S1 - Everyday Family Life

ANNA RONKA University of Jyvaskyla

PIRJO KORVELA University of Helsinki*

Everyday Family Life: Dimensions, Approaches,

and Current Challenges

The aim of this systematic literature reviewwas to identify, categorize, and evaluate theempirical research that has been conductedon everyday family life. Fifty-three empiricallybased articles focusing on everyday familylife were included in the analysis, whichfocused on the conceptual, empirical, andtheoretical content. According to our review,everyday family life comprises three dimensions:emotions, actions, and temporality. It is acontinuously constructed process in whichfamily members transmit emotions, engagein activities, and schedule timetables in thecourse of interactions with each other andwith the wider social context. Three empiricalor theoretical approaches were identified: theemotion transmission approach, the culturalactivity approach, and the constructionistapproach, all of which adopt research methodsand concepts sensitive to daily fluctuations.

In everyday life there are many family activitiesthat take up a considerable amount of time,energy, and attention. However, as Kerry Daly(2003) noted, most aspects of everyday family

Family Research Centre, University of Jyvaskyla, Finland([email protected]).∗Department of Home Economics and Craft Sciences,University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.Key Words: everyday family life, conceptual analysis,

literature review, research approaches.

life are poorly represented in theorizationabout families. Why are the ordinary activitiesof families understudied? It is clear thatapproaching the family from the everyday lifeperspective presents a challenge to researchersbecause it includes a variety of activities andis familiar to all people. According to Daly(2003), many aspects of everyday family lifetranscend rational and logical ways of behavingand are thus difficult to capture and understandvia traditional theories and methods. Regardlessof the overflow and pervasiveness of everydayfamily life, we were concerned with identifyingthe relevant aspects worth studying.

Recently, there has been some debate aboutthe methods suitable for studying everydaylife (e.g., Bolger, Davis, & Rafaeli, 2003;Larson & Almeida, 1999; Schneider, 2006;Tuomi-Grohn, 2008b, 2008c). In this paperwe argue that there has been a particularlack of attempts to analyze the theoreticaland conceptual elements of everyday or dailylife (for exceptions, see Felski, 1999–2000;Tuomi-Grohn, 2008a). By theoretical analyseswe mean elaborations concerning, for example,such questions as, Why study everyday familylife? What dimensions are relevant and whattheoretical approaches are useful? This articleseeks to answer these questions by synthesizingcurrent empirical findings, conceptualizations,and theoretical explanations relating to anunderstanding of everyday family life. We startby defining the concept of everyday life in the

Journal of Family Theory & Review 1 (June 2009): 87–102 87

88 Journal of Family Theory & Review

context of families while recognizing that thereare many elements of everyday life that occur innonfamily contexts (e.g., work). We then reviewthe available empirical research literature oneveryday family life and compare the differentresearch approaches. Finally, we discuss someof the current challenges that family membersface in their daily lives and discuss the relevanceand boundaries of the everyday perspective infamily research along with its links to conceptssuch as family life and family process.

Everyday Family Life

Bennett and Watson (2002, p. x) notedthat the emergence of everyday life isdifficult to define, because it could beregarded both as a theoretical concept and asexperienced practice. As a theoretical concept,everyday life first appeared in the 1920s,but its origin is in the 19th century whenthe process of industrialization increasinglyseparated production and reproduction, workand housing, work time and leisure time, andthe private and the public into different spheresof life (Bennett & Watson, p. x; Lefebvre, 1971;Salmi & Kivimaki, 1997).

In the few definitions of everyday life thatexist, the following aspects have been observed:First, everyday life has no clear boundariesand is difficult to identify (Felski, 1999–2000,p. 15). Second, everyday life is a concept thatunites the different spheres of life (Salmi &Kivimaki, 1997) and denotes the rhythms androutines of daily existence (Bennett & Watson,2002). Third, it is not just a frame or a context forwhat people do but is constantly created and con-structed by everyone (Bech Jorgensen, 1991).Fourth, as Salmi and Kivimaki noted, althougheveryday denotes ordinary, mundane, day-to-day life, it cannot be defined as the oppositeof exceptional, extraordinary, or unusual events.

Some researchers have tried to outline thebasic dimensions or aspects of everyday life.Felski (1999–2000) reviewed the work ofLefebvre (1971), Heller (1984), and Schutz(Schutz & Luckmann, 1973). From her readingshe pieced together (p. 18) a definition ofeveryday life grounded in three key dimensions:time, space, and modality. She suggested that thetemporality of the everyday is that of repetition,whereas the spatial ordering of the everyday isanchored, as she saw it, in a sense of homeand the characteristic mode of experiencing

the everyday is that of habit. Daly (2003,p. 771) noted that everyday life is shaped bythe complex intersection of many forces. In linewith Felski, he paid attention to the temporaland spatial aspects of everyday life, but healso differentiated as dimensions of everydaylife, among other things, material concerns,health issues, moral and spiritual concerns, andrelationship concerns. On the basis of previousliterature on everyday life, we propose a tentativedefinition of everyday family life: Everydayfamily life is a process that family membersconstantly create and construct in time and space,together and separately, by material, mental,and social means. Everyday family life comeswithin the broad definition of everyday life butis defined by and delimited to the context of afamily. Below, we examine the literature to seeto what extent empirical research fills out thedefinition proposed above.

The Aims of This Article

The aim of this systematic review of the literatureis to identify, categorize, and evaluate existingempirical research on everyday family life andto compare the research approaches within it.The research questions in our review are asfollows: What are the most central objects ofresearch in the area of everyday family life andwhat concepts are used in operationalizing theobject of research? What is the unit of analysisin analyzing everyday family life? What are themost central research approaches adopted and inwhat ways do they differ?

METHOD

Search Methods

Among the various types of literature review(meta-analysis, systematic qualitative literaturereview, narrative literature review), our reviewbelongs to the narrative literature reviewcategory (Baumeister & Leary, 1997; B.J. Green, Johnson, & Adams, 2001). Anarrative literature review is valuable inlinking together methodologically diverse,multidisciplinary studies—in other words, itcovers the broad span of the relevant research inthe field. We used several methods to identifyrelevant studies, but most were identifiedthrough a systematic literature search via theERIC, PsycINFO, and EBSCO databases. The

Everyday Family Life 89

literature search was conducted in the springand autumn of 2007. We included studies inwhich the words everyday family life or dailyfamily life were used in the title or keywordsof the study. We excluded articles publishedin medical journals. These were articles inwhich everyday family life was approachedfrom the perspective of physical or mentalillness or retardation (a relatively large groupof articles in which the main aim was toanalyze how, after having various diseases,individuals cope in their daily activities). Wealso excluded articles with a pedagogicalor educational perspective (e.g., articles thatdealt with everyday family life as a learningenvironment for academic skills). We did,however, choose for our analysis some articlesthat did not use daily or everyday family lifein their titles or keywords but that neverthelessdealt with everyday family life. Among thesewere, for example, articles on handling day-to-day life or on how individuals live their lives. Oursearch was restricted to articles and chapters ofbooks written in English. In addition to searchingfor literature via databases, we also performedbackward searching through reference lists, ashas previously been suggested (B. J. Greenet al.). In all, we identified 53 empirical studiesfocusing largely on daily family life; theseappeared in 15 journals and 21 books and werepublished in the period 1990–2007.

Analysis

In reviewing the articles we paid attention to theirconceptual, empirical, and theoretical content.We started by conducting a general overviewof the studies and continued by categorizingand clustering them on the basis of two criteria:the object of the research (e.g., daily activities,the transmission of daily emotions) and theunit of analysis. Daly (2007) pointed out thatseveral units of analysis can be accommodatedwhen studying families. We applied four unitsof analysis in categorizing the concepts usedto define everyday family life: The first unitof analysis is the individual; that is, we hearthe different voices in the family from theperspective of different family members. Thesecond unit of analysis is the dyad, which allowsthe analysis of interaction processes, and thethird unit of analysis is the family. Because thefamily is more than the sum of its members,it is important to deal with the we-ness of the

family, or how the family members constructfamily life together. The fourth unit of analysisdeals with the relationship between the familyand the larger environment or other contexts.Furthermore, in reviewing the articles we paidattention to the theoretical and methodologicalapproaches adopted.

RESULTS

General Overview of the Studies

In reviewing the articles (marked with * inthe references), we noticed that the concept ofeveryday family life or daily life was very oftentaken for granted and that what is understoodto represent everyday family life seems to varygreatly. The concept of everyday family lifewas usually combined with only one or twolife areas or roles, generally work, the maritalrelationship, or parenting. Of these, the dailymarital relationship seemed just recently tohave become a more common topic of research(e.g., Doumas, Margolin, & John, 2003; Schulz,Cowan, Cowan, & Brennan, 2004). In studies ofthis kind the focus was on the daily fluctuation ofemotions and interactions between the couples,for example, in the daily juggling between workand the home.

The interest in daily family life seemed, inmost cases, to concern its negative aspects,that is, things that are not working well,cause problems, and give rise to feelings ofdissatisfaction. Researchers have looked, forexample, at daily hassles and stress (Almeida,2005; Almeida & McDonald, 1998; Coplan,Bowker, & Cooper, 2003; Crnic & Low, 2002;Repetti & Wood, 1997), the transmission ofnegative emotions and experiences (Almeida,Wethington, & McDonald, 2001; Matjasko& Feldman, 2006; Repetti & Wood, 1997),difficult moments such as family ‘‘rush hours’’(Galinsky, 1999; Schulz et al., 2004), andwork-family interference (van Hooff, Geurts,Kompier, & Taris, 2006). There were, however,exceptions. For example, Delle Fave andMassimini (2004) studied the ways in whichparents can learn important life skills in dailyfamily life and discuss optimal experiences.They found that of the different life areas(parenting, work, leisure, media), parenting wasexperienced as the most satisfying, offering bothhigh challenges and high involvement for bothwomen and men.


Dimensions of Everyday Life

On the basis of our literature review, thetopical areas of recent research on everydaylife fall roughly into three main dimensions,which we labeled as emotions, actions, andtemporality (see Table 1). Most of the studieswe reviewed were concerned with one ofthese three dimensions. There were also a fewarticles that dealt with some other aspects ofeveryday family life such as media use orreligion, but the three main dimensions werevery clear. The perspectives from which thestudies we examined dealt with these dimensionsvaried, from the perspective of individual familymembers to that of couples and dyads to that offamilies as a whole, for example, in terms offamily processes.

Emotions in everyday family life. Emotions areconsidered an important aspect of daily familylife because their quality influences individualperceptions, thoughts, behavior, and well-being(Larson, 2005). In all, 43% of the articleswe traced were concerned with emotions ineveryday family life. According to Larson andAlmeida (1999), the centrality of emotions indaily family life has been noted in several areasof family research: in parenting, the maritalrelationship, family therapy, and work-familyinteraction. How people feel in their daily lifeaffects their ability to fulfill their roles as parentsand spouses. Emotional well-being is seen asvery important in family life today. Perrezet al. (2005) emphasized that in the view offamily sociologists the function of the familyas an arena of emotion regulation has becomemore important, whereas some other functions

have become less significant. Accordingly, Koh(2005) noted that emotional satisfaction and thesharing of thoughts have become among themost important criteria of marital quality today.Paying attention to emotions is linked with a risein affective individualism that goes back to theemergence of the modern family (Shorter, 1977,pp. 5–6) during industrialization. According toDaly (2003), emotions are still an unstudiedarea in family life, although their visibility ineveryday life is evident: Emotions such as love,hate, jealousy, and empathy are often expressedin the family realm.

In the family context, individuals tend toand are even encouraged to express all kindsof emotions, including negative emotions suchas anger, sadness, and irritation (Perrez et al.,2005). This is because in comparison to otherkinds of human relationships, such as peerrelationships or relationships with colleagues,family relationships are more permanent; thus itis, or should be, safe for individuals to expresstheir negative as well as their positive sides.In particular, the relationship between parentand child is strong; hence it provides a safefoundation for showing a range of emotions.The nature of family relationships becomes clearwhen we take into account the fact that theserelationships often have a biological, emotional,and legal basis.

There are other reasons why emotions are sovisible in everyday life. First, daily life includesrepeated routines and hassles that may evolveemotions (Almeida, 2005). Second, the familyhas multiple voices—the voices of parents andchildren, for example—and these may conflict.As Larson and Richards (1994) pointed out,it is an illusion to see the family as a single,

Table 1. The Dimensions and Levels of Everyday Family Life

Emotions Actions Temporality

Individual level Mood, affect, and experiences Actions, tasks, duties,obligations, responsibilities,and engagement

Use of time, timetable, timebudget, and rhythm

Dyadic level Transmission (crossover),emotional work, andemotion regulation

Interaction, negotiation,involvement, and divisionof homework

Synchronization of timetablesand rhythms

Family level Atmosphere, climate, andemotional tension

Practices, routines, hassles,and tensions

Scheduling of timetables, keymoments, and family time

Family and the widersocial context

Transmission (spillover) Match/mismatch betweencultural traditions andfamily activities

Match/mismatch between theschedule of the family andsocial institutions


coherent unit. They prefer to talk about theseparate, sometimes conflicting worlds of themother, father, and children. Third, each familymember takes home experiences from the lifespheres they are involved in: work, day carecenter, school, and so forth. In the afternoon, inthe family ‘‘rush hour,’’ when family membersusually come home from work or school andare often tired, hungry, and frustrated (Galinsky,1999; Schulz et al., 2004), the home may easilybe loaded with negative emotions such asfrustration and anger. Negative emotions tendto spread, affecting the family atmosphere andthe interaction between family members.

Daily emotions have been studied inindividuals, for example, in terms of experiences(Delle Fave & Massimini, 2004; Koh, 2005;Matjasko & Feldman, 2006), mood, or affect(Meegan & Goedreis, 2006). Larson andRichards’s (1994) study was an attempt tounderstand the emotional lives of differentfamily members. They examined how thevarious members of the family felt duringthe day and week in everyday contexts andfound differences between family members onthat basis. Studies (e.g., Almeida & McDonald,1998) have demonstrated the existence of typicaldaily and weekly rhythms in emotions; thesetend to follow a weekday-weekend structure.

Recently the focus of a large body of familyresearch (e.g., Almeida & McDonald, 1998;Almeida, Wetherington, & Chandler, 1999;Almeida et al., 2001) has been on how emotionsand experiences are transmitted between familymembers. When dyads are taken as the unitof analysis (see Table 1), the concept ofcrossover (Westman, 2005) denotes the processin which one family member’s emotionalstate—for example, aggression—affects anotherfamily member’s mood so that she or he alsobecomes aggressive or upset. The transmissionof emotions is not, however, automatic. A parentcan do many things to filter and regulate her orhis negative emotions in order to avoid bringingthem home (e.g., from work); this can be done toavoid letting negative states spill over and affectthe child. Emotional work refers to actions andintentions intended to moderate one’s emotions;they act to improve other family members’well-being in terms of support and guidance(Erickson, 1993, 2005; Strazdins & Broom,2004). Family life can be seen as an arenafor learning emotional skills such as emotionregulation (Perrez et al., 2005).

One of the key purposes in family research isto understand the family holistically. Conceptsdescribing the emotional life of the familyinclude the emotional atmosphere or climate(Daly, 2003) and tensions in shared activities,which may turn emotional (Korvela, 1999).Daly (p. 775) noted that ‘‘although emotionsare embodied and expressed in individualfamily members, they are profoundly influencedby family rules and the collective familyatmosphere.’’ Everyday family life does notexist in a vacuum. For example, as indicatedabove, family members take home what theyfelt during the working day (e.g., Matjasko& Feldman, 2006) or what happened to themor to people close to them (Daly). Spilloverdenotes the process by which family membersbring with them experiences from other contexts(Westman, 2005). This is currently one of themost intensively investigated research topics.The question asked is, Does a hectic anddemanding working life damage family life?

Actions in everyday family life. The second basicdimension of everyday family life found inthe course of our review concerns actions andpractices. This dimension comprised 75% of thearticles surveyed. In studies of this kind, thefocus is on analyzing what family members dotogether and what they do individually and howcultural traditions and myths guide individualactions. Actions may also be analyzed accordingto the four units of analysis mentioned earlierand depicted in Table 1. When practices areapproached from the perspective of individuals,one can speak of individual actions, tasks,obligations, and duties (Cara, Pacholok, &Gauthier, 2005; Fuligni, Yip, & Tseng, 2002). Inthe case of dyadic relationships, concepts suchas interactions, engagement, involvement, andthe division of housework are used (Almeidaet al., 2001; Bjornberg & Kollind, 2005; Ochs,Graesch, Mittmann, Bradbury, & Repetti, 2006).On the family level, the concepts includefamily practices, routines, hassles, and tensions(Almeida, 2005; Almeida & McDonald, 1998;Coplan et al., 2003; Crnic & Low, 2002;Korvela, 1999). With respect to the link betweenthe family and the wider society and culture, thefocus is on the match or mismatch betweencultural traditions and societal demands on theone hand and on the other hand the practicesand routines of a single family. For example,this is the case in studies concerning immigrant


families and their everyday family activities(Fuligni et al.).

The actions of family members can also bestudied from the microsociological approach,which has evolved in family sociology. Inthis approach the aim is not just to definethe family (or family life) but rather to studyhow the family (or family life) is constructedthrough the everyday actions of its members:how responsibilities and rights are dividedand negotiated and in what way practices androutines are created (Gubrium & Holstein, 1990;Holstein & Gubrium, 1994; Morgan, 1996, 1999;Silva & Smart, 1999; Smart, 2007). Recently,there has been some debate about the agencyof family members in constructing the family;for example, are all family members similarlyinvolved in ‘‘doing’’ family life (Bianchi, 2006;Nelson, 2006)? An additional point regardingthe agency of family members has to dowith children’s agency—in what way are theyinvolved in negotiating family duties and rules?According to Dencik (2002), the childrearingculture has become more child centered duringrecent decades. Children are seen as subjects,not objects of socialization. Children are moreinvolved in deciding about family rights andresponsibilities, and this has resulted in anincrease in daily negotiations in the family.

Temporality in everyday family life. The thirddimension of everyday family life in ourconceptual analysis is temporality, which alsohas been considered an important aspect of dailylife (Daly, 2003; Felski, 1999–2000) and is thefocus of 60% of the literature we examined.Temporality refers not only to how familymembers use time but also to other temporalorganizations of practices and emotions, suchas periodicity, tempo, synchronization andcoordination, duration, sequence, and temporalrhythms (Southerton, 2006). Certain events,routines and practices exist every day in a similarorder. There are faster and slower cycles infamily life according to whether the interest isin daily, monthly, or yearly schedules. Thesehave to do partly with family members’ ownrhythms and partly with the time schedules ofthe institutions in which family members areinvolved.

Recent research in this area with individualfamily members as the unit of analysis hasfocused on timetables or time budgets—howfamily members share their time between

different activities (Deding & Lausten, 2006;Delle Fave & Massimini, 2004). When dyadicrelationships in the family are the unitof analysis, the research focus is on thesynchronization of timetables. At the familylevel, concepts relating to time include thescheduling of timetables, key moments, familytime, and ‘‘hot spots’’ and ‘‘cold spots’’(Daly, 2001; Southerton, 2003). From a widerperspective, the research focus is on the conceptsof time pressure and the match or mismatchbetween family members’ time schedules andthe institutions they are involved in (Korvela &Keskinen, 2008).

The arranging of timetables is nowadays amajor source of tension in the daily lives offamilies (e.g., Nasman, 2003). Families haveto combine the rhythms of parents’ workingschedules (daytime or shift work, part-time orfull-time employment, holidays, business travel)with those of day care needs and school, aswell as the hobbies and other activities thatchildren are expected to take part in (Korvela& Keskinen, 2008). In addition, the familyalso needs reasonable sleeping, eating, andrecreational habits (Ellegard & Cooper, 2004).An issue creating a mismatch between timetablesin the family and in society is the increase in theso-called around-the-clock economy (Strazdins,Korda, Lim, Broom, & D’Souza, 2004).

One of the most central challenges facingfamilies nowadays is the continuous senseof hurry, resulting in what has been called‘‘harriedness.’’ The shortage of time availableand the need for more time for oneself andone’s family is a constant topic in the mediaas well as in people’s everyday conversation.Family members are striving to find more timetogether, and parents, especially, feel guiltyabout spending too little time with their children(Daly, 2001). According to some researchers(Daly, 1996; Southerton, 2003), the reasonfor hurry and harriedness is not always thatpeople work harder or are really busier intheir lives. It may, in fact, be the increasedneed for coordinating time schedules that makespeople feel rushed. The coordination of timehas become more problematic because peoplenowadays are increasingly mobile and becauseinstitutions have become less rigid in theirtemporalities. It increasingly depends on theindividual’s own capacities whether she or he isable to control the use of free time or is ableto free up time for significant others. According


to Southerton (2003), it is the increased effortput into managing time that may create a senseof harriedness. Nevertheless, it is also possiblethat, with increased scheduling and controlling,people are actually doing more and thereforethat people really are busier than before.

Three Approaches in the Study of DailyFamily Life

We were also interested in the theoretical andmethodological approaches applied in studiesconcerning everyday family life. We identifiedthree approaches in the research literature,all of which combine the dimensions andlevels discussed above. The approaches are theemotional transmission approach, the culturalactivity approach, and the constructionistapproach.

These three research approaches do not rep-resent classical family theories, which haverecently been reviewed by White and Klein(2002) and Chibucos, Leite, and Weis (2005).Instead, they are relatively new in the area offamily research and in some cases have recentlybeen adopted from other fields of research. Thethree approaches differ from each other in theirbackground: Whereas the emotional transmis-sion approach arose from empirical research inthe area of family psychology, the cultural activ-ity approach has its origin in cultural psychol-ogy and is a derivative of sociocultural theory(Vygotsky, 1978) and cultural historical activitytheory (Leont’ev, 1978; Vygotsky). The con-structionist approach—which in recent years hasfrequently been cited within family sociologyand life course studies (see Holstein & Gubrium,

2007)—is for its part ‘‘more a mosaic of theoret-ical, methodological, and empirical sensibilitiesthan a singular, precisely specified analytic per-spective’’ (p. 335). The constructionist approachhas its roots in a variety of sources such asconstructionism (Gergen, 1994), social psychol-ogy, and phenomenological sociology (Schutz,1932/1967). Furthermore, one relevant branchwithin the constructionist approach has a basisin feminist family research, which is especiallyoccupied with the analysis of the construction ofgender via daily activities (e.g., Bianchi, 2006;Nelson, 2006).

These three approaches focus on everydaylife and analyze daily family life by combiningvarious concepts and methods (see Table 2). Indescribing these three approaches, we attendedto the following aspects: what concepts ofeveryday family life they use, what disciplinesthey represent, and what methods they adopt.

Emotional transmission. The emotional trans-mission approach, also known as the dailyprocess approach, is interested in daily emotions,experiences, and interactions. It was introducedby Larson and Almeida (1999) and namedas the ‘‘emotional transmission paradigm.’’This empirical approach has largely inspiredresearchers studying the transmission of moodstates generated at work to parenting (e.g.,Matjasko & Feldman, 2006), to the maritalrelationship (Schulz et al., 2004), and to chil-dren’s well-being (Almeida et al., 1999; Larson& Gillman, 1999). The focus of interest isthe transmission and daily variation of emo-tions between family members (crossover) andbetween contexts (spillover).

Table 2. Three Approaches in the Study of Everyday Family Life

Emotional TransmissionApproach Cultural Activity Approach Constructionist Approach

Main concepts Emotions, emotionaltransmission, spillover,crossover, and daily andweekly rhythm

Daily actions and routines,activity settings, culturallyand historically changingcollective activity

Rules, practices,responsibilities and familyatmosphere; individual vs.collective needs

Background Empirical research in the areaof family psychology and thedevelopment of diarymethods

Cultural psychology,sociocultural theory, andcultural historical activitytheory

Constructionism, socialpsychology,phenomenologicalsociology, and feministfamily research

Methodologicalapproach

Diary method and ExperienceSampling Method

Video analysis and qualitativeinterview

Qualitative interview and diarynarratives


The key to the emotional transmissionapproach is experience sampling and thedevelopment of diary methods (e.g., Bolgeret al., 2003; Schneider, 2006; Scollon, Kim-Prieto, & Diener, 2003); this means that repeatedmeasures of emotions, behaviors, or activitiesare obtained from family members on a dailybasis, over the course of a week or more. Theidea is to study family members intensively,typically for a week or two. Family membersreport their daily emotions, stress experiences,and activities, usually several times a day. Thetraditional paper and pencil as a tool of reportinghas been replaced or at least accompanied bynew technology-assisted tools such as hand-held computers (e.g., A. S. Green, Rafaeli,Bolger, Shrout, & Reis, 2006) and mobilephones (Ronka, Malinen, Kinnunen, Tolvanen,& Lamsa, in press). Recently, researchers in thisapproach have been interested in questions suchas what emotions family members experiencein different contexts. The focus is on how theseemotions vary during the day and week, howemotions are transmitted between contexts andbetween family members, and what buffers existagainst the spillover and crossover of negativework experiences.

Diary studies have thus far largely concen-trated on well-functioning families; there has,however, recently been growing interest inadopting a diary approach in order to studychallenging family situations, such as familieswith ADHD children (Whalen et al., 2006) orchildren suffering from asthma (Fiese, Winter,& Anbar, 2007). These types of studies havea new research focus, such as daily hassles(usually defined as stresses related to everydayroutine or undesirable child behavior; see, e.g.,Coplan et al., 2003) and how these accumulateover the week and affect parents’ daily moodand parenting stress.

Cultural activity. The cultural activity approachis not a single approach but merely an umbrellaunder which are gathered different theorieswith a cultural activity–oriented background(Leont’ev, 1978, originally published in the1930s; Vygotsky, 1978). Researchers haveapplied a cultural approach, for example, tostudying the interactions between parents andtheir children (Tulviste, 1995, 2001, 2002), thefamily in an educational context (Hedegaard& Chaiklin, 2005), and how family membersconstruct their homes with everyday actions

(Korvela, 1999). Others have examined howeveryday life has changed over the course oftime (Korvela & Keskinen, 2008).

In the cultural activity–related approaches,an activity (also activity setting) is usually theunit of analysis. This means that individualand collective actions and everyday routinesare studied in the context of culturally andhistorically evolving collective and societalactivity. Individuals use material, social, andcultural means to understand and organize theireveryday lives. For example, a study using thisapproach might examine how family practicessuch as childrearing or food-, housing- andcleaning-related activities differ in differentcultures or how they have changed, faded, oremerged over time. The study might shed lighton why some practices have evolved into theircurrent form. The reason may be that the rules,the division of labor, or the tools relating tothe activity have changed; here the term toolsmeans the different kinds of artifacts that serveas mediators of the activity the individuals areconstructing.

Most important, in this approach the everydaylife of families is analyzed as a culturally andhistorically sensitive and changing activity. Forexample, the study by Korvela and Keskinen(2008) on changes in everyday life in Finnishfamilies showed that the everyday life of familiesin agrarian society was intertwined with workand the home. Working in a close relationshipwith nature and its forces was hard, and theobjective of life could be described as scratchingout a living—providing for everyday bread andshelter. In contemporary society, families areincreasingly connected with the multiple activitysystems outside the home. The objective ofeveryday family life is often to organize andshuttle between home, work, school, day care,hobbies, and other ordinary activities (Korvela& Keskinen).

Because families construct their everydayroutines in relation to their environment andcommunity, an activity setting is not static;rather, it is something that changes as aresult of internal family processes and cultural-historical processes (involving how the society,the community, and the physical environmentchange). In this sense it is beyond the controlof individual households (Gallimore, Weisner,Kaufman, & Bernheimer, 1989, pp. 217–218).

One promising theory within the culturalactivity approach is the eco-cultural theory,


which, in turn, draws on sociocultural the-ory (Vygotsky, 1978) and ecological theory(Bronfenbrenner, 1979). This theory proposesthat ecological effects in families are mediatedthrough the activity settings of daily routines(Janhonen-Abruquah, 2006a, 2006b; Tharp &Gallimore, 1988; Weisner & Gallimore, 1994).According to the cultural activity approaches,a concrete institutional practice, for example,family life, is an integral whole, realized by theactions and interactions of multiple participants.At the same time, the production, reproduction,and development of this practice are influencedby social, community, family, and individualforces (Hedegaard & Chaiklin, 2005). Culturalactivity approaches use the methods of history,interviews, and ethnography, employing alsovisual methods, such as video recordings andphotographs, in order to capture the activity ofinterest.

Constructionist. The third approach concernsdaily family life considered from a construc-tionist perspective. We identified two researchtraditions represented by this perspective. Onefocuses on how family life is constructed indaily life and the other on how individual iden-tity and the identity of the family (we-ness)are constructed in postmodern individualizedsocieties. For example, one research traditionis interested in how family members in theireveryday life set rules and practices (Gubrium& Holstein, 1990; Holstein & Gubrium, 1994;Morgan, 1996, 1999; Silva & Smart, 1999;Smart, 2007), how they divide responsibili-ties and rights (Bjornberg & Kollind, 2005),how they construct gender roles (e.g., Bianchi,2006; Nelson, 2006; Silva & Smart), and howthey define the boundaries of the family (e.g.,Bianchi; Nelson). These questions are especiallyrelevant in cases where the family does not fallwithin the category of the traditional family(what has been referred to as SNAF, the Stan-dard North American Family; Smith, 1993) andwhere the responsibilities and rights of each fam-ily member must be negotiated and reconstructed(same-sex families, reconstituted families, etc.).These questions must also be discussed if thefamily is currently in transition. This is the casewhen, for example, somebody has just enteredthe family or left it.

The research tradition concerned withunderstanding how families establish a uniqueidentity (e.g., Daly, 2001; Dencik, 2001, 2002)

has its roots in social psychology and socialconstructionism (Gergen, 1994) and also theconcept of the we-relation introduced by Schutz(1932/1967, pp. 163–172; 1964, pp. 23–27). Theconcept of the we-relation refers to the mostfundamental social experience, a face-to-faceorientation in which persons living in the sametime and space are mutually aware of each other(see also Lengermann & Niebrugge, 1995). Themain interest of this research tradition lies inhow individuals combine their individual andcollective needs in everyday life, how familymembers negotiate and combine their separateworlds, and how this affects everyday family lifeconcretely and emotionally. Lars Dencik (1997)defined four different family types accordingto the importance attributed to individual andcollective needs. Of these, the so-called teamfamily denotes a situation in which familymembers are allowed to not only have theirindividual needs and projects but also share timeand do things together. According to Dencik(1997), this is a family type that works wellin a postmodern society. The ‘‘revolving doorsfamily’’ for its part is a family where the familymembers’ individual activities (hobbies, work,etc.) preclude the possibility for we-ness todevelop: Family members meet each other onlyoccasionally. Other, less common family typesinclude the ‘‘traditional patriarchal family’’ inwhich family members are expected to act forthe sake of the family and its unity, rather thantheir individual needs and projects. There is alsothe ‘‘family as a social aquarium,’’ where familymembers are like fishes in a tank; they do nothave an idea of how to live together, nor dothey have individual needs and ambitions, butnevertheless they still keep on living together.These different family types are theoreticalformations but have sprung out of the need tounderstand the common contradiction betweenindividuality and communality in daily familylife (Dencik, 1997).

In cases where the constructionist approachis used to study the meanings of family lifeand the ways the family members do family lifetogether, methods such as interviews and writtenqualitative diaries are often used.

DISCUSSION

The aim of this article was to review, summarize,and evaluate the research on everyday family lifeand especially the concepts used. In a systematic


literature review, everyday family life was foundto be represented by three dimensions: emotions,actions, and temporality. Everyday family lifeis a continuously constructed process in whichfamily members transmit emotions, engage inactivities, and schedule timetables in interactionswith each other and with the wider contextoutside the family.

Our categorization of everyday life into threedimensions (see Table 1) differs somewhat fromFelski’s (1999–2000) categorization in whichthe concepts of time, space, and modality formthe basis of everyday life. The differencesbetween Felski’s model and our own stemsfrom our respective background disciplines andalso from the data on which the categorizationsare based. Felski’s analysis was based ontheoretical work within feministic and culturalstudies, whereas our analysis is largely basedon recent, empirical studies within the field offamily research. In relation to Daly’s (2003)categorization of the basic forces of everydaylife, we found similarities but also differences.The dimensions of emotions, actions, and timewere included in Daly’s categorization, buthe also mentioned other aspects of everydayfamily life such as material issues, spirituality,and health concerns. We agree with Daly thatthese issues are relevant; as Daly pointedout, however, and as we noticed on thebasis of our review, those aspects are rarelystudied in family research. On the otherhand, some of the issues Daly mentioned areincluded within our relatively broad categoriesof emotions, actions, and temporality, each ofwhich can be understood as an umbrella forrelated concepts. For example, whereas Dalydistinguishes between beliefs, feelings, andintuitions, we include these concerns in ourconcept of emotions.

The existing research in the area of everydayfamily life or daily family life has mostlyconcentrated on analyzing the problems thatcan occur. It is true also that researchers haveincreasingly sought to shed more light on thepositive and well-functioning aspects of dailylife; there are, however, some empirically basedreasons for focusing on problems as researchevidence. For example, in relation to dailyemotions, Larson (2005) has shown that negativeemotions tend to spill over more strongly thando positive emotions.

We found that everyday family life hasbeen analyzed from various perspectives that

represent different units of analysis, such asfrom individuals in the family who indicate howthey feel, what they do, and how they spend theirtime. Alternatively, dyadic relationships in thefamily can be studied to find out, for example,how emotions are transmitted, how decisionsare negotiated, and how time is budgeted ordivided between family members. A third wayto approach family life is to pay attention tothe family as a whole—to the kind of emotionalatmosphere that exists within the family, thekinds of routines and traditions there are, andhow family life is experienced and constructedtogether. A fourth way to approach everydayfamily life is to investigate the links between thefamily and other contexts such as working life,economic life, and public services or to analyzehow the rules, demands, and actions existingin other contexts are intertwined with familyactivities.

We identified three research approachesto everyday family life (see Table 2). Theemotional transmission approach (Larson &Almeida, 1999) focuses on emotions, whereasthe cultural activity approach (e.g., Hedegaard& Chaiklin, 2005; Korvela, 1999; Tulviste,2001) and the constructionist approach (e.g.,Dencik, 2001; Morgan, 1996) focus on actions orindividuals’ own interpretations of their actions.All three approaches take account of the passageof time. The three approaches indicate that thereare many ways to understand, operationalize,and study everyday family life. All have adoptedand developed research methods and conceptsthat are sensitive to daily fluctuations and closeto moments and situations. Diaries, videotaping,and ethnography are examples of methods oftenused in research on everyday life. Each ofthe approaches adds to our understanding ofeveryday life. Because of this, we would suggestthat in order to understand everyday life, thereshould be more and better collaboration betweenresearchers working within different researchtraditions.

Current Challenges of Daily Life

The studies we reviewed have identified someof the most relevant issues facing contemporaryWestern families in their everyday lives: thelack of time for all the actions families shouldor would like to perform, the difficulties incombining family life with the demands ofthe institutions in which family members are


involved, the importance of emotions as anindicator of well-being, and the risk that negativeexperiences from other life spheres, such asworking life, will be transmitted to the family,making it difficult for family members to fulfilltheir family roles.

Each of these core issues is importantfor enhancing healthy family functioning andultimately the well-being of family members.For example, parental daily mood has beenshown to form a central link between work stressand family life (e.g., Schulz et al., 2004), andsmall daily parenting hassles may accumulateand disturb parent-child relationships (Crnic &Low, 2002). A lack of time and energy becauseof long and demanding working days may, littleby little, weaken the quality of the spousalrelationship, the parent-child relationship, andfeelings of togetherness in the family (e.g.,Dencik, 2002; Matjasko & Feldman, 2006). Theabsence of routines and the poor organization ofdaily life may make everyday living difficult forfamily members.

Families vary in emotional experiences, dailyroutines, and their use of time. Furthermore,the studies demonstrate the temporal variationswithin families in these aspects of everydaylife. There are days and weeks when daily lifeis hectic in terms of emotions, time schedules,and actions and other days and weeks whendaily life is peaceful and calm (e.g., Daly, 2001;Larson & Richards, 1994; Southerton, 2003).Daily family life is subject to seasonal variations,too: Family life during the summertime andwhile on vacation might be less hectic than inother seasons. In the course of a day, particularmoments and times, such as family ‘‘rushhours,’’ are especially burdened with emotionsand actions whereas, at other moments, familymembers gather together without any particularagenda. Both extremes are important for a fluentand satisfying family life: either to coordinatethe practices of individual family members or tomaintain we-ness in the family.

Everyday Perspective: Assumptions andBoundaries

Paying attention to daily emotions, actions,and time is relevant and necessary becauseit reveals important issues that may not benoticed if the traditional view of the family istaken, for example, in terms of parental beliefs,attitudes, and well-being. The picture of family

life that is gained when the focus is on itsdaily aspects is less refined and, according toseveral researchers, more authentic and factual,denoting life as it is lived (Bolger et al., 2003;Perrez et al., 2005).

Parents nowadays, at least in Westerncountries, are very much aware of their dutiesas parents. If they are asked for their opinionsand attitudes, the results are usually positivein terms of parental warmth and guidance. Animpression is gained of parents always actingand behaving in a rational and logical way(Daly, 2003). When their actual behavior isstudied in a daily context, however, the picture isdifferent. Parenting may be disturbed for severalreasons, such as negative moods, exhaustion,or a level of overcommitment that leaves littletime to achieve goals. At some moments being asupportive parent is easy, but at other momentsparenting can be very challenging, such as atmoments of tiredness and during rush hours—inother words during transitional periods that areloaded with negative emotions and hassles. Howfamily members then act may be inconsistentand unpredictable. Daily family life is typifiedby temporality, ups and downs, and moments ofirrationality, and this is best revealed by applyinga daily life approach.

Traditionally, family researchers have beeninterested in the variability of families withrespect to certain outcome factors, such as familyfunctioning. They have compared familiesidentified as high in specific features withthose found to be low in the same feature.Researchers on everyday life formulate theirresearch questions differently: Why do thingsgo badly on some days, whereas on other daysthings work well? Most families agree that someweeks or days are easier and more agreeable thanothers. Studies that focus on daily fluctuationsseek to identify the factors that may account forthe difference between these two poles. This isa decision-oriented way to approach family lifeand thus useful for developing interventions thatcan enhance the fluency of family time.

It is also important to define the boundariesof the definition of everyday family life. Not allresearch on emotions, action, and temporalityin relation to family life should be understoodas research on everyday family life. Studyingfamily life from the perspective of everydaylife includes certain assumptions that we wouldlike to underline. First of all, an everydayfamily perspective may not be adopted if the


study deals only with individuals unconnected totheir family context and relations. For example,research on emotions in individuals can beconsidered to represent everyday family liferesearch if the emotions in question are studied inrelation to other family members. For instance,a comparison of the mood states of boys andgirls or an analysis of daily and weekly moodsin an individual person would not fall into theprovince of everyday family life as we defineit. On the other hand, we can usefully thinkof families rather broadly, including withinthem unmarried and cohabiting couples with orwithout children and also single-parent families.The core issue is that the study of everydayfamily life should touch on daily situations,interactions, and transitions between familymembers and that it should bring to light thefluctuations in these aspects. We agree withDaly (2003), who criticizes family studies thattake only the individual as the unit of analysis.Furthermore, because everyday family life ismultidimensional and affected by several forcesboth inside and outside the family, the mostfruitful line of research would be one that isconcerned with several dimensions (emotions,actions, temporality) at the same time and thatadopts a multidisciplinary perspective.

Second, because family life on the level of thesingle family and as a cultural phenomenonis in constant flux, the concepts, theories,and methods used should be sensitive tochange. The concepts that arose out of thisreview—emotions, practices, hassles, and soforth—do this. To demonstrate the differencebetween general and situation-specific conceptsin family research we can here offer anexample in relation to the area of parenthood.Parenthood can be variously conceptualized:as parenting styles, parental values, parentingpractices, and parenting hassles. Of these, thelatter two concepts refer to concrete, active,and situation-specific aspects visible in everydaypractices, whereas the first two denote morepermanent, general, or even global aspects. Wewould suggest that researchers interested indaily family life ought to pay attention to theconcepts they use—that is, to consider whetherthese concepts are helpful in capturing dailyfamily dynamics or not. We believe that ourcategorization of everyday family life, based onthree dimensions and four levels (see Table 1),would assist researchers in focusing on relevant

aspects of everyday life and in finding andchoosing suitable concepts.

The everyday perspective also presents achallenge to family theories. According to Daly(2003), traditional family theories have notsucceeded in capturing lives as they are lived;instead, everyday life is located in a negativespace, and this means that the dominant familytheories and research traditions within familyresearch do not draw attention to it. In Daly’s(2003, p. 781) words, ‘‘We may have to thinkabout theories that reflect the contradictions ofeveryday living, that are incomplete and yetprovide portraits of culture in action, and theuse of vocabularies that are recognizable in theworlds out of which the theories are fashioned.’’In other words, we need to develop theoriesthat give us tools to capture and understanddaily processes and the logic of behavior in theeveryday context.

The methods typically used for research oneveryday family life include various types ofdiaries and experience-sampling methods (forreviews, see, e.g., Bolger et al., 2003, Larson& Almeida, 1999; Schneider, 2006); videoanalysis (Korvela, 1999; Ochs et al., 2006), andethnography (Bech Jorgensen, 1991; Hedegaard& Chaiklin, 2005; Janhonen-Abruquah, 2006a,2006b; see also methods of everyday life,Tuomi-Grohn, 2008b, 2008c). All these aremethods that aim at revealing central aspects ofdaily life (emotions, actions, temporality). Thereis, however, an obvious need for researchers todevelop new, innovative methods that wouldbe able to get close to daily processes andmoments.

Contributions and Limitations

In this article we set ourselves the task of makingsense of the concept of everyday family lifeon the basis of the recent literature. Althoughit is difficult to define, we are convinced ofits value in family research, in directing thedevelopment of methods, empirical research,and theory building, so that actual, day-to-daylife is brought under the spotlight. Finally, we areready to present a definition of everyday familylife grounded on the basis of recent theoreticaland empirical work. Everyday family life isa process that family members are constantlycreating with their individual and collaborativeactions and emotions in time and space (whichis often the home but also includes other


spaces and contexts that family members usecollectively).

Finally, we would like to draw attention tothe relationships between everyday family lifeand other related concepts such as family lifeand family process. What distinguishes researchon everyday family life from research on familylife? As we have already suggested, everydayfamily life is not a synonym for these otherconcepts. If we compare it, for example, tothe concept of family life, we notice thateveryday family life is narrower than familylife. The concept of family life is broader andincludes not only daily aspects of family life butalso other, more permanent domains, such asthe issues mentioned above concerning familyroles. There is also a clear difference betweeneveryday family life and the concept of familyprocess. In addition to the short-term familyprocesses visible in everyday family life, theconcept of family process also denotes long-termfamily processes such as the intergenerationaltransmission of values or parenting skills.

We are aware that our article has somelimitations. In selecting articles, we tried tobe very systematic in finding those that wererelevant. It was at times difficult, however, tointerpret how the concept of everyday familylife was understood in a study. Some studiesexplicitly used the concept of everyday familylife or daily life, but we also included inour analysis studies in which these termswere not used and that were perhaps notseen by their authors as studies of everydaylife. Nevertheless, as mentioned above, thestated object of research in these articleswas relevant in the context of everydayfamily life and thus justified their inclusionin the analysis. Furthermore, our reviewfocused on psychologically, educationally, andsociologically oriented family research. Weare well aware that relevant research canbe found outside these disciplines. Hence wewould challenge researchers from other researchtraditions to continue the task that we havecommenced, inspired by Daly (2003).

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∗ Articles included in the analysis

Documents

S1 - Everyday Family Life