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Book Review: The Happiness Fantasy
Acta Sociologica ( IF 1.3 ) Pub Date : 2019-05-17 , DOI: 10.1177/0001699319850455
Alfred Bordado Sköld 1
Affiliation  

between them are discussed in more detail. In each subsection, key points and hypotheses of leading theories are nicely condensed into an easily understandable table. In the concluding Chapter 9, the two ‘umbrella approaches’ are drawn underneath a larger ‘parasol’ where the authors synthesize them more explicitly and outline an evolutionary social science approach and research programme on intergenerational relations. As the authors argue, the outlined evolutionary social science approach goes beyond the traditional nurture-versus-nature distinction and provides a genuinely interdisciplinary framework to investigate and gain a more comprehensive understanding of intergenerational relations. It is difficult to synthesize theories from different fields of research and find a balance – especially when you are in the vanguard of such work. It is possible that some readers, depending on their background, may feel that the level of examination falls short, whereas others may argue the opposite. For example, while sociologists might insist on more in-depth discussion of the cultural or individual-level factors related to intergenerational relations, evolutionary biologists may find that such factors receive too much attention. On the other hand, this is hardly a limitation. Quite the contrary – the remarkable upside of the book is that it provides compact insight into the topic and its theoretical approaches, which makes it easily approachable, even if one has no prior knowledge of the given field of study (e.g., evolutionary or social science studies). The book is well-written for the most part; however, the text sometimes suffers from an extensive use of brackets in the middle of sentences (providing additional information or side notes), which makes the sentences unnecessarily heavy and hence disturbs an otherwise pleasant reading experience. The book clearly reaches its goals; it provides an extensive account of current issues relating to intergenerational family relations, and in doing that, the authors successfully bring together studies from different fields of research and mould them into a broader framework. The importance and novelty of applying evolutionary and social science approaches side-by-side cannot be overemphasized because, until recently, that same fault line has divided the field of family studies. Interdisciplinary discussion between evolutionary and social science studies has been rare, meaning that scholars from different fields have basically ignored one another (see Coall and Hertwig, 2011). Hopefully, this book will help tear down the artificial wall between different disciplines and promote further research utilizing both evolutionary and social science approaches to investigate family relations. Having said that, this book is a must-read for every researcher, teacher and student in the wide fields of intergenerational family studies – regardless of their discipline or theoretical attachments. As David Coall ends his foreword for the book: ‘Intergenerational family relations: An evolutionary social science approach provides a critical, contemporary update and extension of this research programme, culminating in a research guide for those brave souls who want to pursue interdisciplinary family research’.

中文翻译:

书评:幸福幻想

他们之间有更详细的讨论。在每个小节中,主要理论的关键点和假设都很好地浓缩成一个易于理解的表格。在最后的第 9 章中,这两种“伞式方法”被绘制在更大的“阳伞”之下,作者更明确地将它们综合起来,并概述了关于代际关系的进化社会科学方法和研究计划。正如作者认为的那样,概述的进化社会科学方法超越了传统的先天与后天的区别,并提供了一个真正的跨学科框架来调查和更全面地了解代际关系。很难综合不同研究领域的理论并找到平衡——尤其是当你处于此类工作的前沿时。可能有些读者,根据他们的背景,可能会觉得考试水平不够,而其他人可能会反驳。例如,虽然社会学家可能坚持更深入地讨论与代际关系相关的文化或个人层面的因素,但进化生物学家可能会发现这些因素受到了过多的关注。另一方面,这几乎不是限制。恰恰相反——这本书的显着优点是它提供了对该主题及其理论方法的紧凑洞察,这使得它很容易接近,即使一个人对给定的研究领域(例如,进化或社会科学)没有先验知识学习)。这本书的大部分内容都写得很好。然而,文本有时会在句子中间大量使用括号(提供附加信息或附注),这使得句子不必要地沉重,从而干扰了原本愉快的阅读体验。这本书显然达到了它的目标;它提供了与代际家庭关系相关的当前问题的广泛描述,在这样做的过程中,作者成功地将不同研究领域的研究结合起来,并将它们塑造成一个更广泛的框架。并行应用进化和社会科学方法的重要性和新颖性怎么强调都不为过,因为直到最近,同一条断层线已经划分了家庭研究领域。进化和社会科学研究之间的跨学科讨论很少见,这意味着来自不同领域的学者基本上相互忽略(参见 Coall 和 Hertwig,2011)。希望这本书将有助于拆除不同学科之间的人为墙,并促进利用进化和社会科学方法来调查家庭关系的进一步研究。话虽如此,本书是代际家庭研究广泛领域中每位研究人员、教师和学生的必读之书——无论他们的学科或理论依恋如何。正如大卫·科尔 (David Coall) 为这本书写的序言:“代际家庭关系:一种进化的社会科学方法为该研究计划提供了批判性的当代更新和扩展,最终为那些想要从事跨学科家庭研究的勇敢灵魂提供了研究指南” .
更新日期:2019-05-17
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