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book

Leisure and the Family Life Cycle.

Dual Career Families

Fathers, Mothers and Others: Towards New Alliances

Fathers Mothers And Society

New Interventions for Children and Youth: Action-Research Approaches

Children, Youth, and Families: The Action-Research Relationship

Sex, Career and Family (Routledge Library Editions: Women and Business)

Families, Children and the Quest for a Global Ethic

Robert Norman Rapoport

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anthropologist author

Background

Robert Norman Rapoport was born on November 1, 1924, in Brockton, Massachusetts, United States.

Education

Rapoport received an M.A. in Social Anthropology from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in 1951 at the Department of Social Relations of Harvard University for his thesis on the changing values of Navaho Indians.

Career

Rapoport held several positions from Assistant to Professor in the United States, including Cornell University. In 1954 he accepted an appointment in the United Kingdom as Research Director in the Social Rehabilitation Unit of Belmont Hospital, in Surrey, United Kingdom.

Rapoport went back to the United States to take up again his academic career, first at Harvard University and then at Boston College and Northeastern University. He then went back to the United Kingdom in 1965 working as as Senior Social Scientist at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London.

Rapoport again returned to the United States returning to the field of mental health in New York. Finally in the nineties, he resumed research as a Visiting Professor at Surrey University.

Rapoport’s first book was 1952’s "Changing Navaho Religious Values", but his later work centered on family issues and many were co-written with his wife, Rhoda. Together they produced "Dual Career Families" (1971), (and with Ziona Strelitz) "Leisure and the Family Life Cycle" (1975), and "Growing through Life" (1980).

Robert died on November 4, 1996 in London, United Kingdom.

Achievements

Rapoport was best known for his sociological studies on the modern family and the effect a family’s environment had on relationships between husbands, wives and children and was a pioneer in the field. His best latest works were "New Interventions for Children and Youths: Action Research Approaches" (1987) and "Families as Educators for Global Citizenship" (1995).