Sociology of Families

Book Review: Nelson, Margaret K. and Anita I Garey (eds.) 2009. Who’s Watching? Daily Practices of Surveillance Among Contemporary Families.

by Rosamunde van Brakel

Extreme parenting and Time magazine

by Deborah Lupton

A commentary published on an online discussion site on the infamous Time magazine cover of 21 May 2012 featuring a woman breastfeeding her 3 year old son.

Les representations de l'enfant dans les albums de photographies de famille.

by Hélène Belleau

L'union de fait et le mariage au Québec: analyse des différences et des similitudes

by Hélène Belleau

Family work and relationships: Lessons from families of men whose jobs require travel

by Áine Humble

Zvonkovic, A. M., Solomon, C. R., Humble, A. M., & Manoogian, M. (2005). Family work and relationships: Lessons from families of men whose jobs require travel. Family Relations, 54(3), 411-422. doi:10.1111/ j.1741-3729.2005.00327.x

How family members experience their lives when family breadwinners must be absent from home due to their jobs is the... more How family members experience their lives when family breadwinners must be absent from home due to their jobs is the focus of our work. Informed by general systems theory as well as contextual perspectives, we elaborate a cycle of absence and presence, experienced differently for men who work at a distance from their homes versus women at home. From our findings about how families of commercial fishermen and long-haul truckers manage their time and their paid and unpaid work, we apply their challenges and strategies to other families experiencing difficulties related to time and work involvement.

"The royal we": Gender ideology, display, and assessment in wedding work

by Áine Humble

Humble, A. M., Zvonkovic, A. M., & Walker, A. J. (2008). "The royal we": Gender ideology, display, and assessment in wedding work (PDF- 109 KB). Journal of Family Issues, 29(1), 3-25. doi:10.1177/0192513X07305900

Family rituals provide a rich context in which to study the relation between ideology and action. Guided by the gender... more Family rituals provide a rich context in which to study the relation between ideology and action. Guided by the gender perspective, we analyzed the experiences of wives and husbands from 21 newly married heterosexual couples who described how they planned their weddings. The interplay among gender ideology, gender display, and gender assessment differed across three types of couples: traditional (n = 6), transitional (n = 10), and egalitarian (n = 5). An examination of gender assessment in transitional couples illustrates how holding competing ideologies contributes to the reproduction of hegemonic gendered work patterns within wedding planning.

The second time 'round: Remarried couples' gender construction in wedding planning

by Áine Humble

Humble, A. M. (2009). The second time 'round: Remarried couples' gender construction in wedding planning (PDF- 139 KB). Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 50(3/4), 260-281.

Humble, Zvonkovic, and Walker (2008) studied division of labor in first-time marriages, finding a range of gender... more Humble, Zvonkovic, and Walker (2008) studied division of labor in first-time marriages, finding a range of gender construction. The present study applied their conceptualization to remarried couples, for which little is known about division of labor or wedding experiences. Fourteen couples in which at least one spouse had recently remarried were interviewed about their wedding planning. Data analysis consisted of direct content analysis, rank order comparison, and matrix analysis. Contrasting Humble et al.’s findings, traditional and egalitarian couples were more common than transitional couples. Although remarriages tended to involve smaller and less complicated weddings, the majority of the couples replicated gendered patterns from their first weddings in subsequent weddings.

Wedding work

by Áine Humble

Humble, A. M. (2009). Wedding work (Method in Practice Report #9). [On-line supplement to Sage Publications' Companion Website to L. Richards' Handling qualitative data (2nd ed.).

In this paper, I describe in detail the method behind a study I did on remarrying couples' wedding planning. Topics... more In this paper, I describe in detail the method behind a study I did on remarrying couples' wedding planning. Topics are (a) setting up the project, (b) creating data, (c) working with the data, (d) analysis, and (e) reporting the data.

This is one of 10 on-line "Method in Practice" reports associated with Lyn Richards' "Handling Qualitative Data" (2nd ed.) book, and it was posted in 2009.

Care (and) circulation revisited: a conceptual map of diversity in transnational parenting

by paola bonizzoni

Co-authored with Paolo Boccagni, forthcoming in the book "Transnational families, migration and kin-work: from care chains to care circulation", edited by Loretta Baldassar and Laura Merla, Routledge.

Newsletter Nº 34, diciembre de 2011 / ADOPCIONES, FAMILIAS, INFANCIAS / V Congreso Internacional AFIN. La tríada en la adopción, el acogimiento y la reproducción asistida: el lugar de la familia de origen

by AFIN Barcelona

Dirección Newsletter: Esther Grau, Diana Marre y Beatriz San Román
Fotografías: Bruna Alvarez, Josep Arrandis y Fernanda Guerrero
Formato y maquetación: Sofía Gaggiotti
Difusión: Maria Galizia
ISSN: 2013-2956

En AFIN tenemos el firme convencimiento de que los resultados de las investigaciones no pueden quedarse en el ámbito... more En AFIN tenemos el firme convencimiento de que los resultados de las investigaciones no pueden quedarse en el ámbito académico, sino que tienen que ser trasladados no solo a quienes tienen la responsabilidad de definir políticas públicas sino también a las y los usuarios finales y ciudadan@s, por lo que uno de nuestros principales objetivos es la diseminación de los mismos, tanto a través de las Newsletters como de jornadas y congresos.
Por eso, dedicamos esta Newsletter a resumir las sesiones del V Congreso de AFIN, celebrado el 25 y 26 de noviembre pasado y titulado “La tríada en la adopción, el acogimiento y la reproducción asistida: el lugar de la familia de origen”. Con él cerrábamos el segundo año del proyecto de investigación “Adopción Internacional y Nacional: Familia, educación y pertenencia: perspectivas interdisciplinares y comparativas” (MICINN CSO2009-14763-C03-01 subprograma SOCI). Próximamente, los videos de las diferentes ponencias podrán visionarse en la web de AFIN: http://www.afin.org.es.

The Poetics of Tourist Experience: An Autoethnography of a Family Trip to Eilat

by Chaim Noy

Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change, 5(3), 141-157. (2007).

This paper is an autoethnographic exploration of a tourist’s experience. Through interpreting qualitative material, in... more This paper is an autoethnographic exploration of a tourist’s experience. Through interpreting qualitative material, in the form of a poem I wrote in 1994 about a short familial excursion to an Israeli seaside resort city (Eilat), the research seeks to sensitively describe the intricacies of travel experience. The research explores the advantages of the autoethnographic method of inquiry, and discusses tourism-related emotions and memories in the context of performance and representation. The paper joins recent efforts in attempting to challenge and loosen the grip of positivist epistemologies and discourses on mainstream tourism studies, by illustrating the emotional complexities and contradictions in the travel experience of tourists. In line with traditions of critical research in sociology, the exploration sheds light on the materiality of texts and on the role language plays in tourism, viewing the poem read in this paper (‘Quiet Eilat’) simultaneously as a representation, performance and material object of discourse.

The Language(s) of the Tourist Experience: An Autoethnography of the Poetic Tourist

by Chaim Noy

Book chapter. In Irena Ateljevic, Nigel Morgan, and Annette Pritchard (eds.), The Critical Turn in Tourism Studies: Innovative Research Methodologies. Amsterdam: Elsevier Publications. Pp. 349-370. (2007)

Family Pressure and the Daughters of Vietnamese Refugees

by Carl L Bankston

co-authored with Min Zhou

Review of Helping Out: Children's Labor in Ethnic Businesses by Miri Song

by Carl L Bankston

Respect in Southeast Asian American Children and Adolescents

by Carl L Bankston

co-authored with Danielle Hidalgo

Socialization and gender roles within the family: a study on adolescents and their parents in Great Britain

by Isabella Crespi

The way we are, behave and think is the final product of socialization. Since the moment we are born, we are being... more The way we are, behave and think is the final product of socialization. Since the moment we are born, we are being moulded into the being society wants us to be. Through socialization we also learn what is appropriate and improper for both genders. The vast literature on this topic has pointed out a
consolidation of the debate. It allows us to identify important problematic bonds relative to the achievement of their gender identity throughout their adolescence and to build reciprocity and complementarities between the sexes and the valorisation of fundamental contexts such as family. Socialization is a relational process between adolescents and parents and its objective is to build identity [in this case gender identity]. If the topic of gender is extremely important for the overview of sociological studies, it is even more important if it is
seen from an intergenerational point of view speaking about gender socialization. This paper will focus on how in particular family and parents’ attitudes mediate traditional gender
roles and the effect of their attitude towards gender roles.

Keywords: gender, socialization, youth, generations,
family, stereotypes, gender roles.

The Children of Hobbes: Education, Family Structure, and the Problem of Social Order

by Carl L Bankston

Family structure, schoolmates, and racial inequalities in school achievement

by Carl L Bankston

Advice When Children Come Out: The Cultural “Tool Kits” of Parents

by David J. Hutson

Co-authored with Karin A. Martin, Emily Kazyak, and Kristin S. Scherrer

Keywords: parents, children, gay identity, advice

The family is one of the main areas of social life where the normalization of gay and lesbian identity is incomplete.... more The family is one of the main areas of social life where the normalization of gay and lesbian identity is incomplete. Most research analyzes the individual and psychological aspects of how families respond to children’s disclosure of a gay or lesbian identity and ignores the social, cultural, and historical contexts. An examination of the cultural discourses, tools, and strategies that are available to parents is necessary for a full understanding of how families respond to gay and lesbian children. The authors conduct an interpretive content analysis of 29 advice books to assess this cultural field and its institutional resources. They find three broad strategies offered to parents: relying on professionals for overcoming the grief of having a gay or lesbian child, normalizing gay and lesbian identity, and using “good” parenting skills. This article discusses how these strategies demonstrate the unsettled and often contradictory cultural field of gay and lesbian identity in the family and its implications for sexual identities beyond the closet.

Blurring Racial and Ethnic Boundaries: Asian American Family Patterns, 1980-2005

by Carl L Bankston

Co-authored with Danielle Hidalgo