ABSTRACT
This chapter describes issues about the state of methodology in family studies and focuses on families as they are embedded in larger systems. It also focuses on the significance of family values and on family and school practices in the context of globalization. The chapter discusses the results from a program of work it have been conducting on the changing social contract that is the new deal for families in a global environment. It suggests that values are pivotal in defining the competencies of global citizens. In studies of young people who were active in the Civil Rights and antiwar movements of the 1950s and 1960s, family values including compassion, altruism, and an ethic of social responsibility played a key role in their motivation for social change. However, the fact is that in a global context the principles of a nation's social contract and the obligations implied in it are founded on shifting political and economic sands.
