Enhancing learning for research higher degree students

Universities’ push toward the production of high quality research is not limited to academic staff and experienced researchers. In this environment of research rich agendas, Higher Degree Research (HDR) students are increasingly expected to engage in the publishing of good quality papers in high impact journals. IFN001: Advanced Information Research Skills (AIRS) is a credit bearing mandatory coursework requirement for Queensland University of Technology (QUT) doctorates. Since its inception in 1989, this unique blended learning program has provided the foundations for new researchers to produce original and innovative research. AIRS was redeveloped in 2012, and has now been evaluated with reference to the university’s strategic research priorities. Our research is the first comprehensive evaluation of the program from the learner perspective. We measured whether the program develops essential transferrable skills and graduate capabilities to ensure best practice in the areas of publishing and data management. In particular, we explored whether AIRS prepares students to be agile researchers with the skills to adapt to different research contexts both within and outside academia. The target group for our study consisted of HDR students and supervisors at QUT. Both quantitative and qualitative research methods were used for data collection. Gathering data was by survey and focus groups with qualitative responses analyzed using NVivo. The results of the survey show that 82% of students surveyed believe that AIRS assisted their research process and helped them learn skills they need as a researcher. The 18% of respondents who expressed reservation about the benefits of AIRS were also examined to determine the key areas of concern. These included trends related to the timing of the program early in the candidature and a belief among some students that their previous research experience was sufficient for postgraduate study. New insights have been gained into how to better support HDR learners in partnership with supervisors and how to enhance learning experiences of specific cohorts, including international students and mature learners.

Pitfalls in the Treatment of Persons with Dementia

Pitfalls in the treatment of persons with dementia Persons with dementia require high-quality health care, rehabilitation and sufficient social services to support their autonomy and to postpone permanent institutionalization. This study sought to investigate possible pitfalls in the care of patients with dementia: hip fracture rehabilitation, use of inappropriate or antipsychotic medication, social and medicolegal services offered to dementia caregiving families. Three different Finnish samples were used from years 1999-2005, mean age 78 to 86 years. After hip fracture operation, the weight-bearing restriction especially in group of patients with dementia, was associated with a longer rehabilitation period (73.5 days vs. 45.5 days, p=0.03) and the inability to learn to walk after six weeks (p<0.001). Almost half (44%) of the pre-surgery home-dwellers with dementia in our sample required permanent hospitalization after hip fracture. Potentially inappropriate medication was used among 36.2% of nursing home and hospital patients. The most common PIDs in Finland were temazepam over 15 mg/day, oxybutynin, and dipyridamole. However, PID use failed to predict mortality or the use of health services. Nearly half (48.4%) of the nursing home and hospital patients with dementia used antipsychotic medication. The two-year mortality did not differ among the users of conventional or atypical antipsychotics or the non-users (45.3% vs.32.1% vs.49.6%, p=0.195). The mean number of hospital admissions was highest among non-users (p=0.029). A high number of medications (HR 1.12, p<0.001) and the use of physical restraints (HR 1.72, p=0.034) predicted higher mortality at two years, while the use of atypical antipsychotics (HR 0.49, p=0.047) showed a protective effect, if any. The services most often offered to caregiving families of persons with Alzheimer s disease (AD) included financial support from the community (36%), technical devices (33%), physiotherapy (32%), and respite care in nursing homes (31%). Those services most often needed included physiotherapy for the spouse with dementia (56%), financial support (50%), house cleaning (41%), and home respite (40%). Only a third of the caregivers were satisfied with these services, and 69% felt unable to influence the range of services offered. The use of legal guardians was quite rare (only 4.3%), while the use of financial powers of attorney was 37.8%. Almost half (47.9%) of the couples expressed an unmet need for discussion with their doctor about medico-legal issues, while only 9.9% stated that their doctor had informed them of such matters. Although we already have many practical methods to develop the medical and social care of persons with AD, these patients and their families require better planning and tailoring of such services. In this way, society could offer these elderly persons better quality of life while economizing on its financial resources. This study was supported by Social Insurance Institution of Finland and part of it made in cooperation with the The Central Union of the Welfare for the Aged, Finland.

Scopophobia/Scopophilia: electric light and the anxiety of the gaze in postwar American architecture

In the years of reconstruction and economic boom that followed the Second World War, the domestic sphere encountered new expectations regarding social behaviour, modes of living, and forms of dwelling. This book brings together an international group of scholars from architecture, design, urban planning, and interior design to reappraise mid-twentieth century modern life, offering a timely reassessment of culture and the economic and political effects on civilian life. This collection contains essays that examine the material of art, objects, and spaces in the context of practices of dwelling over the long span of the postwar period. It asks what role material objects, interior spaces, and architecture played in quelling or fanning the anxieties of modernism’s ordinary denizens, and how this role informs their legacy today. Table of Contents [Book] Introduction Robin Schuldenfrei Part 1: Psychological Constructions: Anxiety of Isolation and Exposure 1. Taking Comfort in the Age of Anxiety: Eero Saarinen’s Womb Chair Cammie McAtee 2. The Future is Possibly Past: The Anxious Spaces of Gaetano Pesce Jane Pavitt 3. Scopophobia/Scopophilia: Electric Light and the Anxiety of the Gaze in American Postwar Domestic Architecture Margaret Petty Part 2: Ideological Objects: Design and Representation 4. The Allegory of the Socialist Lifestyle: The Czechoslovak Pavilion at the Brussels Expo, its Gold Medal and the Politburo Ana Miljacki 5. Assimilating Unease: Moholy-Nagy and the Wartime-Postwar Bauhaus in Chicago Robin Schuldenfrei 6. The Anxieties of Autonomy: Peter Eisenman from Cambridge to House VI Sean Keller Part 3: Societies of Consumers: Materialist Ideologies and Postwar Goods 7. "But a home is not a laboratory": The Anxieties of Designing for the Socialist Home in the German Democratic Republic 1950—1965 Katharina Pfützner 8. Architect-designed Interiors for a Culturally Progressive Upper-Middle Class: The Implicit Political Presence of Knoll International in Belgium Fredie Floré 9. Domestic Environment: Italian Neo-Avant-Garde Design and the Politics of Post-Materialism Mary Louise Lobsinger Part 4: Class Concerns and Conflict: Dwelling and Politics 10. Dirt and Disorder: Taste and Anxiety in the Working Class Home Christine Atha 11. Upper West Side Stories: Race, Liberalism, and Narratives of Urban Renewal in Postwar New York Jennifer Hock 12. Pawns or Prophets? Postwar Architects and Utopian Designs for Southern Italy Anne Parmly Toxey. Coda: From Homelessness to Homelessness David Crowley

Role of information and communication in redefining unmanned aerial vehicle autonomous control levels

Autonomous mission control, unlike automatic mission control which is generally pre-programmed to execute an intended mission, is guided by the philosophy of carrying out a complete mission on its own through online sensing, information processing, and control reconfiguration. A crucial cornerstone of this philosophy is the capability of intelligence and of information sharing between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or with a central controller through secured communication links. Though several mission control algorithms, for single and multiple UAVs, have been discussed in the literature, they lack a clear definition of the various autonomous mission control levels. In the conventional system, the ground pilot issues the flight and mission control command to a UAV through a command data link and the UAV transmits intelligence information, back to the ground pilot through a communication link. Thus, the success of the mission depends entirely on the information flow through a secured communication link between ground pilot and the UAV In the past, mission success depended on the continuous interaction of ground pilot with a single UAV, while present day applications are attempting to define mission success through efficient interaction of ground pilot with multiple UAVs. However, the current trend in UAV applications is expected to lead to a futuristic scenario where mission success would depend only on interaction among UAV groups with no interaction with any ground entity. However, to reach this capability level, it is necessary to first understand the various levels of autonomy and the crucial role that information and communication plays in making these autonomy levels possible. This article presents a detailed framework of UAV autonomous mission control levels in the context of information flow and communication between UAVs and UAV groups for each level of autonomy.

Digital competence and professional development of vocational education and training teachers in Queensland

Teaching with digital technologies is essential to the development of 21st century students’ graduate capabilities. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which Queensland VET teachers engage with digitally-enhanced teaching, or have the capacity to do so. Using a mixed methods approach, this thesis investigated the current digital teaching capacities of VET teachers and how current professional development opportunities are helping to address their learning needs.

In-training assessment - Its potential in enhancing clinical teaching

Context In-training assessment (ITA) has established its place alongside formative and summative assessment at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level. In this paper the authors aimed to identify those characteristics of ITA that could enhance clinical teaching. Methods A literature review and discussions by an expert working group at the Ninth Cambridge Conference identified the aspects of ITA that could enhance clinical teaching. Results The features of ITA identified included defining the specific benefits to the learner, teacher and institution, and highlighting the patient as the context for ITA and clinical teaching. The ‘mapping’ of a learner’s progress towards the clinical teaching objectives by using multiple assessments over time, by multiple observers in both a systematic and opportunistic way correlates with the incremental nature of reaching clinical competence. Conclusions The importance of ITA based on both direct and indirect evidence of what the learner actually does in the real clinical setting is emphasized. Particular attention is given to addressing concerns in the more controversial areas of assessor training, ratings and documentation for ITA. Areas for future research are also identified.

Vendors' perspectives of coordination in the information technology offshore outsourcing industry : An exploratory study from the Philippines

This study investigates how offshore information technology (IT) service providers (vendors) coordinate work with their clients (employers) in order to succeed in the global IT offshore outsourcing industry. We reviewed literature on coordination studies, interviewed offshore service providers in the Philippines, and used thematic analysis to analyse coordination practices from the point of view of these individual vendors in a newly industrialized country. We used Olson and Olson's framework on 'collaboration at a distance' as a lens to structure the results. The study provides an understanding of vendors' individual attitudes towards the coordination of distributed work and draws attention to how differences in power affect the work situation of vendors, and by implication all stakeholders. We offer this insight as a way to enhance existing CSCW frameworks, by imbuing them with the perspective of non-equal relationships. The study found that vendors were generally able to produce outputs that satisfy their clients, however these results were only achieved because individuals were willing to take risks and make sacrifices in their personal lives. The relationship was further characterised by a complex interplay between the client's control of the overall work arrangements and the vendors' ability to establish a level of autonomy in their work practices and their flexible use of coordination tools.

Good Lives, Hidden Miseries : An Ethnography of Uncertainty in a Finnish Village

This is an ethnographic study, in the field of medical anthropology, of village life among farmers in southwest Finland. It is based on 12 months of field work conducted 2002-2003 in a coastal village. The study discusses how social and cultural change affects the life of farmers, how they experience it and how they act in order to deal with the it. Using social suffering as a methodological approach the study seeks to investigate how change is related to lived experiences, idioms of distress, and narratives. Its aim has been to draw a locally specific picture of what matters are at stake in the local moral world that these farmers inhabit, and how they emerge as creative actors within it. A central assumption made about change is that it is two-fold; both a constructive force which gives birth to something new, and also a process that brings about uncertainty regarding the future. Uncertainty is understood as an existential condition of human life that demands a response, both causing suffering and transforming it. The possibility for positive outcomes in the future enables one to understand this small suffering of everyday life both as a consequence of social change, which fragments and destroys, and as an answer to it - as something that is positively meaningful. Suffering is seen to engage individuals to ensure continuity, in spite of the odds, and to sustain hope regarding the future. When the fieldwork was initiated Finland had been a member of the European Union for seven years and farmers felt it had substantially impacted on their working conditions. They complained about the restrictions placed on their autonomy and that their knowledge was neither recognised, nor respected by the bureaucrats of the EU system. New regulations require them to work in a manner that is morally unacceptable to them and financial insecurity has become more prominent. All these changes indicate the potential loss of the home and of the ability to ensure continuity of the family farm. Although the study initially focused on getting a general picture of working conditions and the nature of farming life, during the course of the fieldwork there was repeated mention of a perceived high prevalence of cancer in the area. This cancer talk is replete with metaphors that reveal cultural meanings tied to the farming life and the core values of autonomy, endurance and permanence. It also forms the basis of a shared identity and a means of delivering a moral message about the fragmentation of the good life; the loss of control; and the invasion of the foreign. This thesis formed part of the research project Expressions of Suffering. Ethnographies of Illness Experiences in Contemporary Finnish Contexts funded by the Academy of Finland. It opens up a vital perspective on the multiplicity and variety of the experience of suffering and that it is particularly through the use of the ethnographic method that these experiences can be brought to light. Keywords: suffering, uncertainty, phenomenology, habitus, agency, cancer, farming

The Relational Self, the Social Bond and the Dynamics of Personal Relationships : A Sociological Analysis

This study analyses personal relationships linking research to sociological theory on the questions of the social bond and on the self as social. From the viewpoint of disruptive life events and experiences, such as loss, divorce and illness, it aims at understanding how selves are bound to their significant others as those specific people ‘close or otherwise important’ to them. Who form the configurations of significant others? How do different bonds respond in disruptions and how do relational processes unfold? How is the embeddedness of selves manifested in the processes of bonding, on the one hand, and in the relational formation of the self, on the other? The bonds are analyzed from an anti-categorical viewpoint based on personal citations of significance as opposed to given relationship categories, such as ‘family’ or ‘friendship’ – the two kinds of relationships that in fact are most frequently significant. The study draws from analysis of the personal narratives of 37 Finnish women and men (in all 80 interviews) and their entire configurations of those specific people who they cite as ‘close or otherwise important’. The analysis stresses the subjective experiences, while also investigating the actualized relational processes and configurations of all personal relationships with certain relationship histories embedded in micro-level structures. The research is based on four empirical sub-studies of personal relationships and a summary discussing the questions of the self and social bond. Discussion draws from G. H. Mead, C. Cooley, N. Elias, T. Scheff, G. Simmel and the contributors of ‘relational sociology’. Sub-studies analyse bonds to others from the viewpoint of biographical disruption and re-configuration of significant others, estranged family bonds, peer support and the formation of the most intimate relationships into exclusive and inclusive configurations. All analyses examine the dialectics of the social and the personal, asking how different structuring mechanisms and personal experiences and negotiations together contribute to the unfolding of the bonds. The summary elaborates personal relationships as social bonds embedded in wider webs of interdependent people and social settings that are laden with cultural expectations. Regarding the question of the relational self, the study proposes both bonding and individuality as significant. They are seen as interdependent phases of the relationality of the self. Bonding anchors the self to its significant relationships, in which individuality is manifested, for example, in contrasting and differentiating dynamics, but also in active attempts to connect with others. Individuality is not a fixed quality of the self, but a fluid and interdependent phase of the relational self. More specifically, it appears in three formats in the flux of relational processes: as a sense of unique self (via cultivation of subjective experiences), as agency and as (a search for) relative autonomy. The study includes an epilogue addressing the ambivalence between the social expectation of individuality in society and the bonded reality of selves.

Social Responsibility in Developing New Biotechnology : Interpretations of Responsibility in the Governance of Finnish Biotechnology

The object of the dissertation is to analyse the concept of social responsibility in relation to research and development of new biotechnology. This is done by examining the relevant actors – researchers, administrators, decision-makers, experts, industry, and the public – involved in the Finnish governance of biotechnology through their roles and responsibilities. Existing practises of responsibility in biotechnology governance, as well as the discourses of responsibility – the actors’ conceptions of their own and others responsibilities – are analysed. Three types of responsibility that the actors have assumed are formulated, and the implications of these conceptions to the governance of new biotechnology are analysed. From these different types of responsibility adopted and used by the actors, theoretical models called responsibility chains are constructed. The notion of responsibility is under-theorised in sociology and this research is an attempt to create a mid-range theory of responsibility in the context of biotechnology governance. The research aims to increase understanding of the governance system from a holistic viewpoint by contributing to academic debates on science and technology policy, public understanding of science, commercialisation of research, and corporate social responsibility. With a thorough analysis of the concept of responsibility that is derived from empirical data, the research brings new perspectives into these debates by challenging many normative ideas embedded in discourses. For example, multiple roles of the public are analysed to highlight the problems of consumerism and citizen participation in practise, as well as in relation to different policy strategies. The research examines also the contradictory responsibilities faced by biotechnology researchers, who balance between academic autonomy, commercialisation of research, and reflecting social consequences of their work. Industries responsibilities are also examined from the viewpoint of biotechnology. The research methodology addresses the contradictions between empirical findings, theories of biotechnology governance, and policies in a novel way, as the study concentrates on several actors and investigates both the discourses and the practises of the actors. Thus, the qualitative method of analysis is a combination of discourse and content analysis. The empirical material is comprised of 29 personal interviews as well as documents by Finnish and multinational organizations on biotechnology governance.

The selection, optimization, and compensation model in the work context: A systematic review and meta-analysis of two decades of research

Over the past two decades, the selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) model has been applied in the work context to investigate antecedents and outcomes of employees' use of action regulation strategies. We systematically review, meta-analyze, and critically discuss the literature on SOC strategy use at work and outline directions for future research and practice. The systematic review illustrates the breadth of constructs that have been studied in relation to SOC strategy use, and that SOC strategy use can mediate and moderate relationships of person and contextual antecedents with work outcomes. Results of the meta-analysis show that SOC strategy use is positively related to age (rc = .04), job autonomy (rc = .17), self-reported job performance (rc = .23), non-self-reported job performance (rc = .21), job satisfaction (rc = .25), and job engagement (rc = .38), whereas SOC strategy use is not significantly related to job tenure, job demands, and job strain. Overall, our findings underline the importance of the SOC model for the work context, and they also suggest that its measurement and reporting standards need to be improved to become a reliable guide for future research and organizational practice.

Elämän tiede : Tutkimus lääketieteellisestä teknologiasta, vanhemmuudesta ja perimän hallinnasta

Doctoral dissertation work in sociology examines how human heredity became a scientific, political and a personal issue in the 20th century Finland. The study focuses on the institutionalisation of rationales and technologies concerning heredity, in the context of Finnish medicine and health care. The analysis concentrates specifically on the introduction and development of prenatal screening within maternity care. The data comprises of medical articles, policy documents and committee reports, as well as popular guidebooks and health magazines. The study commences with an analysis on the early 20th century discussions on racial hygiene. It ends with an analysis on the choices given to pregnant mothers and families at present. Freedom to choose, considered by geneticists and many others as a guarantee of the ethicality of medical applications, is presented in this study as a historically, politically and scientifically constructed issue. New medical testing methods have generated new possibilities of governing life itself. However, they have also created new ethical problems. Leaning on recent historical data, the study illustrates how medical risk rationales on heredity have been asserted by the medical profession into Finnish health care. It also depicts medical professions ambivalence between maintaining the patients autonomy and utilizing for example prenatal testing according to health policy interests. Personalized risk is discussed as a result of the empirical analysis. It is indicated that increasing risk awareness amongst the public, as well as offering choices, have had unintended consequences. According to doctors, present day parents often want to control risks more than what is considered justified or acceptable. People s hopes to anticipate the health and normality of their future children have exceeded the limits offered by medicine. Individualization of the government of heredity is closely linked to a process that is termed as depolitization. The concept refers to disembedding of medical genetics from its social contexts. Prenatal screening is regarded to be based on individual choice facilitated by neutral medical knowledge. However, prenatal screening within maternity care also has its basis in health policy aims and economical calculations. Methodological basis of the study lies in Michel Foucault s writings on the history of thought, as well as in science and technology studies.

Parisuhde ja ero : Sosiologinen analyysi terapeuttisesta ymmärryksestä

This study takes as its premise the prominent social and cultural role that the couple relationship has acquired in modern society. Marriage as a social institution and romantic love as a cultural script have not lost their significance but during the last few decades the concept of relationship has taken prominence in our understanding of the love relationship. This change has taken place in a society governed by the therapeutic ethos. This study uses material ranging from in-depth interviews to various mass media texts to investigate the therapeutic logic that determines our understanding of the couple relationship. The central concept in this study is therapeutic relationship which does not refer to any particular type of relationship. In contemporary usage the relationship is, by definition, therapeutic. The therapeutic relationship is seen as an endless source of conflict and a highly complex dynamic unit in constant need of attention and treatment. Notwithstanding this emphasis on therapy and relationship work the therapeutic relationship lacks any morally or socially defined direction. Here lies the cultural power and according to critics the dubious aspect of the therapeutic ethos. For the therapeutic logic any reason for divorce is possible and plausible. Prosaically speaking the question is not whether to divorce or not, but when to divorce. In the end divorce only attests to the complexity of the relationship. The therapeutic understanding of the relationship gives the illusion that relationships with their tensions and conflicting emotions can be fully transferred to the sphere of transparency and therapeutic processing. This illusion created by relationship talk that emphasizes individual control is called omnipotence of the individual. However, the study shows that the individual omnipotence is inevitably limited and hence cracks appear in it. The cracks in the omnipotence show that while the therapeutic relationship based on the ideal of communication gives an individual a mode of speaking that stresses autonomy, equality and emotional gratification, it offers little help in expressing our fundamental dependence on other people. The study shows how strong an attraction the therapeutic ethos has with its grasp on the complexities of the relationship in a society where divorce is so common and the risk of divorce is collectively experienced.

Consent Practices and Biomedical Knowledge Production in Tissue Economies

The use of human tissue sample collections has become an important tool in biomedical research. The collection, use and distribution of human tissue samples, which include blood and diagnostic tissue samples, from which DNA can be extracted and analyzed has also become a major bio-political preoccupation, not only in national contexts, but also at the transnational level. The foundation of medical research rests on the relationship between the doctor and the research subject. This relationship is a social one, in that it is based on informed consent, privacy and autonomy, where research subjects are made aware of what they are getting involved in and are then able to make an informed decision as to whether or not to participate. Within the post-genomic era, however, our understanding of what constitutes informed consent, privacy and autonomy is changing in relation to the needs of researchers, but also as a reflection of policy aspirations. This reflects a change in the power relations between the rights of the individual in relation to the interests of science and society. Using the notions of tissue economies and biovalue (Waldby, 2002) this research explores the changing relationship between sources and users of samples in biomedical research by examining the contexts under which human tissue samples and the information that is extracted from them are acquired, circulated and exchanged in Finland. The research examines how individual rights, particularly informed consent, are being configured in relation to the production of scientific knowledge in tissue economies in Finland from the 1990s to the present. The research examines the production of biovalue through the organization of scientific knowledge production by examining the policy context of knowledge production as well as three case studies (Tampere Research Tissue Bank, Hereditary Non-polyposis Colorectal Cancer and the Finnish Genome Information Center) in which tissues are acquired, circulated and exchanged in Finland. The research shows how interpretations of informed consent have become divergent and the elements and processes that have contributed to these differences. This inquiry shows how the relationship between the interests of individuals is re-configured in relation to the interests of science and society. It indicates how the boundary between interpretations of informed consent, on the one hand, and social and scientific interests, on the other, are being re-drawn and that this process is underscored, in part, by the economic, commercial and preventive potential that research using tissue samples are believed to produce. This can be said to fundamentally challenge the western notion that the rights of the individual are absolute and inalienable within biomedical legislation.

Ydinperheen politiikka

The research topic is the formation of nuclear family understanding and the politicization of nuclear family. Thus, the question is how did family historically become understood particularly as nuclear family and why did it become central in terms of politics and social? The research participates in discussions on the concept and phenomena of family. Central theme of analysis is to ask what is family? Family is seen as historically contingent and the discussions on the concept and phenomena are done via historical analysis. Center of attention is nuclear family, thus, a distinction between the concepts of family and nuclear family is made to be able to focus on historically specific phenomena of nuclear family. Family contrary to the concept of nuclear family -- in general is seen to be able to refer to families in all times and all cultures, as well as all types of families in our times and culture. The nuclear family understanding is examined through two separate themes, that of parent-child relationships and marital relations. Two simultaneous processes give nuclear family relations its current form: on the one hand the marital couple as the basis of family is eroding and losing its capacity to hold the family together; on the other, in Finland at least from 1950s on, the normal development of the child has became to be seen ontologically bound to the (biological) mother and (via her to) the father. In the nucleus of the family is the child: the biological, psychological and social processes of normal development are seen ontologically bound to the nuclear family relations. Thus, marriages can collapse, but nuclear family is unbreakable. What is interesting is the historical timing: as nuclear family relations had just been born, the marriage dived to a crisis. The concept and phenomena of nuclear family is analyzed in the context of social and politics (in Finnish these two collapses in the concept of yhteiskunnallinen , which refers both to a society as natural processes as well as to the state in terms of politics). Family is political and social in two senses. First, it is understood as the natural origin of the social and society. Human, by definition, is understood as a social being and the origin of social, in turn, is seen to be in the family. Family is seen as natural to species. Disturbances in family life lead to un-social behaviour. Second, family is also seen as a political actor of rights and obligations: family is obligated to control the life of its members. The state patronage is seen at the same time inevitable family life is way too precious to leave alone -- and problematic as it seems to disturb the natural processes of the family or to erode the autonomy of it. The rigueur of the nuclear family is in the role it seems to hold in the normal development of the child and the future of the society. The disturbances in the families first affect the child, then the society. In terms of possibility to re-think the family the natural and political collide: the nuclear family seems as natural, unchangeable, un- negotiable. Nuclear family is historically ontologised. The biological, psychological and social facts of family seem to be contrary to the idea of negotiation and politics the natural facts of family problematise the politics of family. The research material consists of administrational documents, memoranda, consultation documents, seminar reports, educational writings, guidebooks and newspaper articles in family politics between 1950s and 1990s.