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Intergenerational relations imply dealing with ambivalences. This thesis is what the contributions to this volume have in common. Yet, critics may claim that it is not a new insight. Among them are those who recall that some of the greatest sagas in Greek mythology depicted what we now refer to as ambivalence. Others may argue that the experience of ambivalence pervades everyday life. Adult children, for example, feel ambivalent about placing their elderly father or mother in a nursing home. Parents have mixed feelings about their child’s living with a partner without an intention to marry and have children. A son’s or a daughter’s “coming out” as gay or lesbian is fraught with ambivalence on both sides.

This chapter argues the importance of ritualised family occasions in the moral economy of intergenerational families. The chapter draws on 34 semi-biographical interviews with 13 men and 21 women aged 20–90, focussing on stories about troubled or failed rituals. The analysis shows that family members depend on the support and recognition of each other to maintain their moral identities. Ritualised occasions work as magnifying glasses, focussing and intensifying the ongoing relationship work, and forcing family members to take stock and signpost the state of their social bond, and as cultural reference points, providing a window into normative expectations of how parents and adult children should perform relatedness.

This chapter is concerned with the social relationships and communities that families engage with while playing Pokémon Go. The chapter begins by considering the release of this hybrid reality game (HRG) in the summer of 2016, and the extent to which it seemingly lends itself to communities and the development of social relationships through play. Following this, we demonstrate that while the evidence for Pokémon Go facilitating new relationships is apparent, the kind of relationships in question are not explicitly explicated through extant literature. Accordingly, we develop the theoretical framework that undergirds the exigency of the chapter. This includes Granovetter's (1973) taxonomy of social ties among people in social networks – strong, weak and latent ties – and the suggested effect these categories have on the sharing of information. Having outlined the implication of this taxonomy for comprehending social relationships forged through Pokémon Go, we introduce Gerbaudo's (2012) ‘liquid organising’ to explore how weak ties have been enhanced through social media, which raises pertinent question in the context of familial locative play. Critically, then, this chapter looks to understand what kind of social ties can be formed when the playing of Pokémon Go is itself performed in the context of the family unit, using the theoretical frameworks outlined above. This chapter is driven by the following research questions. First, what kinds of social relationships have developed for the families that play Pokémon Go together? This includes whether intergenerational players have made new friends, as well as strengthened current relationships. Second, has this HRG facilitated friendships for the children that play Pokémon Go? In other words, is a community of players still a salient feature of playing this HRG, in the same way that it was shortly after its release in the Summer 2016?

Countries with greater income inequality also tend to have less intergenerational mobility. This relationship, as referred by Krueger (2012), is called “The Great Gatsby Curve.” Criticisms on this curve have brought to notice several limitations of previous studies: a few number of observations; short gap of time between measured inequality and immobility; heterogeneous databases; and model-based estimates of immobility. To correct for some of these limitations, we test for the impact of past income inequality on intergenerational social status persistence using the International Social Survey Program (2009). In accordance with previous studies, we find a positive relationship between these two variables, though the relatively poor model fit suggests the presence of other factors. In this respect, we find that past economic freedom has a negative and significant impact on social status persistence, while previous growth is not significant.

Research on the intergenerational transmission of violence has been limited by reliance on variable-oriented methodology that does not capture heterogeneity that exists within experiences of violent interpersonal conduct. The current study therefore examines the utility of a person-oriented statistical method in understanding patterns of maltreatment and intimate partner violence.

Guided by person-oriented theory, the current study utilizes latent class analysis, a person-oriented method used with cross-sectional data, to examine the heterogeneity within this transmission process in a sample of emerging adults (N = 150). This study also examined whether the classes identified differed on reported emotional reactivity and childhood family environment.

Three classes emerged from the latent class analysis, labeled full transmission, psychological transmission, and no transmission. Those comprising the full transmission subgroup reported the lowest levels of childhood family cohesion, accord, and closeness. The full transmission subgroup also reported significantly more emotional reactivity than the psychological transmission and no transmission subgroups.

To understand fully the etiology of intimate partner violence for maltreated offspring, a multidimensional view of violence is needed. The current study represents a step in this direction by demonstrating the utility of a person-oriented approach in understanding the IGT of violence.