Family Communication

This advanced-level text examines current research and theories of family communication and relationships, and shows that answers to many questions about family communication can be found in current scientific research. This book is for courses in family communication, family studies, and family psychology.

The Handbook of Family Communication offers a comprehensive exploration and discussion of current research and theory on family interaction. Integrating the varying perspectives and issues addressed by family researchers, theorists, and practitioners, this volume offers a unique and timely view of family interaction and family relationships. With a synthesis of research on issues key to understanding family interaction, as well as an analysis of many theoretical and methodological choices made by researchers studying family communication, the Handbook serves to advance the field by reframing old questions and stimulating new ones. The contents are comprised of chapters covering: theoretical and methodological issues influencing current conceptions of family; research and theory centering around the family life course; communication occurring in a variety of family forms; individual family members and their relationships; dynamic communication processes taking place in families; and family communication embedded in social, cultural, and physical contexts. The volume concludes with a commentary emphasizing the themes that tie the chapters together. Highlighting the work of scholars across disciplines-communication, social psychology, clinical psychology, sociology, family studies, and others-this volume captures the breadth and depth of research on family communication and family relationships. The internationally-known contributors approach family interaction from a variety of theoretical perspectives and focus on topics ranging from the influence of structural characteristics on family relationships to the importance of specific communication processes. The Handbook of Family Communication serves as a benchmark of the current state of scholarship in this dynamic area, offering new perspectives on extant literature, as well as important theoretical and methodological recommendations for future work. As such, it will be of great value to researchers and theorists studying family interaction and family relationships. It will also serve as a text for graduate-level coursework in family studies, family communication, relational communication, and related areas. Additionally, practitioners who work with families will be well served by this book, and counselors and therapists will find the theory and research presented here extremely relevant to their work with individuals and families.

This scholarly volume examines communications processes within the grandmother-mother-daughter relationship, emphasizing an intergenerational perspective. Miller-Day uses the device of layering to integrate and juxtapose alternative experiences of the social world. This allows the reader to be situated in the world of grandmothers, mothers, adult daughters, and granddaughters as they experience, describe, and analyze their family communication. The book describes and interprets the patterns of communication among female family members that provide symbolic links across generations. Drawing on eight months of qualitative research, using observations of and extensive interviews with six sets of middle-income, Caucasian female family members, this book provides a heuristic account of intergenerational mother-daughter relational communication. This book builds upon and extends earlier qualitative research to include the experiences of multiple families, as well as maternal grandmothers. With the inclusion of aged mothers as well as younger mid-life mothers and their adult daughters, Miller-Day seeks to illuminate how this relationship is experienced at different points in a woman's life. In addition, in studying three generations of women, she gathers multigenerational perspectives on family, and then examines these for patterns of maternal interaction transmitted across generational boundaries. Scholars and researchers in the areas of family communication, intergenerational communication, women's studies, family studies, interpersonal communication, relationships, and others (social workers, psychologists, counselors) who need to understand family communication processes and their dynamicsacross generational lines will all benefit from the wealth of material included in this volume.

Relational maintenance provides a rallying point for those seeking to discover the behaviors that individuals utilize to sustain their personal relationships. Theoretical models, research programs, and specific studies have examined how people in a variety of close relationships choose to define and maintain those relationships. In addition, relational maintenance turns our attention to communicative processes that help people sustain their close relationships. In this collection, editors Daniel J. Canary and Marianne Dainton focus on the communicative processes critical to the maintenance and enhancement of personal relationships. The volume considers variations in maintaining different types of personal relationships; structural constraints on relationship maintenance; and cultural variations in relational maintenance. Contributions to the volume cover a broad range of relational types, including romantic relationships, family relationships, long-distance relationships, workplace relationships, and Gay and Lesbian relationships, among others. Maintaining Relationships Through Communication: Relational, Contextual, and Cultural Variations synthesizes current research in relationship maintenance, emphasizes the ways that behaviors vary in their maintenance functions across relational contexts, discusses alternative explanations for maintaining relationships, and presents avenues for future research. As such, it is intended for students and scholars studying interpersonal communication and personal relationships.