It is a very impressive book. Its coverage of contemporary discourses of fatherhood is comprehensive. The theoretical stance is one that allows for complexity and fluidity. The authors write well, making even esoteric sociological and cultural theory accessible. I recommend it' - "British Journal of Social Work " Constructing Fatherhood provides an analysis of the social, cultural and symbolic meanings of fatherhood in contemporary western societies. The authors draw on poststructuralist theory to analyze the representation of fatherhood in the expert' literature of psychology, sociology and the health sciences, and in popular sources such as television, film, advertisements and child-care and parenting manuals and magazines. Men's own accounts of first-time fatherhood are also drawn upon, including four individual case studies.

This book tackles one of the most topical socio-legal issues of today: how the law - in particular, the European Court of Human Rights - is responding to shifting practices and ideas of fatherhood in a world that offers radical possibilities for the fragmentation of the conventional father figure and therefore urges decisions upon what kind of characteristics makes someone a legal father. It explores the Court's reaction to changing family and, more specifically, fatherhood realities. In so doing, it engages in timely conversations about the rights and responsibilities of men as fathers. By tracing values and assumptions underpinning the Court's views on fatherhood, this book contributes to highlight the expressive powers of the ECtHR and, more specifically, the latter's role in producing and legitimising ideas about parenting and, more generally, in influencing how family life is regulated and organised.

The period between World War I and World War II was an important time in the history of gender relations, and of American fatherhood. Revealing the surprising extent to which some of yesterday's fathers were involved with their children, The Modernization of Fatherhood recounts how fatherhood was reshaped during the Machine Age into the configuration we know today. LaRossa explains that during the interwar period the image of the father as economic provider, pal, and male role model, all in one, became institutionalized. Using personal letters and popular magazine and newspaper sources, he explores how the social and economic conditions of the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression—a period of technical innovation as well as economic hardship—fused these expectations into a cultural ideal. With chapters on the U.S. Children's Bureau, the fathercraft movement, the magazine industry and the development of Parent's Magazine, and the creation of Father's Day, this book is a major addition to the growing literature on masculinity and fatherhood.

As family and work demands become more complex, who is left holding the baby? Tina Miller explores men's experiences of fatherhood and provides unique insights into paternal caring, changing masculinities and men's relations to paid work. She focuses on the narratives of a group of men as they first anticipate and then experience fatherhood for the first time. Her original, longitudinal research contributes to contemporary theories of gender against a backdrop of societal and policy change. The men's journeys into fatherhood are both similar and varied, and they illuminate just how deeply gender permeates individual lives, everyday practices and societal assumptions around caring for young children. This book acts as a companion to Making Sense of Motherhood (Cambridge University Press, 2005) and, together, these innovative studies reveal how gendered practices around caring become enacted.

Increase the effectiveness of the services you provide to clients Social Work Visions from Around the Globe examines the fundamental principles and dilemmas of social work with people whose health is under threat. This valuable resource was compiled from material presented at the Third International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health in Tampere, Finland. The book explores key issues in social work in health and mental health, from the early historical roots of social work in health to developing a human rights perspective on the lives of men who face capital punishment. Using tables, figures, case studies, and interviews, the text will help you provide holistic, client-based care to children, men, women, and families. Social Work Visions from Around the Globe is divided into two sections: the first half discusses the position of individuals and families as users of health and mental health care services. Specific cases in the book include social work situations for children with disabilities, the mentally ill, the elderly, cancer, and HIV/AIDS. This text includes research and findings on the challenges and solutions faced by social workers in North America, Australia, Europe, Asia, and Africa. In the second half, Social Work Visions from Around the Globe focuses on various approaches to social work in health and mental health that address: the diversity of societies strengthening the voice of the social worker and service user the expertise of service users development of methods family life and childhood in global comparison human rights issues in social work

Debates about the future of fatherhood have been central to a range of conversations about changing family forms, parenting and society. Law has served an important, yet often neglected, role in these discussions, serving as an important focal point for broader political frustrations, playing a central role in mediating disputes, and operating as a significant, symbolic, state-sanctioned account of the scope of paternal rights and responsibilities. Fragmenting Fatherhood provides the first sustained engagement with the way that fatherhood has been understood, constructed and regulated within English law. Drawing on a range of disparate legal provisions and material from diverse disciplines, it sketches the major contours of the figure of the father as drawn in law and social policy, tracing shifts in legal and broader understandings of what it means to be a 'father'and what rights and obligations should accrue to that status. In thematically linked chapters cutting across substantive areas of law, the book locates fatherhood as a key site of contestation within broader political debates regarding the family and gender equality. Multiple visions of fatherhood, evolving unevenly over time across diverse areas of law, emerge from this analysis. Fatherhood is revealed as an essentially fragmented status and one which is intertwined in complex ways with the legal, cultural and political contexts in which discourses of parenthood are produced. Fragmenting Fatherhood provides an important and unique resource, speaking to debates about fatherhood across a range of fields including law and legal theory, sociology, gender studies, social policy, marriage and the family, women's studies and gender studies.

The five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, are well-known for their extensive welfare system and gender equality which provides both parents with opportunities to earn and care for their children. In this topical book, expert scholars from the Nordic countries, as well as UK and the US, demonstrate how modern fatherhood is supported in the Nordic setting through family and social policies, and how these contribute to shaping and influencing the images, roles and practices of fathers in a diversity of family settings and variations of fatherhoods. This comprehensive volume will have wide international appeal for those who look to Nordic countries and their success in creating gender equal societies.

Using an entirely new conceptual vocabulary through which to understand men’s experiences and expectations at the dawn of the twenty-first century, this path-breaking volume focuses on fatherhood around the globe, including transformations in fathering, fatherhood, and family life. It includes new work by anthropologists, sociologists, and cultural geographers, working in settings from Peru to India to Vietnam. Each chapter suggests that men are responding to globalization as fathers in creative and unprecedented ways, not only in the West, but also in numerous global locations.

“Thompson captures the ache, fizz, yearning and frustration of being the father of adolescent boys.” —Michael Chabon “What a riveting, touching, and painful read!” —Maria Semple “Fun, moving, raw, and relatable.” —Tony Hawk What makes a good father, and what makes one a failure? Does less-is-more parenting inspire independence and strength, or does it encourage defiance and trouble? Kickflip Boys is the story of a father’s struggle to understand his willful skateboarder sons, challengers of authority and convention, to accept his role as a vulnerable “skate dad,” and to confront his fears that the boys are destined for an unconventional and potentially fraught future. With searing honesty, Neal Thompson traces his sons’ progression through all the stages of skateboarding: splurging on skate shoes and boards, having run-ins with security guards, skipping classes and defying teachers, painting graffiti, drinking and smoking, and more. As the story veers from funny to treacherous and back, from skateparks to the streets, Thompson must confront his complicity and fallibility. He also reflects on his upbringing in rural New Jersey, and his own adventures with skateboards, drugs, danger, and defiance. A story of thrill-seeking teens, of hope and love, freedom and failure, Kickflip Boys reveals a sport and a community that have become a refuge for adolescent boys who don’t fit in. Ultimately, it’s the survival story of a loving modern American family, of acceptance, forgiveness, and letting go.

Based on novel ethnographic research conducted in New York City, this book explores through the lens of intersectionality how gender impacts men’s experiences of full-time fatherhood, as well as how sexuality, race, class, faith, and so on result in unequal access to choices and opportunities as parents. Chapters analyze how perspectives on caregiving are complicated by varying cultural, gendered, and racialized stereotypes and representations that pull different fathers toward or push them away from particular models of fatherhood in an urban context. Additionally, the author interrogates how societal conceptions of men’s bodies also play a role in how men understand their experiences of fatherhood. This book will be of interest to scholars and students studying gender, masculinity, and fatherhood.