How 'family' is construed on a material and discursive level has gained increasing interest among educational and social work professionals. The contributors to this volume address that question in relation to the diverse everyday practices of 'doing family' by its heterogeneous members. Their contributions build a transdisciplinary bridge between research on family life on the one hand and research on the formatting of family in welfare state contexts on the other. Fundamental to this is a decentred and fluid understanding of family that conceives itself as a contested set of relational activities in people's everyday lives that are socially recognized as 'familial'.

Sabine Bollig, (Prof. Dr.), born in 1971, is a professor of social pedagogy at Universität Trier. Her research and teaching focus on welfare- and practice-analytical approaches to childhood, youth and family as well as research on institutions and borders/spaces in the field of early childhood education and care. Lisa Groß (Dr.), born in 1990, works as a social pedagogue with young people in foster care and as an external lecturer at Universität Trier. From 2016 to 2021, she was a research assistant at Universität Trier, where she also completed her doctorate in 2021. Her research and teaching focuses on the field of child and youth care, especially residential care and the field of early intervention.