Following Lithuania’s accession to the EU in May 2004, family sociologists are confronting a new phenomenon: one of the parents or both leave to work abroad while their children stay in Lithuania under the guardianship, alone or in the child care institutions. These families and children are singled out from others and classified as different from others. Stigmatizing terms are employed to name these families and children.

The paper deals with a 4-stage current study on families with parents abroad, carried out by the family research group at Vilnius University since 2004. Each step envisioned a specific goal. Searching for a theoretical background and research methods, these families were analysed within several theoretical approaches and a combination of qualitative and quantitative data. Namely, families with parents abroad were examined through the prism of symbolic interaction within diadic structures, as well as social systems coping with change and as interlinked social networks.

Data from each stage of the study, obtained by different methods, are presented; the ways how to analyse families with parents abroad within different theoretical approaches are discussed.

Keywords: families, children, emigration, triangulation of theoretical approaches and research methods