Family Theories

by James M. White and David M. Klein

Published 11 March 1996
Praise for the First Edition:

`This is an admirable text and sourcebook, but also achieves the status of an intellectually challenging confrontation with the reader. It is in many ways a model which many of us would be well advised to follow. I wish I could have written it′ - British Journal of Developmental Psychology

This revision of a best-seller remains the only single-volume book to present family theory in a clear and approachable manner, providing a thorough introduction to current theories about the family for both advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students. The authors incorporate a broad scope of work from different perspectives in surveying seven major theoretical frameworks developed by key social scientists to explain variation in family life. This incisive New Edition examines the exchange, symbolic-interaction, family developmental, systems, conflict, feminist, and ecological theoretical frameworks and presents a typology for analyzing and comparing the seven frameworks while providing direction for future theory development.