This book is concerned with three entwined issues - disability, culture and family - and the ways in which they play themselves out in the lives of families. It does this by examining the meaning of disability and the concept of family support in a cross cultural and cross national context (9 different countries). The book points to parallel movements and shifts. Firstly, understanding of the meaning of disability varies in the context of different cultures and is not a static process. At the same time, there is an emerging sense of a culture of disability that crosses national boundaries (related to a context of 'self determination'). These are also parallelled by changing understandings of 'family'. Searchwords: Attitudes, Theory. Keywords: Cross Cultural, Families