Families come in many guises. Some parents are same-sex; others are single by choice. Growing numbers of children are conceived through assistive reproductive technology. What do these developments mean for the parents and children involved? Professor Susan Golombok’s book, Modern Families, examines ‘new family forms’ within a context of four decades of empirical research.
Research among mothers with young children living in multicultural London shows that racism is a reality for children as young as five – and that many mothers adopt parenting strategies to help their children deal with it.
In a paper prepared for the workshop “Gender, Equality and Intimacy: (Un)comfortable Bedfellows?” at the Institute of Education today – Cambridge scholar Monica Wirz explores how couples, whose gender roles have been reversed, deal with work-life balance, equality, intimacy and their sense of identity.
The University of Cambridge has made 295 National Scholarship Programme awards to support students from low-income families starting at the university this year. Over 50 of these grants were made to students who had previously claimed Free School Meals.
Preliminary results from a pioneering study at Cambridge University paint a positive picture of the relationships formed between surrogates and the families they help to create.
Sophie Zadeh, a PhD candidate in the Centre for Family Research, is contributing to a new study of the well-being of single mothers by sperm donation and their children. Her initial findings confound many of the assumptions about this group of women.
Research into adoptive families headed by same-sex couples paints a positive picture of relationships and wellbeing in these new families. The study, which was carried out by Cambridge University, suggests that adoptive families with gay fathers might be faring particularly well.
Ms Jo Miles discusses the potential effects of the new Act on access to justice, especially in relation to difficult family law cases.
Personal inventories spanning three centuries are helping researchers unlock the mysteries of how economies edge towards growth and prosperity.
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