Introduction; Vida Česnuitytė, Eric D. Widmer, Detlev Lück -- PART I EXPLANATION OF FAMILY CONTINUITY AND CHANGE -- 1 Approaches to the study of family life: Practices, context and narrative; Julia Brannen -- 2. Family salience across nations: Configurations of morphological conditions; Eric D. Widmer, Olga Ganjour -- 3 Cultural conceptions of family as inhibitors of change in family lives: …