This book shows how living in a highly racialized society affects health through multiple social contexts, including neighborhoods, personal and family relationships, and the medical system. Black-white disparities in health, illness, and mortality have been widely documented, but most research has focused on single factors that produce and perpetuate those disparities, such as individual health behaviors and access to medical care. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive perspective on health and sickness among African Americans, starting with an examination of how race has been historically constructed in the US and in the medical system and the resilience of racial ideologies and practices. Racial disparities in health reflect racial inequalities in living conditions, incarceration rates, family systems, and opportunities. These racial disparities often cut across social class boundaries and have gender-specific consequences. Bringing together data from existing quantitative and qualitative research with new archival and interview data, this book advances research in the fields of families, race-ethnicity, and medical sociology.

Sadly, efforts to end racial segregation and discrimination have clearly not led to racial equality or a colorblind society. Rather, African Americans have become increasingly class-polarized since the civil rights era as the persistent racialization of American society has perpetuated the wage gap between Blacks and Whites, leading to increased rates of unemployment and underemployment among African Americans. The significant minority of Black families historically headed by single mothers became a statistical majority during the twentieth century, and the tension in the gender relations of Black men and women became a more prominent topic of debate. This compelling and timely collection examines contemporary family and workforce patterns and how they are continuing to shape the quality of life for African Americans across the United States.

Sadly, efforts to end racial segregation and discrimination have clearly not led to racial equality or a colorblind society. Rather, African Americans have become increasingly class-polarized since the civil rights era as the persistent racialization of American society has perpetuated the wage gap between Blacks and Whites, leading to increased rates of unemployment and underemployment among African Americans. The significant minority of Black families historically headed by single mothers became a statistical majority during the twentieth century, and the tension in the gender relations of Black men and women became a more prominent topic of debate. This compelling and timely collection examines contemporary family and workforce patterns and how they are continuing to shape the quality of life for African Americans across the United States.

This book shows how living in a highly racialized society affects health through multiple social contexts, including neighborhoods, personal and family relationships, and the medical system. Black-white disparities in health, illness, and mortality have been widely documented, but most research has focused on single factors that produce and perpetuate those disparities, such as individual health behaviors and access to medical care. This is the first book to offer a comprehensive perspective on health and sickness among African Americans, starting with an examination of how race has been historically constructed in the US and in the medical system and the resilience of racial ideologies and practices. Racial disparities in health reflect racial inequalities in living conditions, incarceration rates, family systems, and opportunities. These racial disparities often cut across social class boundaries and have gender-specific consequences. Bringing together data from existing quantitative and qualitative research with new archival and interview data, this book advances research in the fields of families, race-ethnicity, and medical sociology.

In Black Intimacies: A Gender Perspective on Families and Relationships, Shirley A. Hill applies a gender lens to the multiple systems of oppression that have shaped the lives of African American women and men. She challenges the image of a monolithic black population, a legacy of the civil rights movement that she argues is impossible to sustain in the postmodern era. Through a critique of intersectionality theory, Hill examines the ways in which gender has affected experiences of intimacy, family relationships, child rearing and motherhood for contemporary African Americans. Drawing on ethnographic material, interviews, and scholarly research, Hill's work rethinks the cultural and historical definitions of black identity, and reconceptualizes the various forms of oppression faced by black women. This book will be useful to students and instructors of African American Studies, Gender Studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Marriage and Family, and Social Work.

This book focuses on the impact of economic systems and social class on the organization of family life. Since the most vital function of the family is the survival of its members, the author give primacy to the economic system in structuring the broad parameters of family life; that is, the economy shapes the prospects families have for earning a decent living by determining the location, nature, and pay associated with work. Taking a broad global and historical approach, the book recognizes and explores how the broader economy shapes family life and examines the organization of family life across the social class hierarchy.

Shifting the focus from intervention with problem populations, this book targets the everyday socialization of African American children. African American Children is a comprehensive exploration of historical and contemporary patterns of parenting in black families. Historically, it focuses on how slavery, race, the racial caste system, and the African American culture influenced the ways African Americans parented their children. This series of social forces seriously circumscribed the ability of African Americans to conform to the ideologies about the nature of children and the roles of parents that began to evolve in the early 20th century. In the context of growing diversity, Shirley A. Hill examines the work that African American parents do in raising their children and explores general child socialization patterns as well as parenting issues and challenges. Providing an analysis of the views, philosophies, and parenting strategies of parents from a variety of social class backgrounds, African American Children combines qualitative and quantitative data collected to examine a broad overview of current theoretical debates about African

American families as they relate to child socialization. Topics include discipline strategies, sexual socialization, teen sexuality, self-esteem, redefining physical attractiveness, gender roles, and the role of the extended family and community.

This book is an ideal supplemental text for advanced students in child development, family studies, sociology of the family, as well as students in ethnic studies, multicultural counseling, or gender studies.