Parenting after Partnering: Containing Conflict after Separation (Onati International Series in Law and Society)

240 Pages·2007·0.89 MB·English

by  Mavis Maclean

PARENTING AFTER PARTNERING
Relationships between adult partners following divorce or separation can
be fragile, and the issues which have divided the parents are often hard to
disentangle from the ongoing relationships between parents and children.
There is a small group who have ongoing difficulty and who need pro-
fessional help and legal intervention to make arrangements for ongoing
parenting. This volume brings together a wealth of new empirical research
from the USA, Central, North Western and Southern Europe, and Australia
on the nature and importance of children’s relationships with parents after
parental separation, on the kinds of conflicts which develop, and on the
range of professional interventions which support parents and children
through these difficult times.
Oñati International Series in Law and Society
A SERIES PUBLISHED FOR THE OÑATI INSTITUTE
FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF LAW
General Editors
William LF Felstiner Johannes Feest
Board of General Editors
Rosemary Hunter, University of Kent, United Kingdom
Carlos Lugo, Hostos Law School, Puerto Rico
David Nelken, Macerata University, Italy
Jacek Kurczewski, Warsaw University, Poland
Marie Claire Foblets, Leuven University, Belgium
Roderick Macdonald, McGill University, Canada
Titles in this Series
Social Dynamics of Crime and Control: New Theories for a World in
Transition edited by Susannah Karstedt and Kai Bussmann
Criminal Policy in Transition edited by Andrew Rutherford and Penny
Green
Making Law for Families edited by Mavis Maclean
Poverty and the Law edited by Peter Robson and Asbjørn Kjønstad
Adapting Legal Cultures edited by Johannes Feest and David Nelken
Rethinking Law Society and Governance: Foucault’s Bequest edited by
Gary Wickham and George Pavlich
Rules and Networks edited by Richard Appelbaum, Bill Felstiner and
Volkmar Gessner
Women in the World’s Legal Professions edited by Ulrike Schultz and
Gisela Shaw
Healing the Wounds edited by Marie-Claire Foblets and Trutz von Trotha
Imaginary Boundaries of Justice edited by Ronnie Lippens
Family Law and Family Values edited by Mavis Maclean
Contemporary Issues in the Semiotics of Law edited by Anne Wagner,
Tracey Summerfield, and Farid Benavides Vanegas
The Geography of Law: Landscapes, Identity and Regulation edited by
Bill Taylor
Theory and Method in Socio-Legal Research edited by Reza Banakar and
Max Travers
Luhmann on Law and Politics edited by Michael King and Chris
Thornhill
Precarious Work, Women and the New Economy: The Challenge to Legal
Norms edited by Judy Fudge and Rosemary Owens
Juvenile Law Violators, Human Rights, and the Development of New
Juvenile Justice Systems edited by Eric L Jensen and Jørgen Jepsen
The Language Question in Europe and Diverse Societies: Political, Legal
and Social Perspectives edited by Dario Castiglione and Chris Longman
European Ways of Law: Towards a European Sociology of Law edited by
Volkmar Gessner and David Nelken
Constitutional Politics in the Middle East: With Special Reference to
Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan edited by Saïd Amir Arjomand
Parenting after Partnering
Containing Conflict after Separation
Edited by
Mavis Maclean
Oñati International Series in Law and Society
A SERIES PUBLISHED FOR THE OÑATI INSTITUTE
FOR THE SOCIOLOGY OF LAW
OXFORD AND PORTLAND OREGON
2007
Published in North America (US and Canada)
by Hart Publishing
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data Available
ISBN: 978-1-84113-781-0 (hardback)
ISBN: 978-1-84113-782-7 (paperback)
Typeset by Compuscript, Shannon
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
TJI Digital, Padstow, Cornwall
Contents
Introduction: Conflicted Contact between Parents and Children
after Separation .........................................................................................1
Mavis Maclean
Part 1: The Changing Landscape of Relationships ....................................9
1 Improving the Quality of Parent–child Contact in
Separating Families .............................................................................11
Michael E Lamb
2 Why Some Children see their Father and Others do not; Questions
Arising from a Pilot Study ..................................................................29
Laura Cardia-Vonèche and Benoit Bastard
3 From Marriage to Parenthood: Rethinking Parenthood in Times
of Reproductive Innovation .................................................................41
Malgorzata Fuszara and Jacek Kurczewski
Part 2: The Confl icts Associated with Post-separation Parenting ............63
4 The Parenting Contest: Problems of Ongoing Confl ict
over Children .....................................................................................65
Vanessa May and Carol Smart
5 Dangerous Dads and Malicious Mothers: The Relevance of
Gender to Contact Disputes ...............................................................81
Liz Trinder
6 Legal Discourse and Gender Neutrality in Child Custody
Reform in Spain .................................................................................95
Agurtzane Goriena Lekue
Part 3: Professional Intervention ..........................................................107
7 Enabling Contact: The Involvement of Psycho-social
Professionals in Supporting Contact in Germany ..............................109
Katrin Mueller-Johnson
8 The Changing Face of Contact in Australia ......................................129
Helen Rhoades
viii Contents
9 Moving On: The Challenge for Children’s Contact Services
in Australia ..................................................................................147
Grania Sheehan, John Dewar and Rachel Carson
10 Children’s Contact Services in Australia: The Referral
Process ...........................................................................................169
Belinda Fehlberg and Rosemary Hunter
11 Intervening in Litigated Contact: Ideas from Other
Jurisdictions ...................................................................................193
Joan Hunt
Index .....................................................................................................219
List of Contributors
Benoit Bastard, Directeur de Recherche at COS, CNRS, Paris.
Laura Cardia Vonèche, Senior Researcher, Institute for Public Health,
University of Geneva.
Rachel Carson, Doctoral Candidate at Griffi th Law School, Australia.
John Dewar, Professor, Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Griffi th Law School,
Australia.
Belinda Fehlberg, Professor, The Melbourne Law School, Australia.
Malgorzata Fuszara, Director of the INSS, Institute for Applied Social
Studies, University of Warsaw.
Joan Hunt, Senior Research Fellow, Department of Social Policy and Social
Work, University of Oxford.
Rosemary Hunter, formerly Associate Professor of Law and Director of the
Socio-Legal Research Centre, Griffi th Law School, Australia. Since October
2006 she has been Professor of Law, University of Kent.
Jacek Kurczewski, Professor Sociology of Custom and Law at the University
of Warsaw. From 1991−93 he was Deputy Speaker and member of the
Polish Parliament and from 1997−98 he was Director of the International
Institute for Sociology of Law in Onati, Spain.
Michael E Lamb, Professor, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences,
University of Cambridge.
Agurtzane Goriena Lekue, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University of
the Basque Country, San Sebastian.
Mavis Maclean CBE, Director of the Oxford Centre for Family Law and
Policy in the Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of
Oxford, and a Senior Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law. She is former
President of the RCSL, a Fellow of the IISL, and Academic Adviser to the
Ministry of Justice, formerly the Department for Constitutional Affairs.
x List of Contributors
Vanessa May, Research Fellow, University of Manchester.
Katrin Mueller-Johnson, Lecturer in Applied Criminology, Faculty of Law,
University of Cambridge.
Helen Rhoades, Senior Lecturer, Melbourne Law School, University of
Melbourne, Australia.
Grania Sheehan, Senior Research Fellow, Griffi th Law School, Australia.
Carol Smart, Professor of Sociology, University of Manchester.
Liz Trinder, Reader, University of Newcastle.