A comprehensive, case study portrait of the childrearing context of a predominantly Eskimo village in the remote Northwest Arctic, designed to look for evidence of "reinvention," "transformation," or "conscious choice" as process features of change in the mix of traditional childrearing beliefs and practices with infusions from the dominant culture. The rearing environment and child well-being were studied during 18 months of anthropological fieldwork in an Alaskan Inupiaq village in the Northwest Arctic. Volunteers for the sample consisted of 44 adults from 16 extended families who were raising a child between the ages of three and six years. Results from guided interviews, card sorts, standardized family and home assessments, and review of the children's medical records revealed a complex portrait of culture continuity and change and included the following trends: many traditions had been retained, even though villagers perceived few differences in their rearing style compared to that of mainstream culture despite the presence of other households with extended family members in the village and touting of the value of kinship, 25% of core families reared their children in relative isolation growth measurements, immunization status, and general health of the children were good, but children evidenced diets high in sugar and many suffered severe dental problems present-day caregivers were engaged in dialogue about "problem" parenting behaviors that had developed a generation earlier during a time of massive acculturation stress and population growth--namely, the overuse of scolding of children without attached explanations and overt favoring of specific children over others in thefamily. The study presents present-day rearing strategies and ideas as summarized from interviews and data from more formal instruments, and frames changes in the system within the broader historical/social context.

This insightful volume explores the experiences of ethnic migrants returning to Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel. Return migrants who were exposed to the western culture and society undergo personal transformations that significantly impact their views on values such as gender, individualism, democracy, tradition, and individual autonomy. To evaluate how well these individuals are able to reintegrate back into their native countries, the authors conducted a thorough comparative study between returnees in the three research sites through in-depth interviews, ethnographic fieldwork, and analyses of government policies. Among the topics discussed: Family as a strategic middle ground between the individual and society The social psychology of coping and adaptation Public, outer historical, and macro forces that shape returnees' experiences Comparisons and contrasts between two primarily Chinese societies, along with one racially and culturally different Western society Cost-and-benefit analyses of decision-making in migration Return Migrants in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Israel is a compelling new perspective on the migrant experience drawn from in-depth research on returnees across three countries and a variety of circumstances.

Now revised, updated, and expanded, this groundbreaking guide for parents and professionals covers the legal, financial, and emotional realities of creating two happy and stable homes for children in the aftermath of a divorce, including custody arrangements, mediation, and more.
Can children flourish in any custody situation? If their parents read "Mom's House, Dad's House," the answer is a resounding yes. This unique ground-breaking classic, which has become "the" standard for two generations of parents, is again breaking new ground with examples, self-tests, checklists, and guidelines. This comprehensive guide looks anew at the needs of all concerned with even more creative options and commonsense advice, including:
- The map to a "decent divorce" and two happy homes; healing yourself and your children; the New Family Bill of Rights after separation.
- Helping your children with age-specific advice; explaining change, giving them continuity and security; restabilizing their sense of home and family; danger signals; five ways to evaluate your children's time.
- Negotiating Parental Agreements; legal do's and don'ts; time arrangements; custody types; attorneys; how to get ready for negotiations; when to use mediation; using "HIRT" test when an agreement is broken.
- Breaking away from "negative intimacy" with a difficult ex; how to talk to your former mate; steps to building a "businesslike" relationship as parents; how to avoid becoming the neighborhood "soap opera"
- Sidestepping destructive myths; making the emotions, "flashbacks," and heartbreak of separation or divorce work for you and your child.
- Handling long-distance parenting; managing the return of an absent parent, holidays, remarriage, life without another parent

View the Table of Contents. Read the Introduction.

"Illuminating cultural study of single motherhood. . . . [Juffer] explores the experiences of single mothers across various social and economic conditions, taking a critical look at current social policy."
--"Library Journal"

"Juffer points to a new formation--the domestic intellectual--and in that gesture opens up the concept of the intellectual to a more complicated theoretical engagement. With it, she re-imagines marriage, mothering, and the spatial dynamics of private life, and returns them to a possibly radical and liberatory space. This powerful and transformative work adds to our understanding of the value of learning from ordinary life."
--Wahneema Lubiano, Duke University

Long perceived as the ultimate symbol of social breakdown and sexual irresponsibility, the single mother is now, in the context of welfare-to-work policies, often hailed as the new spokesperson for hard work and self-sufficiency. A dozen years after Dan Quayle denounced the television character Murphy Brown for making the decision to become a single mother "just another lifestyle choice," President George W. Bush applauded single mothers for "heroic work," and positive on-screen representations of single mothers abound, from "The Gilmore Girls" to "Sex and the City" to "American Idol,"

Single Mother describes the recent cultural valorization of this figure that--in the midst of demographic changes in the U.S.--has emerged as the unlikely heroic and seductive voice of the new American family. Drawing on her own life as a single mother, interviews with dozens of other single mothers, cultural representations, and policies on welfare, immigration, childcare, and child custody, Juffer analyzes this contingent acceptance of single mothers. Finally, critiquing the relentless emphasis on self-sufficiency to the exclusion of community, Juffer shows the remarkable organizing skills of these new mothers of invention. At a moment when one-third of all babies are born to single moms, Single Mother is a fascinating and necessary examination of these new "domestic intellectuals."

Fragmented Families addresses a central question in the demographic debates on poverty and fertility transition in southern Africa: . In what ways do women's recurrent encounters with poverty serve to shape their sexual unions, social relationships and reproductive practices? The book focuses on the lives of a group of mothers and daughters from fifteen families in a demarcated part of the Winterveld area in South Africa, and draws attention to historical, socio-cultural, political and economic concerns in order to place in context or make sense of reproductive dynamics and family life at the micro-level. Vignettes, drawn from fieldwork, highlight the particularities of the area: the persistence of historical tensions, diverse livelihoods and complex gender relationships. The intergenerational stories of the women suggest that they live with immense and increasing adversity and that strategies to contend with them sometimes include attempts to assert control over sexual encounters and reproductive outcomes. The book contributes to a continuing debate on how changing socio-economic conditions could influence prospects for and the nature of fertility transition in African countries. The study concurs with alternative arguments that shifts toward lower levels of fertility might be due, in certain contexts, to experiences of severe hardship rather than favourable economic circumstances. Instead of seeking security and risk-aversion through bearing many children the response of indigent women in this area has been largely to resist reproduction, at particular stages of their lives, whilst using sexual relationships and child-bearing as strategies to manipulate and secure resources. In reflecting on methodological approaches, the book draws attention to the limitations of survey research in efforts to elicit 'accurate' representations of reproductive behaviour and fertility preferences, and emphasises the usefulness of more engaged, qualitative and long-term fieldwork endeavours in building substantive insights on women's familial and reproductive lives. _________________________________________ Kammila Naidoo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in 2001 where she was a Commonwealth Scholar between 1998 and 2000. Her work on poverty, family and women's lives has been published in several journals including the Journal of Asian and African Studies, African Sociological Review, South African Review of Sociology and Forum: Qualitative Social Research. Contact: [email protected]. Publication date: August 2009

Although family members sometime engage in monitoring as an extension of governmental surveillance, they also monitor each other, other families, and their own borders to preserve norms about what a family should be and what family members should do. Whether it is the seemingly benign surveillance of using baby monitors, the more obviously intrusive use of home drug tests on teenagers, or the way people in public feel free to judge and comment on the family composition of others, monitoring goes on all the time -- and even (or maybe especially) when there seems to be no monitoring going on at all.

The concept of time in childhood and youth is discussed in two contradictory ways; first romanticized, as a time of play, innocence, and exploration - of learning through trial and error, and second, as a time restricted by tight societal and generational structures, such as chains of care, institutional and family timetables. Children, Youth and Time reflects on the complex concept of time as perceived and experienced by children and young people in relevant societal and generational contexts. Including empirical and theoretical contributions from around the globe which shed light on time and temporality as it is negotiated by children and young people in distinction to adults, both within the family and in institutional contexts, the chapters in this collection delve into the impact of current global challenges upon children, young people, and families' time. How do critical global concerns such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic affect the temporal experience of children and youth? Providing fresh insight at a crucial moment of global disruption, the authors equip us with a stronger awareness of young people's perceptions of the world during periods of crisis. As a vital tool for safeguarding and implementing strategies to support children and young people in an everchanging world, this is a timely resource for researchers interested in the welfare of children and youth.

A highly informative account of trends, concepts, and problems related to dating and sexuality in the United States, along with thought-provoking coverage of today's most important issues and controversies. A history of dating and sexuality illuminates new trends and problems that were absent just a few decades ago. The most important dating and sexuality issues facing teenagers today are explored, including solutions and implications for educational intervention. The work elucidates how dating unfolds and how sexual attitudes and behaviors impact intimacy. Valuable information about organizations and individuals as well as print and electronic resources are included in this authoritative work. 32 biographical profiles describing the research of respected contributors to the fields of dating, sexuality, adolescent development, and family life A lively and engaging timeline chronicling the historic events that shaped dating and sexuality in America, such as the birth of the drive-in movie theater, the pill, the sexual revolution, MTV, HIV/AIDS, the Internet, and Viagra

The Caribbean is known more as a tropical paradise than as an area composed of diverse ethnic and political groups, the majority of whom live on the edge of poverty. This set of conceptual and empirical papers focuses on the diversity of ethnic groups in Caribbean families. The essays examine ethnic origins, social structures, family structures, and intellectual, social and clinical problems and their treatment. The issues noted in migration patterns are presented in some detail and there is a description and assessment of different family organizations and childrearing patterns. In documenting Caribbean culture, this volume aims to offer a source of information for broadening the knowledge base of social scientists interested in sociocultural family functioning.

This contributed volume applies cliometric methods to the study of family and households in order to derive global patterns and determine their impact on economic development. Family and households are a fundamental feature of societies and economies. They are found throughout history and are the place where key decisions on fertility, labour force participation, education, consumption are made. This is especially relevant for the position of women. The book gathers key insights from a variety of fields - economics, history, demography, anthropology, biology - to shed light on the relation between family organisation and the long-term process of economic development.

A playdate is an organized meeting where parents come together with their children at a public or private location to interact socially or "play." Children no longer simply "go out and play," rather, play is arranged, scheduled, and parentally-approved and supervised. How do these playdates happen? Who gets asked and who doesn't? What is acceptable play behavior? In The Playdate, Tamara R. Mose focuses on the parents of young children in New York City to explore how the shift from spontaneous and child-directed play to managed and adult-arranged playdates reveals the structures of modern parenting and the new realities of childhood. Mose argues that with the rise of moral panics surrounding child abuse, pedophilia, and fears about safety in the city, as well as helicopter parenting, and over-scheduling, the playdate has emerged as not just a necessity in terms of security and scheduling, but as the very hallmark of good parenting. Based on interviews with parents, teachers, childcare directors, and nannies from Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Long Island, the book provides a first-hand account of the strategies used by middle-class parents of young children to navigate social relationships-their own and those of their children. Mose shows how parents use playdates to improve their own experiences of raising children in New York City while at the same time carefully managing and ensuring their own social and cultural capital. Mose illustrates how the organization of playdates influences parents' work lives, friendships, and public childrearing performances, and demonstrates how this may potentially influence the social development of both children and parents. Ultimately, this captivating and well-researched book shows that the playdate is much more than just "child's play." Tamara Mose on The Brian Lehrer Show

Compares the parenting advice of five well-known experts. Most parents lack the time, training, and other resources needed to consult the extensive research on parenting that has been produced by scientific study. Instead, many rely on advice from a few well-known authorities in popular books, newspaper columns, and other media. This work takes a critical look at the advice of five experts - Benjamin Spock, T. Berry Brazelton, James Dobson, Penelope Leach and John Rosemond - then compares that with the findings of hundreds of empirical studies on children. The focus is on major parenting problems, including persistent infant crying, toilet training, early day care, discipline, adolescent sexuality education, substance abuse, and the influence of television and other electronic media. A final chapter summarizes the accuracy of each expert's advice compared with research findings, points out the common ground between experts, and summarizes their major strategies and biases. In some cases, a substantial gap exists between expert advice and scientific research findings. and students will find this book not only helpful, but also illuminating. Rankin's meticulous analysis points out areas of agreement and dispute between some of the most quoted parenting experts in the field, and, perhaps even more revealing, areas where their widely quoted pronouncements deviate from research and clinical evidence. Makes sense of often conflicting parenting experts and how their advice can clash with scientific research Offers parents an understanding of 'best practices' as identified by research. Explains the multitude of elements (other than research and practice) that shape the advice of experts Focuses on a critical analysis of the advice of five often conflicting, but very well known, authors on parenting.

With dual-working households now the norm, Food, Families and Work is the first comprehensive study to explore how families negotiate everyday food practices in the context of paid employment. As the working hours of British parents are among the highest in Europe, the United Kingdom provides a key case study for investigating the relationship between parental employment and family food practices. Focusing on issues such as the gender division of foodwork, the impact of family income on diet, family meals, and the power children wield over the food they eat, the book offers a longitudinal view of family routines. It explores how the everyday meanings of food change as children grow older and negotiate changes in their own lives and those of their family members. Drawing on extensive quantitative data from large-scale surveys of food and diet - as well as qualitative evidence - to emphasise the larger global context of social and economic change and shifting patterns of family life, Rebecca O'Connell and Julia Brannen present a holistic overview of food practices within busy contemporary family lives. Featuring perspectives from both parents and children, this innovative approach to some of the most hotly-debated topics in food studies is a must-read for students and scholars in food studies, sociology, anthropology, nutrition and public health.

This comprehensive book is a critical introduction to the theoretical and practical issues involved in working with children and families. It sheds light on different perspectives, forms of practice, and dimensions of policy, with a focus on the practical issues of concern to professionals working with children in a range of settings.

"Patriarchy in East Asia" varies greatly according to the interplay between cultural norms, economic change, and government policies. This book provides an historical study and theoretical analysis of the transitions that have occurred in the status of women during the course of modernization and industrialization in five East Asian societies Japan, South Korea, North Korea, Taiwan, and China, the latter four societies presenting an ideal show-case of the effects of social regimes, captialist or socialist, on different ethnic cultures Korean and Chinese. This analysis is interwoven with a discussion of contemporary issues such as the persistence of tradition and gender discrimination, how gender roles undermine the development of healthier marriage and family relationships and better relations among the generations, the lack of full equality for women in employment, falling birthrates, and rising divorce rates. The book the first study of its kind undertaken by a sociologist who is also fluent in all of the local languages also describes the interplay between cultural norms, economic change, government policies, and ways of thinking among the subjects relating to social change.

This comprehensive, instructive, and entertaining book is full of information and resources for middle-aged adults faced with the complexities of raising children while caring for elders. Multigenerational caregiving has become a prevalent phenomenon in the generation of Baby Boomers. Nurturing children as they rapidly evolve and grow as individuals while simultaneously assisting elderly parents to live with-and then exit life with-dignity and respect can be a trying experience. The good news: there can be great joy in this capacity as well. Strength for the Sandwich Generation: Help to Thrive While Simultaneously Caring for Our Kids and Our Aging Parents addresses the multiple complexities that arise for the millions of middle-aged adults caring for both their children and their elders, providing the caregiver with resources and information that include strategies for caring for the self, children, and elders; handling financial strain; and addressing moral and ethical dilemmas. A licensed clinical psychologist, author Kristine Bertini shows midlife readers how to balance their demanding and multiple roles while also making meaning and finding genuine happiness in their complex world. Utilizes instructive case examples to expose the intricacies of challenges like simultaneously caring for children and elders Contains a bibliography of more than 50 reference sources Provides an insightful "Creed for the Caregiver" Offers a model of daily routine with a workspace for the reader to design their own schedule

Beginning with the myth of origin that joins every young Zaramo woman to her origins as she is initiated into the secrets of life and womanhood, the book then provides us with an historical account of the Tanzanian coast around Dar es Salaam as a background to the persistence of the cultural institutions to which the reader is introduced. Statements and narrations by Salome as a representative of the modern educated Zaramo people intersperse the author's descriptions of the rituals of womanhood, of individual and social healing, and of the ways conflict is symbolically manipulated and managed. Rituals are seen in their vibrant role, not as remnants of tradition, but as means of handling encroaching external pressures on the community. These pressures include, commercialization of livelihood, development thrust in the form of villagization, or the ongoing process of losing land rights. The book shows that a people will counteract the threat of social disintegration by overemphasizing their core values in an attempt to create strong communication forces and instruments of power. A good introduction to contemporary African issues, Third World women's studies, and ethnographic anthropology.

This edited volume offers a critical, thorough, and interdisciplinary examination of arguments for eliminating the minimum democratic voting age. As children and youth increasingly assert their political voices on issues such as climate change, gun legislation, Black Lives Matter, and education reform, calls for youth enfranchisement merit further academic conversation. Leading scholars in childhood studies, political science, philosophy, history, law, medicine, and economics come together in this collection to explore the diverse assumptions behind excluding children from voting rights and why these are open to question. While arriving at different and sometimes competing conclusions, each chapter deconstructs the idea of voting as necessarily tied to age while reconstructing a more democratic imagination able to enfranchise the third of humanity made up by children and youth. Thus, this book defines and establishes a new field of academic study and public debate around children's suffrage. Chapter "The Reform that never happened: a history of children's suffrage restrictions" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

What form does the dialogue about the family during the Nazi period take in the families of those persecuted by the Nazi regime and of Nazi perpertrators and accomplices? What impact does the past of the first generation, and their own way of dealing with it, have on the lives of their descendants? What are the structural differences between the dialogue about the Holocaust in families of perpetrators and those of the victims? This text examines these questions on the basis of selected case studies. It presents five families of survivors from Germany and Israel whose experiences of persecution and family histories after the liberation differ greatly. Two case studies of non-Jewish German families whose grandparents' generation are suspected of having perpretrated Nazi crimes illustrate the mechanisms operating in these families - those of passing the guilt on to the victims and creating the myth of being victims themselves - and give a sense of the psychological consequences these mechanisms have for the generations of their children and grandchildren.

We live in a globalized world in which children live in extreme poverty, experience stunted growth, are denied access to education, live as refugees, are subjected to violence, are employed as unskilled workers and even face threats from terror organizations. Drawing attention to these critical challenges, this edited collection develops holistic solutions towards achieving improved conditions and rights of children globally. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective spanning disciplines such as psychology, geography, history, philosophy, theology, education, social law and literature, Being a Child in a Global World includes over twenty chapters which delve into the concept and place of the child in the social order, as well as economic, humanitarian, and political dimensions. Featuring authorship from around the world, and combining the perspectives and knowledge of different disciplines, this edited collection is a truly ground-breaking and comprehensive multidisciplinary study. Providing answers to an urgent challenge of our time, the collection is a must-read for scholars who are interested in the global condition of childhood.