Healing Your Soul
...........................................................
Definition of Family
While there are several “think tanks” that work on social and economic issues, the Vanier Institute is the only one – at the national level – that speaks to issues as they affect and are affected by families from a perspective that embraces Canada’s diversity of families.
...........................................................
Its understanding of family stresses the primary functions and activities of families, such as providing for the health and well-being of family members; raising children; and sustaining the economy through the production, exchange and consumption of goods and services.
The Vanier Institute of the Family defines “family” as:
Any combination of two or more persons who are bound together over time by ties of mutual consent, birth and/or adoption or placement and who, together, assume responsibilities for variant combinations of some of the following:
Physical maintenance and care of group members
Addition of new members through procreation or adoption
Socialization of children
Social control of members
Production, consumption, distribution of goods and services, and
Affective nurturance — love
Addition of new members through procreation or adoption
Socialization of children
Social control of members
Production, consumption, distribution of goods and services, and
Affective nurturance — love
The research program is guided by a set of assumptions about family life that informs the development and publication of all research at the Institute.
The Vanier Institute understands families as active agents of personal, social and cultural change. Context is important as noted below, but families – understood here to include individual members as well as the unit as a whole – have an active hand in charting their course.
The Vanier Institute’s approach to families is inclusive and accepting of diversity.
As Beryl Plumptre stated in 1972: “The Vanier Institute must be thoroughly in touch with family life of all kinds, not the ideal of the family, but the reality of the family as people live it.” Dimensions of diversity include socio-demographic differences (such as ethno-racial group, Aboriginal status, age, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, and family type), geographic location, as well as differences in attitudes, values, health and subjective well-being of family members. The Vanier Institute brings a life course perspective to bear in the development of and interpretation of our research. This perspective highlights the change that Canadians and their families experience as they move through their lives, including key transitions such as relationship formation and dissolution, movement into and out of the paid labour market, and the evolution of caring responsibilities.
The Vanier Institute Is focused on making connections – in a world of change, the connections between family life and larger social, cultural, economic, political and demographic context matter. The Institute understands that Canada’s families do not exist in isolation but live in relationship to, and are influenced by, these varied contexts.
Special attention will be paid to the resources available to families – within their kinship and social networks and within the broader community – and the government policies and programs that have a direct and indirect impact upon them.
No comments:
Post a Comment