ABSTRACT
We start out our brief, but wide-ranging theoretical review by considering a variety of different perspectives. We will explore psychoanalytic, social learning, and social psychological approaches, and social constructionist, ecological and systems science, feminist sociological paradigms, and evolutionary and (genetic) biological perspectives. Each framework will be positioned historically and accompanied by contextualized examples of typical empirical research vis-à-vis the sibling bond. We will then attempt, in turn, to synthesize and evaluate their respective research programmes. In so doing, we lay the base for a more considered research and practice-driven approach that will be addressed in the book’s remainder.
