Phoenix, Boddy, Edwards and Elliott use historical material to explore the importance of marginalia drawing on Townsend’s renowned Poverty in the UK Study 1967/8 (PinUK). Rather than focusing on the extensive data collected by Townsend’s team in the original survey research Phoenix et al. explore the detailed handwritten notes on the paper questionnaires. The authors use 69 annotated questionnaires from the original study to develop a typology of marginalia. This consists of seven different categories that enabled them to analyse the comments made by the interviewers as amplifications, justifications and explanations of codes and evaluations of responses made by participants. They then use narrative analysis to reveal much about the research process and the ways in which the field interviewers positioned themselves in relation to their interviewees in the marginalia and as a way of making sense of research encounters.

Chapter 18 regards childhood as a structural feature of Chinese society that both shapes and is shaped by children’s everyday family lives. It discusses filial piety as a key cultural theme underpinning children’s family lives and their intergenerational relationships. This chapter also examines particular aspects of contemporary parenting that might be said to relate to the theme of filial piety, namely empirical work on obedience and discipline. Next, it studies autonomy and independence as features of parenting that might be said to resonate with recent social policies and discourses of children’s rights, and reviews empirical work relevant to these themes. This chapter concludes by pointing to the need to move beyond any straightforward dichotomy of themes and practices associated with filial piety as opposed to those associated with children’s rights.