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This chapter presents an important extension of the family system model for understanding risk and resilience in adolescent development by considering the unique cultural and economic context of Mexican-origin families. In their model, the authors studied the interplay of economic stress, interparental conflict, and parent-child relations as they affect child competence. The authors add to their well-replicated family stress model considerations that are specific to Mexican-origin families in the United States, including the common experiences of poverty, residence in high-risk neighborhoods, and exposure to racial discrimination. At each stage of the model, these culture-specific factors act as potentiators of the processes by which economic strain leads to disruptions in parent's emotional functioning, increases in interparental conflict, negative parenting, and less competent youth development.

This chapter suggests how policy analysis in the Social Inclusion Process can be deepened, to help learn ‘what works’, using model-families analysis and microsimulation modelling to develop a common analytical framework to accompany the common indicators. It also tackles children at risk of poverty and social exclusion, and uses this as a case study to help draw together the different threads of earlier discussions.

In addition to summarizing and synthesizing the arguments made throughout the book, the conclusion follows the Chikhachev family into the next generation, exploring the very different world Aleksei Chikhachev faced after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. The conclusion discusses how ideas like Andrei’s, though common among this important group of conservative, landed, middling gentry, were not ultimately influential, and how this affected their fates, and the fate of the famous big “Questions” of the 1860s, ’1870s, and ’1880s—about the role of women, of the peasants, and the definition of the Russian nation. Some of the fissures that divided imperial Russian society in the decades preceding the Revolution emanated from the disjuncture between traditional modes of understanding family, gender, and duty, and the increasingly influential rhetoric from the West that was based on quite different political and social developments.

Family change theory (Kagitcibasi, 1996, 2007) is an alternative approach to explain how modernisation and globalisation processes affect the family. The most important assumption of the theory is that when traditional interdependent cultures modernise, they need not necessarily develop in direction of an independent family model typical for Western individualistic societies. Instead, they may develop towards a family model of emotional interdependence that combines continuing emotional interdependencies in the family with declining material interdependencies and rising personal autonomy. In this chapter a preliminary evaluation of the empirical status of family change theory is given, based on a review of recent cross-cultural studies. It will be shown in how far the few studies that have been systematically conducted in this respect have found results supporting or not supporting aspects of the theory, and where the strengths and problems of this research lie.

Political violence and armed conflict are a worldwide problem that exposes families to extreme acts of violence, disrupts community and family economic conditions, compromises family functioning and parenting behaviors, and has deleterious effects on children’s development. In this chapter, we describe two overarching, complementary theoretical frameworks that can explain how exposure to political violence affects family functioning: Bronfenbrenner’s model of hierarchically nested ecological ecosystems and a related model within developmental psychology, the family stress model. Using data from our Palestinian-Israeli exposure to violence study, a prospective study of 1,501 Palestinian and Israeli families, we examine a mediational model showing that the family’s exposure to ethnic-political violence predicts negative family functioning (parental depressive symptoms and marital aggression), which in turn predicts subsequent harsh physical punishment toward one’s children.

This chapter discusses how the Troubled Families Programme (TFP) is predicated on the family intervention model, which relies on a key worker gaining the trust of a family, building a relationship with them and then working intensively with them in a holistic manner. It considers both the domestic and international history of such approaches, including the 1940s Family Service Unit approach. The chapter also examines the shorter history of the family intervention model, as well as the journey from a single Scottish voluntary sector project to a nationwide government programme in England. This includes the discursive shift from support to intervention; the introduction of the threat of sanctions; the types of families targeted across all projects; and changes to the level of resources allegedly required for effective family intervention.

This chapter describes a cyclical dynamic between macroeconomic factors and families affecting child outcomes. Both short- and long-term economic strains disrupt the ability of families to provide a nurturing and positive developmental environment. Drawing on the family stress and the family investment models, the chapter shows how long-term and short-term economic strains can differentially increase irritability, anger, depression, substance use, harsh parenting, family conflict, and other problems within families, potentially leading to adjustment and academic problems among children; and affect decisions families make about resources they can (and cannot) provide for educational and developmental support. Further, Robert Agnew's general strain theory suggests an additional family stressor from a general frustration created by resource deprivation. This chapter thus proposes a model for capturing the cyclical dynamic that predicts different family—and thus youth—outcomes by type of economic strain, with implications for intervention.

This chapter discusses the range of non-Gaussian and nonlinear models that can be analysed using the methods of Part II. The chapter is organized as follows. Section 9.2 considers an important special form of the general linear non-Gaussian model. Sections 9.3–9.6 examine special cases of some subclasses of models of interest, namely exponential family models, heavy-tailed models, stochastic volatility model and other financial models. Section 9.7 describes some classes of nonlinear models of interest.

This chapter focuses on recent changes in the structure and characteristics of the families who interact with the new paradigm of family dispute resolution. These changes include the decline of marriage and the resulting increase in non-marital families with parenting disputes, the prevalence of stepfamilies, the increase in grandparent and other non-parental caretakers of children, the rise of gay and lesbian families, and the sharp increase in pro se parties in family court. The chapter also explores the mismatch between the complex realities of today's families and the more simplistic assumptions that underlie the new paradigm. Although the new paradigm aims to offer a new vision for the resolution of family conflict, it leaves largely unexamined the models of family and intimate relationships on which the traditional, adversary model was based. As a result, the new paradigm assumes a family structure that is both more static and more homogeneous than today's reality.

This chapter examines theoretical models of suicide and nonfatal suicidal behaviors. The models of suicidal behavior include sociological, psychological, biological, family, and biopsychosocial models. Sociological models are categorized into egoistic, altruistic, anomic, and fatalistic suicides. Psychological models include psychodynamic, cognitive, social learning, and psychological and interpersonal models. The chapter also discusses the developmental theories that are applicable for constructing models of suicidal processes.

This chapter focuses on recent changes in the structure and characteristics of the families who interact with the new paradigm of family dispute resolution. These changes include the decline of marriage and the resulting increase in non-marital families with parenting disputes, the prevalence of stepfamilies, the increase in grandparent and other non-parental caretakers of children, the rise of gay and lesbian families, and the sharp increase in pro se parties in family court. The chapter also explores the mismatch between the complex realities of today's families and the more simplistic assumptions that underlie the new paradigm. Although the new paradigm aims to offer a new vision for the resolution of family conflict, it leaves largely unexamined the models of family and intimate relationships on which the traditional, adversary model was based. As a result, the new paradigm assumes a family structure that is both more static and more homogeneous than today's reality.

This chapter discusses the connection between the policies of parenthood and fertility levels. It argues that the role of family policies in maintaining high fertility levels is often overstated. It also determines that the current Nordic fertility patterns indicate that a sustainable level of fertility in the long run is dependent on parenthood policies with stronger incentives for gender equality. The chapter also discusses the fertility development of the Nordic countries and the ‘Nordic model of family welfare’, and introduces the concept of fertility dynamics.

This chapter examines how the new family–community model is reflected in popular Haredi educational discourse in the United States. In recent decades, an extensive English-language Haredi popular literature has developed. This literature has been bitterly attacked by several modern Orthodox intellectuals, but it has not been adequately mined as a resource for understanding the ways in which Haredi Jewry negotiates its complex relationship with general culture and tries to mould the character, values, and social alliances of its members. The chapter examines this literature's portrayal of the relationships between schools and families, arguing that it presents conformity between schools and homes as an ideal, and that it calls upon parents to heed the rabbis and educators who can teach them how to build homes that live up to Haredi standards. Yet, in addition to describing this hegemonic ideal, the popular literature also reveals places where actual practice does not live up to that ideal, and raises resistant voices that question aspects of the ideal itself.

This chapter discusses the development of reference budgets in Belgium. It confirms how reference budgets offer a monetary benchmark, which illustrates the minimum costs of goods and services that individuals and families should have at their disposal in order to adequately participate in society. It also clarifies the standard adequate social participation and reference budgets that are designed for pre-defined “model families.” The chapter looks into the approach of the study, which is grounded in the theories of human need and the deliberations of experts and researchers who are guided by official guidelines and scientific literature. It discloses how focus groups are used to help establish the acceptability of the reference budgets, which comprises of people from different socio-economic backgrounds.

This book relies on maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of parameters. Asymptotic theory assumes regularity conditions hold when the ML estimator is consistent. Typically an additional third derivative condition is assumed to ensure that the ML estimator is also asymptotically normally distributed. Standard asymptotic results that then hold are summarized in this chapter; for example, the asymptotic variance of the ML estimator is then given by the Fisher information formula, and the log-likelihood ratio, the Wald and the score statistics for testing the statistical significance of parameter estimates are all asymptotically equivalent. Also, the useful profile log-likelihood then behaves exactly as a standard log-likelihood only in a parameter space of just one dimension. Further, the model can be reparametrized to make it locally orthogonal in the neighbourhood of the true parameter value. The large exponential family of models is briefly reviewed where a unified set of regular conditions can be obtained.

While contraception is the vital aspect of the blue family model, abortion is the unfortunate yet essential backup. This is in contrast with the red family model wherein the issue of abortion paved the way for the reinforcement of traditional values. The status of abortion as a symbol of cultural dispute stemmed from the inclusion of religious teachings opposing the transformation of family morals, making it difficult to determine the political and legal grounds of abortion. This chapter looks at the abortion debate as likely a division between the absolutist and contextualist views in relation to the red-blue dichotomy, as well as its relevance in deciding about political preferences. It also discusses the issue of parental involvement in decisions regarding teen abortion as it is an important element in the distinction between the family paradigms and the regulation of abortion rights.

By the end of the nineteenth century, many prominent linguists had realized the arbitrariness of the language / dialect distinction, and linguists were forcibly confronted with its problematic nature from within, as Chapter 18 argues. This last case study of the book outlines the ideas of Hugo Schuchardt, who dared to face the full consequences of critically reflecting on the conceptual pair. Considering the nature of linguistic diversity, Schuchardt noticed that there were no strict divisions such as Schleicher’s family tree model presupposed. Instead, he proposed a wave model, thus prefiguring Johannes Schmidt’s image. Language and dialect were merely fictional abstractions from actual linguistic facts and for this reason useless. Schuchardt was not alone in his suspicion. Some of his colleagues likewise acknowledged the abstract nature of the language / dialect distinction but preferred to keep on using it for practical reasons, whereas others, like Jules Gilliéron, dismissed its validity and concentrated on linguistic features instead.