Marilyn Poole - Family: Changing Families, Changing Times

Family

Family: Changing families,
changing times

EDITED BY MARILYN POOLE

First published in 2005

Copyright this collection Marilyn Poole 2005

Copyright in individual pieces remains with the authors

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

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Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:

Family : changing families, changing times.

Bibliography.
ISBN 1 74114 454 X.

1. Family - Australia. 2. Domestic relations - Australia.
3. Interpersonal relations - Australia. 4. Australia
Social conditions. I. Poole, Marilyn.

306.850994

Photograph has been reproduced with permission from
Aunty Barb Stacey and Indij Records. Photographer: Peter Luxton.

Set in 11/13 pt Plantin by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed by CMO Image Printing Enterprise, Singapore

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Susan Feldman is Director of The Alma Unit for Research on Ageing: Gender and Health Across the Life Span (AURA) at Victoria University. She has contributed to research in the field of social gerontology and sociology, particularly in the areas of women and ageing, and ageing well. Her research interests have been directed towards health and wellbeing issues facing older women residing within the community, especially widowed women, as well as intergenerational relationships within families. Current special research commitments are the investigation of lifestyle issues facing older people from multicultural backgrounds and the policy and educational responses that will enhance their health and wellbeing. She has a commitment to older members of the community and is involved in committees, advisory panels and community based forums and workshops concerning ageing issues.

Beryl Langer is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Her work on the commodification and globalisation of childhood has been published in a number of journals and edited collections.

Helen Marshall was a student when feminists in the 1970s began to suggest that women had destinies beyond motherhood. She studied voluntarily childless couples in order to decide whether or not to have children, and has become interested in work and family policy issues as a result of her efforts to combine paid work and motherhood. She teaches in the School of Social Science and Planning at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology.

Barbara Pocock is a Research Fellow in the School of Social Science at the University of Adelaide, South Australia. She is a mother of two, and has written extensively on work, trade unions and vocational education over the past two decades. She has worked as a trade union officer, employment programs manager, economist, and a university teacher and researcher. Her most recent book is The Work/Life Collision (The Federation Press, 2003).

Marilyn Poole is an Associate Professor in Sociology in the School of Social and International Studies, Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. She is co-editor of Sociology: Australian Connections 3rd edition (Allen & Unwin, 2003) and has research interests in gender studies.

Kerreen Reigers background in History and Sociology underpins her teaching in gender and family studies, and in social policy, at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Her latest book, Our Bodies, Our Babies: The Forgotten Womens Movement (Melbourne University Press, 2001) examines the maternity reform movement in Australia from the 1950s to the 1990s, reflecting her involvement with her four children and as a community activist. In her earlier work, The Disenchantment of the Home: Modernizing the Australian Family 18801940 (Open University Press, 1985) and in Family, Economy and Social Change in Australia (McPhee Gribble/Penguin, 1991), she explored changes in Australian family life. Present research interests include Australian maternity services, maternal and child health services, and feminist ethics and collaborative practice in relation to woman-centred birth.

Sherry Saggers is Associate Professor in the School of International, Cultural and Community Studies and Director of the Centre for Social Research, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. She teaches in anthropology, sociology and Indigenous studies. She has conducted research on family day care, family-centred practice, community development and local government, social evaluation, and qualitative methodologies and worked with community-based Indigenous organisations on social and health issues. Her publications include two books, numerous refereed articles, book chapters, national reports, and conference papers.

Terence Seedsman is Professor and Deputy Dean, Faculty of Human Development, Victoria University, Australia. He has made a major contribution to research in the field of social gerontology for 30 years. His research and program development have been directed to ageing well with an emphasis on physical activity, leisure, lifestyle and retirement. Teaching and research responsibilities in the area of social gerontology, including extensive studies about intergenerational relationships, have been extended by sustained commitments to community agencies concerned with advocacy for and the welfare of older people living in the general community as well as institutionalised environments. Professional commitments to the community have involved the conduct of numerous workshops and presentations of papers on a variety of themes concerning ageing well.

Margaret Sims is currently Program Director for the School of International, Cultural and Community Studies at Joondalup Campus and Coordinator of Children and Family Studies at Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia. She teaches in the area of family diversity and family support. In recent years, she has published a book on family support, Designing Family Support Programs (Common Ground Publishing, 2002), and co-authored a chapter on Aboriginal parenting in a text on Aboriginal schooling, as well as writing several articles on value-based learning. She is currently engaged in a large research project using a biomarker of stress to investigate different levels of quality service delivery in the child care environment.

Andrew Singleton lectures in the Sociology Program, School of Political and Social Inquiry, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. He is coordinator of the unit The Sociology of Men and Masculinity and also lectures in contemporary social theory and present-day spiritualities. His current research activity includes: young men and domestic labour; mens self-help literature; young mens health; and a nationwide study of youth spirituality. He has contributed articles to a number of journals, including