More Than Just a ’Home’: Understanding the Living Spaces of Families

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.

Rosalina Pisco Costa is Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Évora, Portugal. In 2012, she was distinguished with the Early-Stage Family Scholar Award by the Committee on Family Research of the International Sociological Association.

Sampson Lee Blair is a Family Sociologist and Demographer at The State University of New York, Buffalo, USA. His research interests include parent-child relationships, mate selection, marriage and fertility.