Fragile families, unmarried parents who struggle emotionally and financially are one of the primary targets of the Healthy Marriage Initiative, a federal policy that has funded marriage education ...programs in nearly every state. These programs, which encourage marriage by teaching relationship skills, are predicated on the hope that married couples can provide a more emotionally and financially stable home for their children. Healthy marriage policy promotes a pro-marriage culture in which two-parent married families are considered the healthiest. It also assumes that marriage can be a socioeconomic survival mechanism for low-income families, and an engine of upward mobility. Through interviews with couples and her own observations and participation in marriage education courses, Jennifer M. Randles challenges these assumptions and critically examines the effects of such classes on participants. She takes the reader inside healthy marriage classrooms to reveal how their curricula are reflections of broader issues of culture, gender, governance, and social inequality. In analyzing the implementation of healthy marriage policy, Randles questions whether it should target individual behavior or the social and economic context of that behavior. The most valuable approach, she concludes, will not be grounded in notions of middle-class marriage culture. Instead, it will reflect the fundamental premise that love and commitment thrive most within the context of social and economic opportunity.
Finding Francis, finding family, freeing
history
Francis is found. Beyond Francis, a family is found-in archival
material that barely deigned to notice their existence. This is the
story of Francis ...Sistrunk and her children, from enslavement into
forced migration across South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and
Mississippi. It spans decades before the Civil War and continues
into post-emancipation America. A family story full of twists and
turns, Finding Francis reclaims and honors those women who
played an essential role in the historical survival and triumph of
Black people during and after American slavery. Elizabeth West has
created a remarkable "biohistoriography" of everyday Black
resistance, grounded in a determination to maintain enduring
connections of family, kinship, and community despite the
inhumanity and rapacity of slavery. There is inevitable heartbreak
in these histories, but there is also an empowering strength and
inspiration-the truth of these lives will indeed set us all
free.
When the First Crusade ended with the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099, jubilant crusaders returned home to Europe bringing with them stories, sacred relics, and other memorabilia, including banners, ...jewelry, and weapons. In the ensuing decades, the memory of the crusaders' bravery and pious sacrifice was invoked widely among the noble families of western Christendom. Popes preaching future crusades would count on these very same families for financing, leadership, and for the willing warriors who would lay down their lives on the battlefield. Despite the great risks and financial hardships associated with crusading, descendants of those who suffered and died on crusade would continue to take the cross, in some cases over several generations. Indeed, as Nicholas L. Paul reveals inTo Follow in Their Footsteps, crusading was very much a family affair.
Scholars of the crusades have long pointed to the importance of dynastic tradition and ties of kinship in the crusading movement but have failed to address more fundamental questions about the operation of these social processes. What is a "family tradition"? How are such traditions constructed and maintained, and by whom? How did crusading families confront the loss of their kin in distant lands? Making creative use of Latin dynastic narratives as well as vernacular literature, personal possessions and art objects, and architecture from across western Europe, Paul shows how traditions of crusading were established and reinforced in the collective memories of noble families throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Even rulers who never fulfilled crusading vows found their political lives dominated and, in some ways, directed by the memory of their crusading ancestors. Filled with unique insights and careful analysis,To Follow in Their Footstepsreveals the lasting impact of the crusades, beyond the expeditions themselves, on the formation of dynastic identity and the culture of the medieval European nobility.
Children in traditional families (i.e., married, 2 biological parents) tend to do better than their peers in nontraditional families. An exception to this pattern appears to be children from same-sex ...parent families. Children with lesbian mothers or gay fathers do not exhibit the poorer outcomes typically associated with nontraditional families. Studies of same-sex parent families, however, have relied on a static conceptualization of the family and discounted the importance of the timing and number of family transitions for understanding children's outcomes. To examine whether samesex parent families represent an exception among nontraditional families, the author used data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten cohort (N = 19,043) to create a dynamic indicator of children's family structure and tested its association with math assessment scores. The results indicated that children in same-sex parent families scored lower than their peers in married, 2-biological parent households, but the difference was nonsignificant net of family transitions.
Many changes were thrust upon families by the COVID-19 pandemic, including mandated quarantines, social distancing, transitions to distance learning for children, and remote work. The current study ...used mixed methods to examine the challenges and resilience of families in the United States during the pandemic (May-July 2020), as well as predictors and moderators of parent/child psychological distress. Our sample included 469 parents (459 mothers) of children aged ∼2-13 years (239 girls, 228 boys, one nonbinary child, one "prefer not to answer" selection), who completed an online survey with closed-ended and open-ended portions. The sample had middle-to-high socioeconomic status and 86% of families were White/non-Hispanic. Qualitative (content and thematic analyses) and quantitative (descriptive statistics and regressions) findings revealed that, even in this relatively privileged sample, parents and families were experiencing struggles in many life domains (e.g., family, school) and shifts in family dynamics and routines, which were related to emotional and mental health. Families experienced many changes in their lives, some positive and some negative, and often exhibited resilience through managing these changes. Our moderation analyses indicated that COVID-19's daily impact was significantly associated with psychological distress for children and parents, and this association was stronger for older versus younger children. Less active/instructive parental media mediation was also related to less child psychological distress. Moving forward, practitioners can focus on preventive efforts including psychoeducation regarding healthy outlets for negative emotions during COVID-19, and practical help troubleshooting childcare and health care challenges impacting many families.
Although democracy is, in principle, the antithesis of dynastic rule, families with multiple members in elective office continue to be common around the world. In most democracies, the proportion of ...such "democratic dynasties" declines over time, and rarely exceeds ten percent of all legislators. Japan is a startling exception, with over a quarter of all legislators in recent years being dynastic. InDynasties and Democracy, Daniel M. Smith sets out to explain when and why dynasties persist in democracies, and why their numbers are only now beginning to wane in Japan-questions that have long perplexed regional experts.
Smith introduces a compelling comparative theory to explain variation in the presence of dynasties across democracies and political parties. Drawing on extensive legislator-level data from twelve democracies and detailed candidate-level data from Japan, he examines the inherited advantage that members of dynasties reap throughout their political careers-from candidate selection, to election, to promotion into cabinet. Smith shows how the nature and extent of this advantage, as well as its consequences for representation, vary significantly with the institutional context of electoral rules and features of party organization. His findings extend far beyond Japan, shedding light on the causes and consequences of dynastic politics for democracies around the world.
Eurasian Teng, Emma Jinhua
2013., 20130713, 2013, 2013-07-13
eBook
In the second half of the nineteenth century, global labor migration, trade, and overseas study brought China and the United States into close contact, leading to new cross-cultural encounters that ...brought mixed-race families into being. Yet the stories of these families remain largely unknown. How did interracial families negotiate their identities within these societies when mixed-race marriage was taboo and “Eurasian” often a derisive term? In Eurasian, Emma Jinhua Teng compares Chinese-Western mixed-race families in the United States, China, and Hong Kong, examining both the range of ideas that shaped the formation of Eurasian identities in these diverse contexts and the claims set forth by individual Eurasians concerning their own identities. Teng argues that Eurasians were not universally marginalized during this era, as is often asserted. Rather, Eurasians often found themselves facing contradictions between exclusionary and inclusive ideologies of race and nationality, and between overt racism and more subtle forms of prejudice that were counterbalanced by partial acceptance and privilege. By tracing the stories of mixed and transnational families during an earlier era of globalization, Eurasian also demonstrates to students, faculty, scholars, and researchers how changes in interracial ideology have allowed the descendants of some of these families to reclaim their dual heritage with pride.
Families Across Cultures Georgas, James; Berry, John W; van de Vijver, Fons J. R ...
08/2006
eBook
Contemporary trends such as increased one-parent families, high divorce rates, second marriages and homosexual partnerships have all contributed to variations in the traditional family structure. But ...to what degree has the function of the family changed and how have these changes affected family roles in cultures throughout the world? This book attempts to answer these questions through a psychological study of families in thirty nations, carefully selected to present a diverse cultural mix. The study utilises both cross-cultural and indigenous perspectives to analyse variables including family networks, family roles, emotional bonds, personality traits, self-construal, and 'family portraits' in which the authors address common core themes of the family as they apply to their native countries. From the introductory history of the study of the family to the concluding indigenous psychological analysis of the family, this book is a source for students and researchers in psychology, sociology and anthropology.
