In recent years, two significant trends have had a substantial impact on Canadian families. First, Canadian families have been dramatically altered by high rates of separation and divorce, declining fertility, greater popularity of alternative family arrangements such as cohabitation, and increasing involvement of women in paid labour. Second, changes occurring in the economy and the larger society have brought new pressures to bear on families. In Canada's Changing Families, editors Kevin McQuillan and Zenaida R. Ravenera explore how these developments have altered family life. Using data collected in recent surveys by Statistics Canada, contributors to this volume illustrate how transformed conditions in the labour market have forced families to alter their routines and the division of responsibilities within the household. At the same time, the government, striving to maintain or increase the competitive position of the economy, has moved to control spending, restrain taxes, and reduce deficits. The result has been new demands on the family to provide or supplement services that might otherwise be provided by the state. Canada's Changing Families is an eye-opening study and one of great contemporary relevance.
This exciting collection of original essays by prominent Canadian scholars examines issues and trends affecting family life in Canada. The text is organized in five parts.The first part, "Conceptualizing the Family," presents an overview of the sociology of the family in Canada: it explores various definitions of "family" from an anthropological perspective; examines family patterns in historical and cross-cultural contexts; provides an overview of the theoretical frameworks and research methodologies for family studies; and discusses Canadian demographic trends.The life cycle is the focus of the second part of this book. In Chapter 3, Rachel Ariss shows how social expectations and ideologies about intimacy shape how individuals experience family formation. In ''Parents and Children,'' Gillian Ranson introduces the dominant ideals of motherhood and fatherhood in Canada and demonstrates the extent to which parenting practices are shaped by social and economic contexts. Major changes in social practice and in the legal environment that have gone hand in hand with demographic changes to contribute to the episodic nature of spousal unions in Canada today. In Chapter 5, Craig McKie outlines the legal history of the family in Canada and explores how the introduction of Islamic laws (shariah) challenge the principle that newcomers to Canada are free to continue on in their beliefs and practices when these are not in fundamental conflict with Canadian law. Chapter 6 provides a timely examination of the issues that affect the ''sandwich generation'': coresidence with adult children, the ''informalization'' of care to aging parents, intergenerational ambivalence, and the relationship between midlife families and social policy. As Lori D. Campbell and Michael P. Carroll note in their chapter on older Canadians, aging within a family context has become more complex and diverse than ever before. The changes that have been occurring in the form and structure of families as a result of greater longevity, increased divorce, remarriage, and other socio-demographic factors, allow increased ''intergenerational exchange'' - the exchange of support between older and younger generations.Part III highlights the economic inequalities that exist among families. As Andrea Doucet notes, historical circumstances have contributed to strong divisions in both paid and unpaid work that are linked to gender, class, and ethnicity. Chapter 8 examines key issues in the study of paid and unpaid work, including: the connections that exist between paid and unpaid work; how unpaid work benefits the state; the complexities involved in measuring unpaid work; the costs of care; and why gender differences in paid and unpaid work matter. In the following chapter, Joseph H. Michalski argues that family change and demographic events have had their impact on income poverty, to the extent that they influence the types of families and living arrangements in which Canadians share and pool income.Diversity is the unifying theme of Part IV. In her article, In ''"I Do"'' Belong in Canada: Same Sex Relationships and Marriage," Doreen M. Fumia reveals the insecure relationship between sexual minorities and citizenship, highlighting the strategies used to reproduce normalized heterosexual notions of marriage and to avoid confronting heterosexism. James S. Frideres stresses the importance of the family among aboriginal, immigrant, and visual minorities communities, as family members learn to cope with the dynamics of integration and adaptation to mainstream Canadian culture. In Chapter 11 he focuses on key issues affecting family life for these groups: intermarriage; gender roles in minority communities; social and economic demographics in comparison to ''mainstream'' Canadians; differences in social structure and organization; and risk factors that affect Aboriginal, immigrant, and visible minority youth. In Chapter 12, Michelle K. Owen draws our attention to the impact that disability has on Canadian families; the role that gender plays in the lives of people with disabilities; the relationship between poverty and disability; and the increased incidence of physical and sexual abuse among people with a disability. The final part of the book is devoted to law and policy. In ''All in the Family: Violence Against Women, Children, and the Aged,'' Aysan Sev''er examines the ''dark side of the family'', where power differences can translate into mental, physical and/or sexual abuse, and even murder. She reviews the basic definitions of abuse and introduces theories that explain violence within intimate relationships. She then addresses possible interventions at the social and structural levels that may diminish the incidence of abuse. The role of the state in regulating family life is addressed in Chapter 14. Catherine Krull details the evolution of Canada''s family policies within a liberal welfare state and examines the ideology and implications of a universal versus a targeted approach to family policies. Krull argues that we need to appreciate why state intervention is necessary if we are to achieve gender equity and suggests that Quebec''s progressive family policies should serve as a model for the rest of Canada. In the final chapter, Margrit Eichler takes a lighthearted look at the predictions that experts made regarding the future of the family from 1930 to 1975. After reviewing some predictions that were spectacularly wrong, and others that were surprisingly accurate, Eichler bravely makes her own predictions regarding the future of the family: she anticipates a modest trend towards three generation families as one response to economic uncertainties and political turmoil; a decrease in life expectancy; continuing low fertility with high immigration from third world countries; less homophobia; a continuing slow erosion of strictly defined gender roles; and a continuing diversity of unions, including common law and legal marriages, opposite and same sex marriages. In short, families will continue to exist, some will prosper, others less so, and children will continue to be raised within family settings, which will probably be even more diverse than at present.
Bridging information gaps on health inequities faced by vulnerable children, adolescents, and families in Canada, this book informs readers of the key tools to promote productive, fulfilling lives of people managing prevalent health challenges.
When migrants reach their new home, we often interpret their settlement and integration as an individual process driven largely by the labour market. But family plays a crucial role. Putting Family First is the fruit of a four-year academic–community partnership to investigate the experience of immigrant families settling in Greater Toronto. Contributors explore the integration trajectory of immigrant families, from newcomers’ initial reception to their deep involvement in and attachment to their receiving society. Chapters examine the interrelated themes of the policy environment, children and youth, gender, labour markets and work, and community supports, making insightful connections between concepts such as neoliberalism, resilience, and social capital. Putting Family First applies rigorous academic research to solve practical problems, illustrating how the family context can be mobilized to facilitate the successful integration of newcomers and offering important guidance to practitioners and policy makers in Canada and beyond.
The stories of the companions of Samuel de Champlain, the families who lives, worked, survived, and endured life at an isolated trading post in the strange New World-- these stories add flesh to the dry bones of the history of the seventeenth-century Age of Exploration.
Violence in families and intimate relationships affects a significant proportion of the population—from very young children to the elderly—with far-reaching and often devastating consequences. Cruel but Not Unusual draws on the expertise of scholars and practitioners to present readers with the latest research and thinking about the history, conditions, and impact of violence in these contexts. For this new edition, chapters have been updated to reflect changes in data and legislation. New chapters include an examination of trauma from a neurobiological perspective; a critical analysis of the “gender symmetry debate,” a debate that questions the gendered nature of intimate violence; and an essay on the history and evolution of the women’s movement dedicated to addressing violence against women, which advances theoretical developments that remind readers of the breadth of inclusivity that should be at the heart of working in this field.
Working Families takes the reader onto the streets of Montreal and into the homes of its working-class families during the years that it became a major, industrial city. Between the 1860s and 1890s the expansion of wage labour changed the bases of family survival. It offered new possibilities and created new points of tension within the families of the emerging working class. Here we meet the men, youth, and children who worked for wages. We see the women who stayed home with their young, cooked and sewed, planted gardens and tended animals, stretching their often meagre family wages into goods and services for survival. We also see the ingenuity and agony of women whose husbands lost their jobs, fell ill, drank up their wages, deserted their families, or died. Working Families explores the complex variety of responses of working-class families to their new lives within industrial capitalist society, and offers new ways of looking at the industrial revolution in Canada.
This book presents a comprehensive overview of Asian families residing in Canada and the United States by portraying and analyzing Asian Canadian and Asian American immigrant families in an integrated yet nuanced way. Chapters use an interdisciplinary approach to provide more comprehensive coverage of the vast diversity as well as common trends and shared characteristics of Asian families. Specifically, the volume examines the experiences of families whose ancestry can be traced to East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and West Asia. Key areas of coverage include: Integrated overview of Asian American and Asian Canadian families, including an exploration of the historical and current immigration policies. Experiences of families of East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, and West Asian ancestry across Canada and the United States. Asian religious traditions and worldviews, traditional practices, and religio-cultural views on gender, sexuality, and family. Specific Asian immigrant groups on immigration demographics, family dynamics and relationships, gendered roles, parenting practices and beliefs, and implications for mental health. Challenges and issues that families face as Asians and immigrants, the strength and resilience of families, with extensive reviews on various intervention and prevention programs. Methodological strategies in investigating Asian families and their impact on the field. Asian Families in Canada and the United States is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, graduate students as well as clinicians, professionals, and policymakers in the fields of developmental, social, and cross-cultural psychology, parenting and family studies, social work, and all interrelated disciplines.
This is a history book. The book provides a detailed chronological history of early Canada through the lives of the French settlers. Not only is the book chronological, it also has original source documentation embedded, and it has an external link to a website with the history of many related families, which provides more details about the lives of the early settlers. There is little commentary. The reader is left to decide how the events impacted the individuals.
