Family Measurement in India/edited by Shalini Bharat. 1996, 319 p., $40.
Contents: Introduction/Shalini Bharat. Part I. A: Issues in family measurement: 1. Family measurement in India/Shalini Bharat. 2. Measurement in the fields of family and marriage: its relevance and some issues involved/Durganand Sinha. 3. Family studies in India: opportunities for progression and regeneration/Rajani M. Konantambigi and T.S. Saraswathi. B. Overview of different disciplinary approaches to family measurement: 4. Psychological approaches to assessment in family studies: the path is intricate/Shagufa Kapadia. 5. Assessing marriage and the family: the psychiatric approach/Ranbir S. Bhatti. 6. Measurement of marital roles and relationship: some approaches and techniques/Archana Shukla. 7. Making an ethnographic assessment of the family/Meera Oke. 8. Demographic approach to assessment of select aspects in family studies/Ravi K. Verma and Madhavi Priyadarshini. 9. Measurement issues in family-centred social work/Lina Kashyap. 10. Assessment in the area of marriage: the social work approach in India/Purnima Mane. C. Measurement issues in practice settings: 11. Need and scope for using family measures in a child guidance centre/Shubhada Maitra and Freny Italia. 12. Assessment of marital conflict: experiences of a marriage counsellor/Kalindi Muzumdar. Part II. Compilation of abstracts of instruments: 13. Indian instruments for assessment in family and marriage: a compilation of annotated abstracts/Shalini Bharat. References. Notes on contributors.
"This comprehensive handbook examines the status of, and major issues related to family measurement in India. To this end, the contributors critically review the existing standardised measures and the literature on the family and related topics; and present an overview of current approaches to family measurement within various social science disciplines. The second section of the book comprises abstracts of 94 indigenous tools to measure and assess variables related to family and marriage in India.
"Bringing together the perspectives of both researchers and practitioners drawn from a wide range of disciplines, the first section of the book advocates a shift from a purely quantitative to a qualitative approach to family assessment; and emphasises the need for developing indigenous, multidisciplinary and culturally appropriate approaches to understanding the family. A number of contributors make a case for grounding measurement techniques within a given theoretical and conceptual framework while others point to the importance of incorporating a gender-sensitive perspective when constructing tools.
"This pioneering and truly cross-disciplinary examination of measurement issues in family research in India will be an essential reference for scholars and professionals in a large number of fields including sociology, psychology, psychiatry, demography, human development and family studies, social work, and social science methodology." (jacket)
[Shalini Bharat is Reader in Unit for Family Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay. Her books include Indian Bibliographies on Family, Child Adoption in India and Research on Families with Problems in India : Issues and Implications.]
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