examines how people living apart together (LATs) maintain their relationships, and describes how they view this living arrangement. It draws on a 2011 survey on living apart together (LAT) in Britain, supplemented by qualitative interviewing. Most LATs in Britain live near to their partners, and have frequent contact with them. At the same time most see LAT in terms of a monogamous, committed couple, where marriage remains a strong normative reference point, and see living apart as not much different from co-residence in terms of risk, emotional security, or closeness. Many see themselves living together in the future. However, LAT does appear to make difference to patterns of care between partners. In addition, LATs report advantages in terms of autonomy and flexibility. The paper concludes that LAT allows individuals some freedom to manoeuvre in balancing the demands of life circumstances and personal needs with those of an intimate relationship, but that practices of living apart together do not, in general, represent a radical departure from the norms of contemporary coupledom, except for that which expects couples to cohabit.

Child maltreatment is a major issue, and it is considered a priority by public health policies around the world. Among the causes of abuse, mechanisms of intergenerational child maltreatment (ITCM) have become of central importance in research. However, although many studies have focused on this theme, there is limited exploration of the first-hand experiences of parents who have survived maltreatment, particularly in regard to their strength and resilience. The aim of my research was to provide a critical contribution to the development of the theoretical framework of ITCM by exploring the perspectives of those who appear to have interrupted it. Moreover, I sought to include groups underrepresented in previous studies, such as fathers and parents with school-aged children. For this purpose, I involved care-experienced parents, namely individuals who because of maltreatment in the family have a background in foster or residential care. We can consider care-experienced parents as ones who have been highly exposed to ITCM, with those who succeed in parenting potentially able to break such cycles. My main reference was the family practice framework (Morgan, 2011a), and I adopted a participatory research approach. I investigated my informants’ everyday parenting experiences, thereby obtaining a new understanding of how such parents handle complex situations often framed by risk factors. This approach encouraged me to consider life contexts more extensively and to move beyond an individual-focused interpretation, recognizing the socio-cultural dimensions inherent in parenting experiences. My research contributes to the debate on how to break cycles of maltreatment by introducing novel concepts, such as that of the “zero family”, whose implications for both theoretical development and practical applications are discussed. This is an article-based dissertation, and I will introduce eight publications authored during my PhD. Specifically, my research is part of a wider project (“Constructions of parenting on insecure grounds. What role for social work?”) focused on parenting in insecure circumstances, and which has been funded by the Italian Ministry of Research and University.

The new DEC family recommended practices provide home visitors with specific guidance about enhancing families' abilities to engage their children in learning activities. Participants will learn how to use the new DEC family practices through video demonstrations and how to use a self-reflection tool developed for the DEC family practices.

The twentieth century has witnessed a revolution in the ways in which the social division of labour is organised, and in terms of how waged work and caring for children are reconciled. This study explores family policy from the perspective of its capacity to manage the socio-economic risks emanating from combining the roles of breadwinner and caregiver which many parents are beginning to do in contemporary society. This study is focused on Russia and Sweden, countries which have a large share of their female population in the labour force and an institutionalised public policy directed towards meeting the challenges of childrearing in dual-earner families. In the first empirical stage of the study, I examine the establishment and development of family policies in these countries, and analyse their effects in terms of how they have attempted to reconcile the competing demands of work and family life in recent years, specifically, by focusing on three main components: parental leave regulations, the organisation of early childcare and education, and schemes of financial assistance and support for families with children (including their impact on poverty reduction, with the use of Luxemburg Income Survey data). The next stage, involved the exploration of the normative setting in which employment and parenting are realised. To do this I used survey data from the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), and its modules on Family and Gender Roles. In the final stage, by conducting in-depth interviews with families in Stockholm and St. Petersburg I was able to examine how decisions about using the available public means of assistance and support are negotiated within households, and which factors, other than public policy, influence such decisions. The results of these three empirical parts are juxtaposed in order to establish the relation between official inputs into family policy and the complex picture of its outcome in the two countries.

Psykisk ohälsa är något som de allra flesta kommer i kontakt med någon gång under livet, antingen genom att själv drabbas eller som anhörig. I den här kvalitativa studien undersöks anhörigskapets konsekvenser, med utgångspunkt i Goffmans teori om stigma samt Morgans teori om familjepraktiker, för den som vårdar eller stöttar en närstående med psykisk ohälsa. Studien utgår från semistrukturerade intervjuer med tio anhöriga till personer med psykisk ohälsa. Resultatet påvisar att anhöriga på många sätt har en komplex och utmanade situation där de inte sällan hamnar i kläm mellan den närståendes behov och önskemål och omgivningens förväntningar och fördomar. För många anhöriga upplevs tillgången till stöd från vård och sociala myndigheter som mycket begränsad varpå många känner sig ensamma och utlämnade i sitt anhörigskap. Möjligheten att möta andra i samma situation, snabb inkludering och ett gott bemötande i samband med den drabbade familjemedlemmens vårdkontakter samt stöd från andra närstående framhålls som viktiga faktorer för att uppnå ett långsiktigt och hållbart liv i rollen som anhörig. / Mental illness is something that the vast majority of people come intocontact with at some point in their lives, either by being affected themselvesor as a relative. In this qualitative study, the consequences of kinship forthose who care for or support a loved one with mental illness are examinedbased on Goffman's theory of stigma and Morgan's theory of familypractices. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with tenrelatives of people with mental illness. The results show that relatives inmany ways have a complex and challenging situation where they often findthemselves caught between the needs and wishes of the next of kin and theexpectations and prejudices of those around them. For many relatives, theaccess to support from health care and social authorities is experienced asvery limited, which is why many feel alone and abandoned in their role asrelatives. The possibility of meeting others in the same situation, quickinclusion and good treatment when meeting with the affected familymember's care contacts as well as support from other relatives arehighlighted as important factors for achieving a long-term and sustainablelife in the role of the relative caregiver.