Sociologist A H Halsey is Professor of Social and Administrative studies at the University of Oxford. In his fifth lecture from his series entitled 'Change in British Society', Halsey investigates the relation between the generations of the nuclear family and focuses in on the primordial link between parents and dependent children.

In this lecture entitled 'Between the Generations', Professor Halsey explains how the family is the basic unit of our society. He analyses how it is a miniature reproduction of the social cells of class, of status and of culture. In examining the history of the collective memory of family, one is able to discover the changes of social structure in Britain.