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The paper explores the mutuality of values, claims and social relations in the process of social change. Values are not separable from social relations but are embedded in the shaping and reshaping of social difference and interdependence. The paper focuses on developments around the turn of the twentieth century, and analyses changes in the relative social positioning of children and adults, and women and men, shifting patterns of interdependence, and linked values and ideas about difference. The reconfiguring of generational and gender relations was integral to the first fertility decline, to transformation in family life and societal divisions of labour, and to the embedding of particular values and claims regarding gendered difference, identities and gender appropriate roles. Analysis of these developments reveals the mutuality of 'cultural' and 'material' processes and holds lessons for interpreting social change today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]