Reinventing the Family in Uncertain Times. Education, Policy and Social Justice

In opening this new edited volume, Moreau, Lee and Okpokiri argue for an ‘encompassing approach’ to engaging with discourses of family (3). They have certainly achieved this, presenting a very diverse collection that aims to engage with the critical question of ‘what makes a family in contemporary times’, attending to contemporary sources of disruption including (in several chapters) the Covid pandemic. The book is designed to challenge the Eurocentric white heteronormative ‘ideal type’ imaginary of family, classically described by Morgan (2011) as the ‘cornflakes packet’ family. The volume encompasses a variety of geographical contexts and family forms and engages with intersectional inequalities, considering how those shape power relationships in the recognition or definition of family and family lives. Five chapters are UK-focused, albeit dealing with different aspects of family, and five bring international perspectives, spanning Argentina, Ghana, Italy, Portugal and the US (although one of these is an international literature review, focusing on English language publications). The chapters also vary in approach, ranging from accounts of substantial empirical work to more preliminary or exploratory research. Consequently, the collection is perhaps better viewed as a resource for reflection rather than a definitive source, but it’s no less valuable or interesting for that.

The volume works particularly well when adjacent chapters speak to cognate concerns – as when Adzahlie-Mensah’s chapter on ‘Language of Instruction Choice and Family Disruptions in Ghana’ is followed by Carmichael-Murphy’s chapter on ‘Black British Families: Liminality and the Liabilities of Language’. Across different contexts, these authors both speak to discrimination at the intersection between school and family: providing a powerful demonstration of how language as a medium of instruction shapes the ongoing impacts of colonial violence in Ghana, and how school acts as a conduit for policies that both obscure and perpetuate intersectional racism in the UK. Together, they highlight the ongoing global legacies of colonial violence and its impact on family.

A different perspective on education is afforded by Passerino and Zenklusen’s fascinating analysis of ‘Family Practices and Strategies of Middle-Class Teachers in Argentina in the Context of Covid-19’. Their findings will be uncomfortably evocative for anyone who juggled family responsibilities with online teaching during the pandemic, but their careful and insightful analysis goes further, illuminating the ways in which care and labour intersect, and the implications for gendered family practices and family boundaries.

Fretwell and Barker’s chapter also focuses on the intersection between school and family, but from the perspective of UK parents who are engaged in activism and campaigning concerned with children’s education. Their empirical work is rooted in a persuasive policy analysis, situating parent campaigns and collectivism as a challenge to the individualist responsibilisation of the ‘active’ parent in neoliberal policy. Particularly valuable in a context where discourses of good parenting are rooted in an imaginary of rational decision-making (e.g., Dermott and Pomati, 2016; Duncan, 2005), their analysis highlights the significance of affect in parents’ activism, considered through the lens of mis/recognition (cf. Honneth, 2012).

Gusmeroli and Trappolin’s chapter, ‘Queering Familialism?’ is another highlight, one of an interesting set of chapters disrupting heteronormative discourses of family (including others by Lee on ‘Older Lesbians and Families of Friends’ in the UK and English, on ‘Kithship’ and families of choice for older transgender people). Gusmeroli and Trappolin link findings from two empirical projects focused on LGBTQI+ families and parenthood in Italy. Their nuanced discussion effectively connects participants’ experiences with a wider policy discussion of Italy’s familialist society, highlighting the implications of legislative frameworks for the practice of family and intimate kinship.

The inclusion of children and young people’s voices is especially welcome in a volume on family, highlighting the importance of thinking beyond parent/carer’s perspectives. Shuttleworth’s chapter examines experiences of young people in kinship care and Bowser-Angermann and colleagues focus on digital communication for two young women who had a father serving in the British Navy. In both chapters – as for others in the volume – the inclusion of extended extracts brings forward participants’ perspectives, illuminating how young people experience and navigate complex emotions and family relationships. As someone who works in a narrative tradition and endeavours to respect the integrity of participants’ accounts (e.g., Boddy, 2023), I was intrigued by the ‘re-storying’ technique used by Bowser-Angermann and colleagues: transcripts of semi-structured interviews were condensed into a ‘re-story’ that was then checked by participants, and presented in full within the chapter, followed by an analytic commentary.

The book is, I would say, quite unusual in the eclecticism of the content. As it concluded, I was left feeling that I would have liked a bit more variation in some respects, particularly in terms of the geographical and cultural diversity of the content. The shifting of focus, scale and perspective can feel a bit unsettling at times, but as I read, I came to appreciate this unsettling as part of ‘Reinventing Family’ – contributing to the volume’s underpinning aim of disrupting contemporary understandings of the concept of family. It’s an approach that does raise interesting questions for the readership – and I found myself wondering whether people will stay on familiar ground, dipping into particular areas or contexts of interest, rather than reading the whole book. There is undoubtedly value in both ways of reading – but added value in embracing the diversity of the collection as a whole.