This symposium reports recent findings from a longitudinal study of family life in Denmark. The study is based on a representative panel of inhabitants in Denmark, born 1968 (N=989). Two waves of data were collected, using a structured survey questionnaire. The first wave was collected in 2003, the second wave was collected in 2014.

The aim is to study the impact of ongoing societal modernization and individualization on family life. The research focus is on the relationship between individuality and communality in everyday family life. The specific role of welfare state institutions, work-life and different modes of relating between family members and across generations, households and social networks is investigated.

The approach is social psychological, following Asplund (1983) and Dencik (2005) theories focusing on the mutual interaction and interdependence between the individual and the social. This project was also informed by theories of family practices (Morgan 1996), post-familial family (Beck-Gernsheim 1998) and a concept of network family (Bäck-Wiklund & Johansson 2003)

The symposium will comprise an overall introduction to the project followed by three individual papers, each focusing on different elements in the social life of families living in radically modern conditions. The first paper analyses what contributes to continuity and stability over time in families. The second paper analyses transformations over time with respect to intergenerational and kinship relationships. The third paper analyses the interactions of the individual’s work-life and family life over time.

The first paper is an outline of the background for the study and it’s methodological and theoretical framework.

The study, Family Forms and Cohabitation in the Modern Welfare State (FAMOSTAT), was originally funded by the National Danish Research Council for the Human Sciences.

Its focus is on the transformations of family life as a consequence of societal modernization in Denmark.

The project was informed by Dencik’s (1996) social psychological perspective on family life, arguing that the impact of modernization should be studied through empirical investigations of everyday family life. Following Asplund’s (1983) notion of the mutual relationships between individuality and communality represented by the slash in the individual/social signifier, the project set out to study how communality and individuality are lived in different households.

Based on a randomized sample (n=1600) of people born in 1968, living in Denmark in 2003, a statistical representative number were included in the panel (n=989). The panel has participated in two waves of data collection. One in 2003, collected via Computer Assisted Telephone Interviews, and one in 2014, based on a web-based survey (n=457). The original questionnaire (IFUSOFF) was adopted to the web-format (IFUSOFF II), adding more questions on the work-life/family-life balance.

This paper discusses the impact of modernization and individualization on family life. It does so by tracing changes in configurations of family life and social networks between 2003 and 2014, and by analyzing transformations of social practices of everyday life.

Initial findings from this study show that 81% of the respondents who lived with a partner in 2014 lived with the same partner in 2003. This paper analyzes this stability in couple relationship. The empirical focus is on social and emotional support, on the character of the social networks as well as gender equality among partners.

The paper discusses how emphasis on individualization can lead to new forms of we-ness and togetherness in everyday family life. The question is if data supports theories that claim that we are witnessing new configurations of familial relations and the we need to adjust our ways of thinking about the configuration of the individual/social relationship in everyday family life. The paper examines the concepts about the ‘post familial family’ as well as ‘the network family’ and their usefulness in the study of contemporary family practices.

In this paper we describe and analyze transformations of the social interaction patterns that have taken place over the years 2003 – 2014 within the three-generational span of families in Denmark. Data telling the frequency and character of parents’ – in 2014 they are 45 years old – interaction with their own parents and other kinsfolk are presented and analyzed. The role of new communication technologies is considered in this context.

One aspect of societal modernization is that people increasingly have to share life with persons with whom they share less and less of experiences. In that light we analyze our preliminary data indicating that little more than 50% of the 45-years old parents hade been in contact with their child living outside the home of the respondent during their day yesterday, 75% of them by some kind of new electronic devices such as Skype, SMS, etc. Such devices are frequently also used in our middle-aged respondents’ contact with their own parents. 20 % are in daily contact with their elderly parent and more than 50% of our respondents have such contacts at least once a week.

Our preliminary data indicate frequent and tight interactions between generations within the family and also among adult siblings. By way of conclusion these findings are analyzed and explained in relation to the impact of societal modernization on family life.

An increasing number of families has to meet the challenges of working in a 24-7 society and at the same time striving to take part in everyday family life. Research is not conclusive with respect to what degree atypical working hours has an impact on, for example, work-family balance, instable marriages or in general the intimate social activities of families. That is, some research point to the fact that having atypical working hours in families might have positive influence on family social activities, like supporting possibilities for the number of activities in which mothers and/or fathers participate in together with their children (e.g. enjoying breakfasts together). On the other hand other research shows that factors like both parents having atypical working hours and small children in the home suggests a negative impact on family life. In addition, not much research has scrutinized the impact of the introduction of atypical and long working hour in families that hitherto has had normal working hours and the other way round what happens in families that have had atypical working patterns and later come to experience normal work hours. These are examples of questions we are exploring through our longitudinal survey study of everyday family and work-life. So in short, this paper will present and discuss an analysis of the relationship between work life and intimate family life social activities as they evolve over time and across households.

Globalization, migration, individualization, pluralization and demographic ageing profoundly influence family life, work and the relationship between these important life domains.

Moreover the constant changes taking place in today's context on many fronts (economic, social, political) place people in a position of having to constantly negotiate and renegotiate their life choices. In this context, life transitions become challenging for families.

The present symposium will focus on the family care – work balance in life transitions, considering transformations in men and woman identity, in motherhood and fatherhood, and the role of parents and grandparents as care-givers not only with regard to small children, but also adolescents; particular attention will also be devoted to the challenge facing today families, companies and care services on the care of elderly and dependents family members in a context in which people are involved on different fronts (family, work, care) and family networks are increasingly reduced from a dimensional point of view. Exploring the links between societal, family and individual change with a comparative perspective is relevant and especially welcome.

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In recent years, fathers have become more visible in the parenting landscape and research indicates that fathers engage in a wider range of activities than in the past. However, as it is well-known, Italy is characterized by the persistence of gender gap.

This presentation analyzes the family and work balance model and the paternal role of Italian families with children 0-13 years, with a focus on fathers, using data from “Multipurpose survey on households: aspects of daily life” 2012, a national survey carried out by ISTAT, with both mothers and fathers interviewed. The Multipurpose Surveys on Households is carried out by the National Institute of Statistics on a national representative sample of private households. The sample of Italian families with children aged 0-13 counts 3.745 families. The research question are: how families differ according to job patterns and care/domestic activities?; which family model is emerging in Italy ?; how are contemporary Italian fathers handling their work-life balance? Through cluster analysis 5 different groups can be highlighted, heterogeneous for family structure, employment, housework, use of child-care services and leave: 1. Dual earner couples ( 43,2%); 2. Non-working fathers (both partners unemployed; 11,0%); 3. Male breadwinner/housewife model (34,2%); 4. Single fathers (1.4%) and 5. Single mothers (10,2%). The carried out analysis seem to confirm the male breadwinner model, particularly in families where only one partner is employed (the father), while the mother is homemaker and takes all the domestic work. Divorced families with single parents emerge also as a relevant issue.

To what extent does Malta’s working time regime support a change in family relations? How much do state policies assume that men and women both need time to care, as well as for paid work? Does Malta’s full-time paid work structure allow time for the equal sharing of unpaid care responsibilities between women and men, that in turn enhances gender equity in the workplace and domestic sphere? Themes that emerge in the study rest largely on women’s voices. The study finds that women need to shift their full-time economic activity to shorter and flexible working hours when they become mothers, with negative consequences of loss in income and career regression. Labour market exit and financial dependence on men is also a frequent occurrence. Findings in the study suggest that strong pressure to assume traditional roles of the male breadwinner model is embedded not only in Maltese culture and social norms, but also in the state’s own social policy.

Poverty, defined not only as a significant lack of economical capital but consequently as the restriction of the scope of action of individuals and their families, is a reality for many families within Europe. Poverty can be acknowledged as a multi-dimensional concept which includes the idea of vulnerability. That means that the precarious circumstances faced by families living in poverty have significant effects on their possibilities to participate in society. ‘To be (called) poor’ can challenge and affect families in multiple ways. Within Europe we can find both similarities and huge differences regarding not only the different levels of (relative) poverty between countries and the different living circumstances these levels refer to but also in the challenges the families face, the experiences they have and the different debates in which these issues are addressed.

Therefore the central question of the symposium will be: In which ways do these challenges, experiences and discourses materialise under different circumstances? The analysis will be focused on parents and debates about ‘poor families’, their ‘parenting methods’, as well as on children and their process of growing up. The broad topic of ‘families in poverty’ will therefore be discussed from different theoretical backgrounds and will highlight different aspects regarding discourses and experiences. By doing so, we want to open up a broader look on how families and family relations are shaped in modern societies and how these are challenged by poverty, taking perspectives from and on families into account.

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In recent years it has become common in some East and Central European countries that people migrate to more well-off countries to find a better income. Often these people are parents, who leave their children back home with their grandparents, close family friends or all alone. According to ISCWeB Study funded by the Jacobs Foundation, 22% of twelve years old children in Estonia have experienced one or both parents’ absence from their daily lives due to parent(s) transnational commuting between home and job. The Survey revealed lower wellbeing level among children who had experienced parental job migration compared to those without this experience. The presentation will discuss the transnational job migration of parents as a familial poverty alleviation strategy in terms of costs paid with wellbeing of children and ‘good’ parenting. The presentation will draw data from a small-scale study about children’s attitudes concerning the transnational job migration of parents, from qualitative interviews with children left them behind by both job-migrating parents, and fathers who commute transnationally between job and home. The presentation will demonstrate how transnational job migration can revive traditional family roles and activate children to save family wholeness.

Looking at field experience as well as at media shows it can be observed that being called ‘poor’ for those families are concerned seems to be more of an imposition then a descriptive or critical analysis of their living conditions. In fact most people try to defend themselves against the addressing as ‘the poor’. The paper is based on a discourse analytic study which analyzed how pedagogical-scientific journals speak about ‘poor parents’. Starting with its results it asks how the addressing as ‘poor’ can be understood, why it is maybe dangerous for families to be (called) ‘poor’ and what this means for a perspective on ‘families in poverty”.

The paper is based on an empirical study that includes narrative-biographical interviews with people in a state of poverty. The central question is: What does it mean to people and their construction of subjectivity when they live in poverty? The empirical data shows that parents see their ability to be responsible parents questioned. They are constantly confronted with the need to prove themselves as ‘good parents’. For these parents, poverty is an obstacle from fulfilling their own normative beliefs about ‘good parenting’. This results in emotions of shame, which are a constant attack on their subjectivity.

The concept of ambivalences has been introduced in family research as a tool to widen the perspective, not only considering different relationship characteristics and perceptions separately but taking into account the potential role of the simultaneous occurrence of conflicting emotions, perceptions, and behavioral tendencies. Ambivalences are assumed to play an important role in relationship dynamics, personal development, in the processes of individual adjustment and with regard to subjective well-being. About half a decade ago, a group of researchers used the opportunity of the ESFR conference to present and debate the particular potential and implications of the concept of ambivalences for family research. Based on evermore growing attention to the apparent relevance of ambivalences in intergenerational relationships, it is now the task to scrutinize the emergence, the handling, and the outcomes of ambivalences taking into account the complexity and the dynamic quality of social life.

This symposium offers new insights into the diverse social and personal contexts, specific occasions and individual tracks of ambivalence experiences across the human life course. It also presents a set of different analytical strategies bearing specific potential to identify ambivalences, and to examine their antecedents and implications for personal development as well as relationship processes.

The first two contributions provide insights into the significance of ambivalences for the dynamic nature of relationships and personal development, modeling change using longitudinal data. The following two contributions focus on the multitude and the interplay of social, cultural, and individual factors potentially promoting ambivalence experiences and allowing for different ways to handle them. Finally, the discussion will explore new achievements and implications for future family research, paying special attention to the developments in the field of ambivalence research during the past decade.

Although family relations have been extensively studied, previous research has often examined the various aspects of family relations in isolation from each other. However, in order to capture the complexity of family relations, researchers should consider multiple characteristics of family relationships simultaneously. The current presentation will show how latent class models provide the means to conduct such a multidimensional approach. Using data from two longitudinal panel studies on family relations (the U.S.-based Longitudinal Study of Generations and the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study), it is shown how a typology of relations can be derived from the most common combinations of characteristics in family relations and how the latent class model can be extended into a latent transition model to study dynamics in relation types over time. Both in the U.S. and Dutch data, and both among intergenerational and intragenerational (sibling) relations, a (behaviourally) ambivalent type was identified among a total of five relation types. While the majority of relations showed great stability over time, ambivalent relations were more apt to transition into a different type than others – which is in accordance with ambivalence theory. Moreover, when transitions in relationship types occurred, it was primarily structured by factors affecting the availability of either family member, as well as circumstances that elevated the dependency of family members and promoted both positive and negative reactivity (i.e., ambivalence) in the other party.

Adolescence is typically marked by individual growth of action capacities and self-esteem. During this period, offspring is likely to “oscillate” between the aims to become autonomous and to stay intimately affiliated with the parents. The latter face the challenge to provide their child with options to realize self-reliance while remaining a “safe haven” to turn to. These developments imply the fundamental restructuring of the adolescent-parent relationship. Although previous research suggests that conflicting desires and changing relationship structures are likely to come along with ambivalence experiences, the associations of ambivalences with individual development and relationship characteristics in adolescence are largely understudied. This paper examines the dynamic relations between parenting characteristics, adolescents’ ambivalence experiences, and their self-esteem development. The analysis is conducted with panel data of a representative sample of Swiss adolescents (N = 1.258) surveyed at the ages of 15, 18, and 21 in 2006, 2009, and 2012 (COCON). We employ latent change modeling techniques, with parental responsiveness, ambivalence experiences, and self-esteem defined as multi-item factors based on the adolescents’ self-reports. The results show a declining intra-individual trajectory of ambivalence experiences between mid- and late-adolescence. We also find negative correlations between the levels and rates of change of adolescent ambivalence experiences and parental responsiveness and self-esteem, respectively. Self-esteem is negatively affected particularly when ambivalence persists across the adolescent years. Altogether, the findings suggest that ambivalence experiences are dynamically interrelated with relationship characteristics and individual development. The study thus highlights the significance of investigating ambivalences in the eventful period of adolescence.

Re-constituted families are a form familial living together that became more relevant in the past few decades within changing conditions. Those “patchwork-family-figures” are emerging because of divorce or the separation of both biological parents and the following decision to be in a new relationship, again. I expect that the specific structure stimulates the genesis of the phenomenon of ambivalent experiences in various forms (e.g. role and dyad according to the constitution of familial relationship).

The focus, then, is the question of how people in re-constituted families are living their everyday lives, cope with ambivalent situations and find new arrangements. Furthermore, there is the issue of how they arrange their relationships in a modified family frame.

Although research interest regarding intergenerational ambivalence has steadily grown in the last years, not much is known yet about how young adults deal with feelings of ambivalence towards older parents within the context of migration. Also, it is still an open question whether grown-up sons and daughters experience ambivalences towards both of their parents differently.

The present study focused on gender, generation and culture effects regarding the experience of ambivalence in the relations of young adult children to their parents in migrant compared to non-migrant families. The sample was part of the project IRMA (“Intergenerational Relations in the Light of Migration and Ageing”) and comprised N = 86 Luxembourgish and N = 68 Portuguese young adult children, all living in Luxembourg. About 62% of the Portuguese participants were already born in Luxembourg, the remaining arrived to the host country with an average age of M = 4.84 years (SD = 4.14).

First results show different patterns of gender effects in Portuguese immigrant compared to Luxembourgish families. Whereas PT young adult children tended to report a higher felt ambivalence towards mothers compared to fathers, this was not the case for their LUX counterparts. Further, PT sons reported significantly higher feelings of ambivalence towards their fathers compared to PT daughters. A similar tendency was found for LUX sons.

Results will be discussed within an integrative framework regarding ambivalence as well as subjective well-being in the light of migration and aging taking into account the relative effects of gender, generation and culture.

Family relationships have been an important object of scholarly interest in the field of migration studies, notably in the case of labour migration. The impact of this migration phenomenon on family relationships has been investigated from different angles. Studies have shown how migration reconfigures gender relations at home, puts into question normative conceptions about the family and modifies intimacy in the parent-child and husband-wife dyads. These works mostly explore the perspectives of migrant parents with children “left behind” in their country of origin. Although there is a rich literature on the children of these migrants, particularly on the “second generation”, the focus has been on the social dimension of their experiences rather than on the intimate and relational ones. To fill this gap, this symposium will examine changing intergenerational relationships through the perspectives of children of Asian migrants – Chinese and Filipinos – in Europe and in Asia. Comparing their familial experiences will illuminate the challenges and contradictions they are confronted with as well as the strategies they adopt depending on the opportunity/constrain structures surrounding them. How do these young people experience and view the family? What are the factors affecting their relationships with their parents? How do the specificities of their respective countries of residence (e.g. gender norms) and of their families (e.g. class belonging) shape their decisions and viewpoints? In what way do they express their agency? Drawing from empirically based researches in the fields of migration and family studies, this symposium will address these questions while highlighting the subjectivity and agency of young family members. Its interdisciplinary character will provide different windows through which to view the family in migration context, whereas its comparison of case studies will expose the particularities of individual experiences and their connections with larger socio-structural factors.

Discussant: (associate professor, )

Based on a field survey carried out over a period of four years in the region of Paris and involving young people of Chinese descent who are seeing a psychiatrist in the private or public sector, the present communication is focused on the relationship between these young people and their parents, and more especially on the phenomenon of “inverted parenting,” showing how these migrant children help their parents enjoy the various resources acquired in or related to their host country. The author highlights that this phenomenon of “inverted parenting” could generate intergenerational conflicts between young people and their parents. Living in such intergenerational conflict situation, considered by some children as the sources of their mental health suffering, pushes them to turn to the outside world (school, work, care settings, associations, etc.) in the hope of accessing new possibilities.

Focusing on transnational family strategy, this paper aims to narrate the family stories of Japanese-Filipino children who were born to a Japanese father and a Filipino mother after 1980s. The author conducted in-depth interviews with 45 individuals aged 15-35 during a multi-sited fieldwork in Japan and in the Philippines. Many respondents enjoyed a high mobility across the national border of two countries because of their flexible legal status. They migrated during childhood because of the change in their family relationship and experienced transnational struggles, often as a consequence of the gap between the family norms of both societies and the reality they faced. However, these youths coped with these struggles by maintaining transnational ties through their frequent moves. The notion of youth migration represents the liminality of generations and also family and gender norms of two countries.

A dynamic, bidirectional understanding of adolescent resistance to parental authority is missing not only in the Chinese but also worldwide literature. There is scarcely any research on the adolescents’ own experience of their resistance, their perceptions on their role and influence while interacting with their parents in times of resistance. In response to the seriousness of adolescent resistance in Chinese society, a three-fold study is launched aiming for a comprehensive grasp of the nature of this phenomenon by comparing adolescents from similar Chinese backgrounds, namely mainland China, Taiwan and Belgium. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of the migrant Chinese adolescents’ accounts from Belgium revealed adolescent resistance as a special state of mind with a weak sense of the future and an “inflated” sense of agency, the process of resistance was also a struggle with oneself to accept one’s own parents being different from their peers’ parents. Analysis of parents’ accounts revealed that parents were intentionally ready to adapt to their children’s reality, yet difficult to acknowledge their children’s agency and novelty in practice. Such a difficulty is however notably easier for parents with an open attitude for learning.

Parental migration from the Philippines has led to an increasing number of children “left behind”, generally under the care of a female kin. During family reunification, such caregiving arrangements change again, which entails emotional adjustments for the child and for his former caregiver. Examining the case of 1.5-generation Filipinos in France (i.e., migrants who were born in the Philippines but migrated to France before the age of 18) and their grandmothers in the Philippines, this presentation explores their linked experiences and the way they maintain their relationship. Results of ethnographic fieldwork conducted in France and in the Philippines show that the 1.5-generation Filipinos were able to cope with the pain of family separation due to the migration of one or both of their parents with the help of their grandmothers. After moving to France they became even closer emotionally to their caregivers; they idealized their past and hoped to be reunited with them in the future. This situation often caused tensions in their relationship with their parents, notably with their mother who was trying to make up for lost time with their children.

Western modern societies are changing going along with new ways of life, different age compositions and increasing shares of migrants. Simultaneously, all across Europe we see a withdrawal of welfare states. These changes affect relationships between generations and cultures, and social support. Especially marginalized groups such as migrants and older people are adversely affected. The planned symposium comprises of four presentations on social networks and social support of older migrants in Europe.

She develops a typology of Turkish late-life stayer and migrant families using multiple dimensions of intergenerational solidarity based on a “binational” and “dissimilation” perspective comparison: (1) Do relationships […] reflect the patterns prevalent in the origin context, indicating mechanisms of ethnic retention, or do they show migration-specific adjustments in terms of dissimilation? (2) Do relationship patterns […] differ across the European countries, suggesting impacts of macro-context factors? First results suggest strong Turkish family ties with intense contact, intergenerational exchange of advice and support and high normative solidarity. Little evidence appears of dissimilation from the context of origin. Most remarkably, attitudes seem to change to a larger extent than behavior.

Contrary to initial expectations, many EU citizens who arrived in the UK after 2004 have not been temporary and transient but rather have extended their stay and shown signs of settling in. Based on in-depth interviews with Polish migrants in London, this paper examines opportunities but also obstacles that migrants face in negotiating belonging and attachment in local contexts. In so doing, the paper aims to understand the processes and mechanisms that enable and hinder settling into particular places.

Migration scholars frequently discuss intra-EU migration in terms of circularity, temporariness and liquidity (Collett, 2013). As a result there has been less academic discussion of how European migrants negotiate attachment and belonging (Erdal and Oeppen, 2013) and how these may be gendered. I use the concept of ‘embedding’ (Ryan and Mulholland, 2015) to explore the multi-layered and dynamic processes of negotiating identifications and attachments spatially and temporally.

In particular, I focus on networks of care and examine the gender dimensions of place-effects to understand how men and women mediate inter-generational caring relationships through time and place. For example, caring for children in London, while simultaneously caring about ageing parents in Poland can lead to dilemmas and tensions in the migration trajectory. In this way, I present migrant ‘embedding’ as an emplaced and embodied, gendered process.

Lea Ellwardt focusses on “Which types of non-kin networks relate to survival in late adulthood? A latent-class approach”. She investigates the association between older adults’ survival rates and integration into different types of non-kin networks. Respondents are classified into distinct types of non-kin networks, based on differences in number of non-kin, social support received from non-kin and contact frequency with non-kin. Membership in network types is next related to mortality. Four latent types of non-kin networks differ in their associations with mortality, independent of socio-demographic and health confounders. Older adults integrated into networks high in both amount and variation of supportive non-kin contacts have higher chances of survival than older adults embedded in networks low in either amount or variation, or both. Measurements on the first migrant cohort will be provided in the near future.

Finally, Martina Brandt, Judith Kaschowitz and Jennifer Klöckner broach the issue of “migration, social networks and social support across life course”. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) they examine social support networks among natives and immigrants (Turkish, Greek, Italian, Yugoslavian, Rumanian, Polish, Russian and migrants from the former Soviet Union). They focus on changes of social relationships and social support over life course attributing this to the context of country of origin and cohorts. First results show significant inter-ethnic and inter-generational differences of social capital and social support. In contrast to shares of relatives, migrant networks vary stronger by amounts of fellow natives: Turkish migrants integrate more persons of the same origin into their networks than other migrants, but less than Germans. Polish and Rumanian networks consist of most Germans. Further, network compositions are rather inter-generationally than ethnically determined. Second generation networks comprise of less relatives, less migrants of the same origin and more Germans. Nevertheless, Yugoslavian generations differ less than Turkish, Greek, and Italian. Further, Turks and Greeks significantly name family members as supposed caregivers more often but mention professional caregivers less often than Germans and other migrants (2001 and 2006). Expectations of social support by family members are likewise affected by country of origin. Hence, different needs of social support in life course and diverse ways of compensating deprivation by nation are expected.

The last few decades have witnessed profound changes in family forms and the meaning of marriage. These processes are connected with growing numbers of parental divorces and separations. While traditional families were characterized by standardization in family forms and predictability in family transitions, contemporary families are facing a growing amount of unforeseen transitions and greater diversity and complexity in the life paths of family members. Besides unexpected transitions, such as divorce, families encounter several expected transitions, such as a child starting school. Transitions also mean changes in everyday actions, emotions and the form of relations. These processes of differentiation and erosion have a major impact, in particular, on children and young people.

Therefore, in family studies we should deepen our understanding of the everyday practices in which families are engaged, such as doings, moral concerns, emotions, interaction, daily relationships, coordinates of time and space, routines and rules. When focusing on daily life, the researcher faces a methodological question: in what ways, that is, by what methods, can the relevant aspects of daily family life be captured in an ecologically valid way?

In the symposium we concentrate on three new innovative methods combining both textual and visual approaches. These methods are electronic diaries, network maps and life-lines. Diaries create a picture of daily phenomena by providing contemporaneous and detailed information about settings, events and reactions. The purpose of the network map is to gain insight into important social relationships, including the ways in which children and adolescents conceptualize their family relationships. In the life-line method, children are asked to mark on a line of life the most noteworthy turning points in their lives, whether positive or negative.

By what methods children’s life in their daily environments can be captured in an ecologically valid way? A method often used for capturing this kind of everyday life is the diary. Diaries create a picture of daily phenomena by providing contemporaneous and detailed information about settings, events and reactions. In this method, data are collected with repeated measurements during a limited time period, for example a week. Reports are made in close proximity to actual events in the participants’ natural environments. Recently, diary methods have been a focus of intensive development. Different forms of electronic diaries have replaced or at least complemented traditional paper-and-pencil diaries. Research methods employing the new technology may be found especially interesting by adolescents and children. Family Research Centre, University of Jyväskylä has contributed to this development work by creating a new tool, the mobile diary, for the study of everyday life (e.g. Rönkä et al., 2010 & 2015; Malinen et al., 2013; Sevón (forthcoming); Lämsä et al. 2013). In our project “Daily transitions, children in multiple family forms (DALFA)” special emphasis is on inventing methods to capture the everyday activities, daily emotions and social relationships of children living in different family forms with an innovative internet based method using voice and visual material.

Life-lines are said to be a reflexive and participatory method for studying changes, transitions and important life events in families. When studying children, such visual methods can, among other things, help break the ice in the interview and assist the child in memorizing and describing his/her life in a graphic form. In this presentation, I will discuss the use of life-lines as visual methods in a research project with children.

In the EMSE (Children’s emotional security in multiple family relations) -research project conducted in the Family Research Centre and funded by the Academy of Finland, we interviewed and collected life-lines from 44 children, mostly aged 11-13 years. We were interested in children’s perceptions of their family relations, changes that had taken place in these relations during the child’s life and their mood, whether positive or negative, during these transitions. In the beginning of the interview, the child was asked to mark important life-events, transitions and their mood at the time of events into a life-line. The interviewee assisted the child in drawing and marking by asking complementary questions. In the presentation, I will reflect in more detail the experiences, advantages and limitations of the life-line data.

Many changes are affecting the family today, transforming the foundations of self-identity, which are the core models for everyday personal life. The situation of family disruption raises a number of human and social issues which deserve to be better understood. The aim of this paper is to concentrate on the sociological consideration of the various bonds and transitions in children of divorce, with the use of innovative visual methods. This survey being carried out on a sample of young Italian adults, shows in the form of qualitative research the main features of one of these methods, the network maps. The network maps define the structure, the positions of family members and relationships between them, and conceptualize who belongs to a family that has changed. This throws some light on what family relationships, events and representations are on the perception of the person involved. The challenge posed for this visual method is to continue to conceive of individuals in terms of relational approach, through the interdependence with self, others, and the world during the course of life. A great contribution of this tool sui generis is that it opens the door to numerous additional questions that need answers and further research.

The starting point of the presentation is the assumption that experiences and memories – the everyday knowledge – deposits in the form of pictures: We are thinking in pictures. As a methodological consequence, we suggest that visual methods provide an outstanding, more immediate approach to understanding the constructions of everyday life world than verbal data. This is because implicit knowledge has to be more reflected to be presented verbally. An example for an more directly access to this implicit knowledge in private affairs is the use of toy figures and furniture in interviews to allow more practical demonstrations of social structures and social situations within the interview. Of course, this does not mean that verbal data is useless for such type of research, but rather that a huge potential lies in combining and triangulating verbal and visual data and in integrating visual methods into interview situations. This is especially true for research on subjects, which are highly ideologically charged, such as family issues.

Building upon a case study, we aim to explore the configuration in the inner space of one family. By drawing upon different types of pictures (family portraits, montages of everyday family life) as well as verbal data, we aim at working out inconsistencies and gaps between displaying and doing family. The presentation will finally discuss potentials of a combined approach of interviews and visualization techniques in the field of research on family and gender related issue.