ABSTRACT
Like a younger child in a large family, research on siblings has had to wait for its turn in the spotlight. Overshadowed for more than a century by research on parent–child relationships, research on sibling relationships is now flourishing within several disciplines, including family studies, sociology, psychology, human development, genetics, anthropology and psychiatry. This chapter sketches out the history of research on siblings. It illustrates the diverse ways in which researchers have portrayed siblings: as playmates, as attachment figures, as rivals and as role models. The chapter discusses more contemporary and contextualised approaches to studying siblings, describing the interplay between sibling relationships, other family relationships and the wider environment within which these relationships occur. It outlines key methodological challenges (and solutions) within research on siblings. Self-report questionnaires are most typically used with school-aged children and adolescents, but innovative methodologies have been developed to obtain a first-hand view of sibling relationships from children as young as four years old.
