Family & Relationships

Five decades ago, I was challenged to read the Moynihan Report (1965). Then and now, I take issue with much of the content, which smacks of deficit thinking, blaming the victim, and a blindness or almost total disregard for how systemic racism and social injustices contribute to family structures. I recall being professionally and personally offended by interpretations of single‐parent families, which were often negative and hopeless. Moral development, criminal activity, poor educational outcomes, poverty, and apathy of many kinds were placed squarely on the shoulders of these families, especially if the families were/are headed by Black mothers. Eurocentric and middle class notions of ‘real’ families like those depicted on TV shows and movies dominate, then and now, what is deemed healthy in terms of family structures – with the polemic conclusion that nuclear families are the best and sometimes only structure in which children must be raised. These colorblind, economic blind, and racist blind studies, reports, theories, and folktales have failed to do justice to the families in which there is one caregiver. Their stories of woe and mayhem make the news and guide policies and procedures. The stories of children who have been resilient have been unheard and silenced, they have been under‐reported and relegated to the status of ‘exception to the rule’. Perhaps they are exceptions, but there are more exceptions than we may know. This book is designed with those stories of resilience and success in mind. The book is not an attempt to glorify single‐parent families, but such families are prevalent and increasing. High divorce rates are impactful. And some parents have chosen to not marry, which is their right. While not glorifying single‐parent families, we are also not demonizing them or telling their stories void of context. Yes, income will often be low(er), time will be compromised when divided between offspring, work, and other obligations. Likewise, we are not glorifying two‐parent families as being ideal; their context matters too. How healthy are married couples who don’t really love or even like each other? How healthy are those parents who have separate sleeping arrangements/bedrooms? How healthy are those families who have oppositional parenting styles and goals for their children? This is the 50th anniversary of the Moynihan Report, and I am concerned that another 50 years will pass that fails to balance out the stories of single‐parent families, mainly those whose children succeed and defy the odds so often unexpected of them.

Parents feel that a fast-paced lifestyle requires constant hurry to complete the next task and causes them to lose control over how time is spent. This environment makes it more difficult to build relationships with their children and teach them to honor priorities, care about others, maintain health, manage conflicts, and achieve balance. Our cross-cultural studies of families have found that the most important gift parents can give their children is spending time together. Being together without multitasking or other interruptions increases sharing, in depth conversations, learning, and closeness. This book shows how to prepare children for school by providing the following experiences. • Parents have a new obligation, introducing their children to the Internet. Parent and child Internet visits are presented for each chapter with guidelines for teaching online. • Parents and children spend more time watching television together than doing other things. Conversation questions are provided as a tool that parents can use to find out how children interpret events they see and detect learning needs. • Children will more likely become creative adults if they receive support for imagination and curiosity. Examples illustrate the merits of playing alone, playing with friends, and pretending with parents. • Boys and girls like bedtime stories and are motivated to read when they see parents read for pleasure. Children’s books that are recommended for discussion reinforce values parents hope to convey. • Parents are responsible for teaching foundation lessons about socialization. Methods are described to foster development of child self-control, getting along with others, managing fears, and setting goals. • Parents benefit from feedback on how well their goals and practices reflect principles of child development. A parent self-evaluation form includes questions and answers to identify personal strengths and learning needs. This book is for parents, grandparents, and other educators of young children ages 3 to 8.

This volume is the firstborn of the Annals of Cultural Psychology-- a yearly edited book series in the field of Cultural Psychology. It came into being as there is a need for reflection on “where and what” the discipline needs to further develop, in such a way, the current frontiers and to foster the elaboration of new fruitful ideas. The topic chosen for the first volume is perhaps the most fundamental of all- motherhood. We are all here because at some unspecifiable time in the past, different women labored hard to bring each of us into this World. These women were not thinking of culture, but were just giving birth. Yet by their reproductive success—and years of worry about our growing up—we are now, thankfully to them, in a position to discuss the general notion of motherhood from the angle of cultural psychology. Each person who is born needs a mother—first the real one, and then possibly a myriad of symbolic ones—from “my mother” to “mother superior” to “my motherland”. Thus, it is not by coincidence if the first volume of the series is about motherhood. We the editors feel it is the topic that links our existence with one of the universals of human survival as a species. In very general terms what this book aims to do is to question the ontology of Motherhood in favor of an ontogenetic approach to Life’s Course, where having a child represents a big transition in a woman’s trajectory and where becoming (or not becoming) mother is heuristically more interesting than being a mother. We here present a reticulated work that digs into a cultural phenomenon giving to the readers the clear idea of making motherhood (and not taking for granted motherhood). By looking at absences, shadows and ruptures rather than the normativeness of motherhood, cultural psychology can provide a theoretical model in explaining the cultural multifaceted nature of human activity.

This volume focuses on the ways in which mothers are marginalized based on intersecting identities, such as immigration status, race, class, disability, sexuality, and how these women mother from the margins. Divided into three sections, this collection brings forth the voices and experiences of mothers and highlights the institutions and laws that marginalize them.  In the first section, mothers face barriers such as institutional constraints that block them from needed resources and the ability to mother as they see fit.  In section two, contributors examine the borders of marginalized mothering - boundaries reflected through citizenship, walls, geography, dealings with intimate partners and welfare offices, or prison bars. Readings in this section highlight mothers’ efforts to transcend, resist, or even just survive experiences with borders.  The final section centers on mothers that explicitly adopt mothering strategies of resistance or explicitly use their status as mothers in their activism. Topics range from mothers who engage in milk sharing to mothers of color whom organize against police brutality.  Throughout the volume, contributors demonstrate the striking resilience of these mothers, and their resistance in challenging the ideologies and institutions that marginalize them.

With baby boomers swelling the ranks of grandparents, there is a large and growing audience for Let’s Grandparent. There are no other books on the market with the variety of content or perspective presented in this book. With its emphasis upon the crucial early years, it has special appeal for new grandparents and those with young grandchildren. During this honeymoon period grandparents are typically enthusiastic about their new role and eager to learn all they can to make the most of time spent with their grandchildren. They want it to be fun, have an educational value, and strengthen close intimate bonds. Let's Grandparent shows them how to achieve these goals through an in-depth understanding of child development, over four hundred kid-tested activities and tips for simple but satisfying experiences together. The author brings together her personal experience as an enthusiastic grandparent with her professional career in early childhood education to create this insightful and enjoyable guide. The intended audience for this book is grandparents with young grandchildren, especially targeted for a well-educated, middle-class audience and grandparents of both men and women in their late middle-age and early retirement years • Parents of young children, who often are looking for ways to encourage closer connections between their children and their grandparents • Anyone wishing to form a close relationship with a young child, such as other relatives or mentors to young children • Participants of workshops and classes for grandparents • Early childhood education (National Association for the Education of Young Children and Association of Childhood Education International)

The Learning Solution is a practical guide for parents who want to improve their child’s academic situation in school. It is written by a practicing school psychologist to give parents effective strategies for making the most helpful and realistic choices for children experiencing difficulty with their schoolwork. The Learning Solution will provide parents with the skills needed to negotiate the education maze and teach them how to advocate for their child. Parents will also learn how build an effective cooperative relationship with their child at home. The Learning Solution has been updated to include a chapter on mental health issues currently impacting on children’s learning experiences in school. In addition, current information is provided on the medications used in the treatment of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.

This book, which has been created in the framework of the EU-funded COST Action YOUNG-IN (CA17114), sheds a light on the structural disadvantages and opportunities in family formation among youth, offering an insight into the relevant contextual factors in eleven countries. Analyzing demographic trends and socioeconomic settings, including normative and institutional frameworks (that focus on family policies), the authors have identified and presented the peculiarities of the transition to parenthood, as well as common challenges that young people face in that process.

This book which has been created in the framework of the EU-funded COST Action INTERFASOL brings together researchers from 22 INTERFASOL countries, who frame intergenerational family solidarity in the specific historical, cultural, social and economic context of their own country. Integrating different perspectives from social and political sciences, economics, communication, health and psychology, the book offers country-specific knowledge and new insights into family relations, family values and family policies across Europe.

Childlessness is not a new phenomenon, but empirical evidence from the demographic field has demonstrated that it is on the increase. Furthermore, childlessness has a number of consequences for both women and men, the communities in which they live, their psychic states, their social networks and the organisations in which they work. Bringing together research from a wide range of scholarly disciplines, including philosophy, psychology, sociology, gender studies, social work and social policy, and underpinned by a feminist ontology this edited collection of original chapters provides an insight into the current state of the art research on the drivers, determinants, manifestations and outcomes of childlessness. The collection is intended to be a key resource for scholars, students and policymakers addressing this issue in a wide range of disciplinary contexts.

Around the globe, the very conceptualization of family is associated with the relationship between a parent and a child. The birth of a child represents both the end of one experience, and the beginning of another. Entry into parenthood represents a fundamental shift in family structure and family dynamics, wherein the child brings new responsibilities within the family and upon the larger society, particularly in regards to population issues. 

In the context of dramatically changing contemporary patterns of mate selection in China, Mate Selection in China focuses upon both the causes and consequences the societal changes which have resulted in a considerable shift in the ways in which young adults go about finding a spouse.

Tracking a period of change, from a long history of patriarchal families and arranged marriages, into an environment wherein individuals are relatively free to choose their intimate partners, Blair, Madison and Fang demonstrate and analyse how recent shifts in divorce, cohabitation, and pre-marital sex have altered young adults’ perceptions of marriage. Delving into demographic factors, such as the skewed sex ratio among young adults which have resulted in an overabundance of young males, cultural factors, such as increasingly individualistic forms of dating, and social and economic change which has resulted an increasingly materialistic middle-class, this book highlights that while traditional influence of parents in the selection of partners for their children has been overtaken, mate selection choices are not entirely made by the individuals themselves.

Providing a comprehensive examination of mate selection within an ever-changing context, this book is a fascinating read for scholars interested in the impact of culture of family and marriage.

Populations are growing older in a public health climate where brittle public services are struggling to cope with the demands associated with ageing populations. LGBTQ+ populations also continue to grow in line with these trends but receive much less attention in the scholarly debate. This short work offers a theoretical and practical exploration of LGBTQ+ ageing in the UK, drawing on a blend of public health and occupational therapy theory, and phenomenology.

Based on original primary evidence gathered through a survey and interviews, Fox and Hannis kickstart a new and much-needed discourse in the literature about hidden populations during the WHO’s Decade of Healthy Ageing. Advancing the discourse on ageing by applying multiple theoretical bases to explain how minority ageing populations interact with, and are shaped by, their environments over the life course, Fox and Hannis unveil how specific social determinants over the life course impact the health outcomes and engagement with healthy ageing practices of older LGBTQ+ populations.

As we navigate the intersection of queer history, public health, and ageing, LGBTQ+ Healthy Ageing serves as a vital resource for scholars, practitioners, and anyone committed to promoting healthy ageing for all.

Over recent years, the nature of politics in nations around the globe has become increasingly heated and polarized, with much of this change being attributed to a variety of sources, including news outlets, online websites, social media, and various forms of communication technology. While researchers have long recognized how political beliefs are often passed on from one generation to the next within families, little is known about how the more disruptive and turbulent nature of contemporary politics is affecting families and family relationships. Blood Ties and Politics addresses the relationship between politics and the family.

Topics of discussion include political socialization within the family, the influence of extremist online websites, marital quality and political ideologies, political disagreement and family relationships, the impact of propaganda upon family relationships, intergenerational patterns of political beliefs, and other related issues. Encompassing the vast array of political beliefs, governmental forms, along with the multitude of family structures and relationships, the chapters come from a diversity of regions of the world, as well as of theoretical and methodological perspectives.

Around the globe, two of the more fundamental attributes of families and households have been changing, as both rates of marriage and fertility have been steadily decreasing. These declines have numerous associated causes – among them, increases in singlehood, increases in cohabitation, and greater emphases upon individualism and materialism. The Retreat from Marriage and Parenthood seeks a broad examination of the retreat from marriage and parenthood.

Featuring diverse theoretical and methodological chapters exploring the many issues pertaining to these seismic changes, the authors chronicle the many dramatic impacts from shifts in attitudes to marriage and family. The chapters include discussion of pressing issues such as increasing ages at marriage, singlehood, cohabitation and alternative forms of intimate relationships, the impact of financial stress upon marriage and fertility, consequences of changing age structures, racial and ethnic variations in marriage and parenthood rates, changing meanings of family lineage, the impact of marriage and fertility declines upon other social institutions, and gender differences in the appeal of marriage and parenthood.

Acknowledging the reality of these shifts in marriage and fertility rates, and that they warrant greater attention by researchers, this is an insightful edited collection for scholars of family research.

Around the world, education is regarded as an institution which can substantially aid individuals, providing them with the knowledge and skills they will need to obtain jobs, achieve financial success, and lead better lives. Across virtually all family relationships, there is an inseparable connection between education and the family. This volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research is a broad examination of this correlation.

The second of two connected volumes, Education and the Family: Parental Involvement Practices in the Home and School features diverse theoretical and methodological chapters which explore the interactions between two crucial institutions: the family and education system. With enormous implications for determining life outcomes, this rich edited collection on the role the impact on familial engagement and involvement in the home. Chapters cover a wide array of topics, such as: family emotional support for students, family stressors and education, gendered nature of parental support, cultural variation in parental engagement and involvement, among others.

Education and the Family: Parental Involvement Practices in the Home and School is appealing reading for scholars of family sociology, the sociology of education, and childhood and youth alike.

Around the world, education is regarded as an institution which can substantially aid individuals, providing them with the knowledge and skills they will need to obtain jobs, achieve financial success, and lead better lives. Across virtually all family relationships, there is an inseparable connection between education and the family. This volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research is a broad examination of this correlation.

The first of two connected volumes, Education and the Family: Achievement, Attainment, and Quality School Outcomes features diverse theoretical and methodological chapters which explore the interactions between two crucial institutions: the family and education system. With enormous implications for determining life outcomes, this rich edited collection on the role the familial impact on educational output and achievement. Chapters cover a wide array of topics, such as: family economic and cultural resources and school performance and attainment of students, family multilingualism and academic success, family stressors and education, valuation of higher education versus employment and family contestations of public schooling and its policies and curriculum among others. 

Education and the Family: Achievement, Attainment, and Quality School Outcomes is appealing reading for scholars of family sociology, the sociology of education, and childhood and youth alike.

Around the globe, most families will invariably have to face the challenges associated with the disability of a family member. A child with a learning disorder, an adult who has suffered a spinal cord injury, or an elderly family member who has lost their eyesight or hearing – these are only a few of the many types of disabilities which both individuals and families face, every single day.

Disability and the Family provides a broad examination of disability and the family. Including diverse theoretical and methodological submissions which explore the many issues pertaining to how families deal with disability issues, the chapters cover a wide array of topics, such as: family relationships and intellectual disability, learning disabilities and parenting, aging and developmental disabilities, coping and family caregivers, disability and family engagement, disability across the family life course, work and family challenges among parents of children with disabilities, physical mobility and marital quality, disability and sexuality, financial stressors and family relationships, and racial and ethnic variations in family care, among others.

Acknowledging how disabilities can affect virtually all aspects of family life, creating emotional, social, financial, and even sexual challenges, this volume also emphasizes how families exhibit considerable resilience, even in seemingly overwhelming circumstances.

India has an intricate cultural history that extends over thousands of years. Over the past century, however, increasing modernization, along with its associated demographic shifts, has led to substantial changes in its family structures and norms. Coupled with tremendous variations across regions, ethnic groups, and religions, Indian families are complex, unique, and ever adapting.

Establishing a more thorough understanding of these changes and complexities, this volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research stretches across disciplines to feature a wide array of topics, including changing forms of dating and mate selection, divorce and remarriage, cohabitation, rural-urban variations in family structures, fertility aspirations, spousal relationships and marital quality, domestic violence, filial piety, inter-generational relations, and parent-child relationships.

Demonstrating the tremendous diversity of families in India, as well as their ongoing evolution, Indian Families answers a clear call to dive deeper into the intimacy of the domestic sphere in one of the world’s largest and fastest growing societies.

Over time and space, sociology has given varying importance to the study of the house. The house is often a locus of special attention when a couple is formed, and the investments made in a neolocal residence constitute a complex social fact. There is much to be known about the importance of and the relationships between home and family.

Rooted in diverse theoretical approaches and multi-method research projects, this edited collection provides a broad understanding of the house as a plural, diverse and meaningful space. Paying attention to specific occupational, gender and age patterns in home spaces, chapters also consider how digital technologies, including the 'smart home', as well as the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent 'turn to home' have impacted family life on a micro level. Exploring relationships between the family and the material and symbolic dimensions of the home, authors discuss the trajectory and composition of the household, the gendered division of labor, work-family and education-family dynamics, care work and more.

Considering the ways in which a family socially constructs a home, this is a much-needed investigation into how the house, its architecture, spatial arrangements and internal and external divisions shape and reshape family relationships in the face of constant challenges and change.

In societies around the globe, couples are increasingly opting to live together without going through the formal and legal complications of marriage. Given the tremendous diversity in cohabiting couples, as well as the increasing prominence of this form of intimate relationships, Cohabitation and the Evolving Nature of Intimate and Family Relationships provides a more thorough comprehension of the structures, effects, and intimate practice of cohabitation around the world.

As a richly edited collection, the chapters delve into a wide array of topics including transitions into cohabitation, parenting and parental roles, division of domestic labor among cohabitors, sharing of economic resources, elderly cohabitors, legal complications of cohabitation, intimate partner violence, interconnections between cohabitation and marriage, sex and sexuality, assortative mating among cohabiting partners, premarital cohabitation and its consequences, relationship dissolution, gender ideologies, changing patterns of cohabitation, cohabitation and remarriage, and parental cohabitation and child development, among others. This is compelling reading for scholars of family research for better comprehending the structural, affectional, and other characteristics of cohabitation around the world.

This volume contains an Open Access Chapter

Currently, there are more than 36 million transnationally mobile children and youth. Featuring the stories of children and youth from places such as Myanmar, India, Hungary, the USA, and Central America, Children and Youths' Migration in a Global Landscape interrogates how transnational mobility shapes the lives of the relatively young.

This edited collection addresses questions that encourage us to consider what it means to be a transnationally mobile child or youth in the 21st century. How does transnational mobility affect youths' understanding of their ethnic identity? What is the link between educational attainment and social mobility? How does social class impact the educational trajectories of return migrant children? What impact does the knowledge economy have on new norms and practices related to human capital accumulation?

Illustrating that transnationally mobile children and youths' experiences need social enquiry, this book pushes all of us to question our assumptions, challenge well-established theories, and rethink our understanding of the root causes of social inequality.

Many societies are experiencing substantial change in family forms and structures. For both families and individuals, conjugal trajectories continue to be a core element of life under the pressures of societal conventions, prompting many toward some variety of conjugal relationship. However, a combination of factors, including decreasing marriage and fertility rates and an increase in cohabitation and singlehood, have brought about more variety in conjugal relationships than ever before.

Conjugal Trajectories: Relationship Beginnings, Change, and Dissolutions covers a wide range of topics related to conjugality including the growing rejection of marriage, the impact of education and employment, cultural perceptions of couple-hood, dating and relationship formation, migration and transnational conjugality, peer versus familial pressures, marriage-divorce-marriage trajectories, tradition versus modernity, generational differences, gender identities, divorce status, conjugal violence, aging, and parenthood.

Multidisciplinary in scope and using predominantly qualitative approaches, Conjugal Trajectories: Relationship Beginnings, Change, and Dissolutions focuses upon relevant trajectories to better comprehend the evolving nature of conjugal relationships and its implications for family life moving forward.

Around the globe, the very conceptualization of family is associated with the relationship between a parent and a child. The birth of a child represents both the end of one experience, and the beginning of another. Entry into parenthood represents a fundamental shift in family structure and family dynamics, wherein the child brings new responsibilities within the family and upon the larger society, particularly in regards to population issues. 

This interdisciplinary edited collection will challenge the idea of the static family that can be 'broken', and instead think of family as always 'on the move', both conceptually and in practice. This dual approach to family is the unique contribution of the book, which offers new perspectives on the sociology and geography of the family, drawn together by the shared lens of family mobilities. As such it brings together insights from the diverse work of interdisciplinary academics working alone and collaboratively on different aspects of family lives and relationships.

While rituals surrounding death may vary by geography, culture, and time, experiencing the loss of a loved one is a universal experience. Death has become a focal point during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, forcing many to unexpectedly confront the profound and enduring reality of loss. Understanding death from a multidisciplinary approach, Facing Death compiles contributions from across fields, methodologies, locations, cultures, and circumstances.

Facing Death explores beyond loss solely on an individual level, considering instead helpful or harmful emotional reactions from others. Delving into how older adults who experience loss may find themselves without a support system, while those at a young age might find that their peers do not understand or know how to support them in their bereavement, the authors also consider how causes of death can also affect grieving loved ones on a personal and societal level. For example, how might death by suicide complicate the grieving process as family and friends not only have to contend with the loss itself, but also the associated stigmas and judgements surrounding suicide? How might individuals experience fear and anxiety about death during a prolonged illness?

Exploring responses to familial illness and death, this edited collection is a detailed investigation of the subject for any scholar interested in discussions and decisions surrounding end of life care and the grief trajectory after loss.

Around the globe, millions of individuals are entangled in justice systems daily. For individual offenders, contact often begins with the police, frequently leading to court involvement, and for offenders found guilty, to correctional supervision or incarceration. But how do these encounters affect the family? How do police and justice entanglements result in tremendous strains upon families economically and socially? Do they endanger family relationships?

To better comprehend how involvement at any level of the justice system affects families, this multidisciplinary edited collection focuses on the justice system and the family. Chapters include topics such as how court processes impact family members and their support networks; how prolonged incarceration impacts children and parenting processes and family coping; how intimate relationships are impacted during and after incarceration including marriage, divorce and partner violence; and, whether system involvement leads to unintended consequences among family members such as heightened fear of crime and victimizations and fears of the police.

An enlightening insight into the family dynamics surrounding contact with the justice system, Police, Courts, and Incarceration is interesting reading for researchers and students of family, sociology and criminology.

National strategies with the aim of facilitating a better work-family balance have increased pressure on work organizations to offer arrangements that are more family-friendly. Flexible work, such as telework or flexitime, has been argued to facilitate a better integration of work and family responsibilities, and to provide protections from career penalties to care. The spread of digital technologies has further facilitated the flexible execution of work tasks, a phenomenon that has escalated more recently due to the global COVID-19 pandemic.

Within this context, where flexible work has become more widespread than ever before, Flexible Work and the Family provides a wide range of insights into current developments in the study of flexible work. Demonstrating both the facilitators and the barriers to a positive work-home environment, chapters delve into the relationship between working from home and family in light of the pandemic, as well as gender, parenthood, and status-specific patterns of the interrelation between flexible work and the family. Finally, studies from a linked-lives perspective show how flexible work impacts employees’ partners and parenting behaviour.

Building upon the recent global escalation of the remote work phenomenon, Flexible Work and the Family provides timely insights into flexible work’s implications for the increasingly blurred work-life divide.

Recognising the distinctive context of the Philippines, with its unique long history, and peculiar population distribution across thousands of islands, this edited collection analyses its decidedly familial culture. Why do Filipino families maintain perhaps the strongest family bonds of any culture? How have shown a unique ability to persevere, even when faced with the direst of circumstances?

Covering a broad range of topics, chapters and commentaries delve into changing gender roles, poverty and family dynamics, mothering in prison, teenage fatherhood, dating and mate selection, rural family norms, the interweave of family and community, media representations on families, new forms of parenthood, remittances and familial support systems, and how overseas employment affects spousal and parent-child relationships.

A highly comprehensive ethnographic analysis, Resilience and Familism demonstrates in a specifically Filipino context how strong familial ties can affect inner strength and outer determination.

With the largest population in Africa, Nigeria truly embodies the concept of diversity. Home to hundreds of different ethnic groups, speaking an equal number of languages, and each bearing their own specific norms and values, Nigerian families exist across virtually the entire spectrum of size and structure and maintain unique family ties which have endured the nation's long and complicated history.

This collection focuses upon the diversity, adaptability, and strengths of Nigerian families. Examining intimate relationships, both preceding and within the context of marriage, as well as the particular dynamics among family members, this volume investigates how Nigerian families have responded to societal factors, modernization, and change.

Societal factors, such as increasing conservatism, poverty, unemployment, and the like have created considerable strains, yet Nigerian families have shown a particular ability to adapt to and overcome many of these problems, thus revealing their substantial strengths.

Rather than being evidence-based, the 'everyday' practice of ADHD health care enacted daily by a multitude of professionals is the result of the interaction of historical, social, political, economic and institutional elements. By drawing on several critical theorists, this book provides an ethnographic investigation of the nexus of elements that conditioned the possibility for the everyday social practice of ADHD to be in place within an NHS region in Scotland.