American Families

by Coontz, Stephanie; Parson, Maya; Raley, Gabrielle

• ISBN13: 9780415915731
• ISBN10: 0415915732
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-11-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This collection testifies to the extraordinary variety of families in the United States, revealing that family arrangements have always been diverse and have often been in flux. Case studies describe the wide array of family forms and values, gender roles, and parenting practices that have prevailed in different times and places for different population groups. Paying special attention to the intersections and cross-currents of class, race, and ethnicity, as well as their differential impact on gender, sexuality, and personal identity, the contributors highlight the socioeconomic and cultural forces that affect the organization and internal dynamics of family life. These articles provide a variety of perspectives that nonetheless point to a common theme: the myth of family homogeneity has not merely excluded some groups; it has deformed our understanding of all families. Social policies and psychological practice must take account of the complexity, contradictions, conflicts, and accommodationsthat shape people's individual and group experience of family life. Drawing on historical, sociological, anthropological, and psychological research, American Families provides an overview of the theoretical and conceptual issues involved in studying the variations and interactions among different, constantly changing, families. It also considers the social, political, and practical implications of viewing family life through the lens of multiculturalism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	viii
Introduction	ix
Stephanie Coontz
Part I. The American Tradition of Family Diversity
Fictive Kin, Paper Sons, and Compadrazgo: Women of Color and the Struggle for Family Survival	2	(18)
Bonnie Thornton Dill
Excerpts from Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875--1928	20	(39)
David Wallace Adams
Interpreting the African Heritage in Afro-American Family Organization	59	(15)
Niara Sudarkasa
Split Household, Small Producer, and Dual Wage Earner: An Analysis of Chinese-American Family Strategies	74	(20)
Evelyn Nakano Glenn
Working-Class Families, 1870--1890	94	(34)
Stephanie Coontz
Excerpts from Becoming Maxican American: Ethnicity, Culture, and Identity in Chicano Los Angeles, 1900--1945	128	(25)
George J. Sanchez
Southern Diaspora: Origins of the Northern ``Underclass''	153	(27)
Jacqueline Jones
Part II. Integrating Race, Class, and Gender into Family Theory
Family and Class in Contemporary America: Notes toward an Understanding of Ideology	180	(17)
Rayna Rapp
Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing about Motherhood	197	(21)
Patricia Hill Collins
Toward a Unified Theory of Class, Race, and Gender	218	(12)
Karen Brodkin Sacks
Social Science Theorizing for Latino Families in the Age of Diversity	230	(13)
Maxine Baca Zinn
Part III. Working-Class and Inner-City Families under Economic Stress
Poor Families in an Era of Urban Transformation: The ``Underclass'' Family in Myth and Reality	243	(15)
Thomas J. Sugrue
No Good Choices: Teenage Childbearing, Concentrated Poverty, and Welfare Reform	258	(15)
Gabrielle Raley
Excerpts from Families on the Fault Line: America's Working Class Speaks about the Family, the Economy, Race, and Ethnicity	273	(15)
Lillian B. Rubin
Part IV. Globalization and Today's Immigrant Families
Women and Children First: New Directions in Anti-immigrant Politics	288	(17)
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
Global Exchange: The World Bank, ``Welfare Reform,'' and the Global Trade in Filipina Workers	305	(13)
Grace Chang
Migration and Vietnamese American Women: Remaking Ethnicity	318	(14)
Nazli Kibria
Part V. Work-Family Issues
Management by Stress: The Reorganization of Work Hits Home in the 1990s	332	(10)
Sarah Ryan
Gender Displays and Men's Power: The ``New Man'' and the Mexican Immigrant Man	342	(17)
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo
Michael A. Messner
Child-Care Dilemmas in Contemporary Families	359	(13)
Tamara Anderson
Beth Vail
Part VI. New Forms of Family Diversity
Gay and Lesbian Families Are Here; All Our Families Are Queer; Let's Get Used to It!	372	(34)
Judith Stacey
African American Lesbians: Issues in Couples Therapy	406	(19)
Beverly Greene
Nancy Boyd-Franklin
Social Construction of Mary Beth Whitehead	425	(10)
Michelle Harrison
Comment on Harrison: The Commodification of Motherhood	435	(4)
Barbara Katz Rothman
Resolving ``Other'' Status: Identity Development of Biracial Individuals	439	(16)
Maria P. P. Root
Use of African-American Family Structures and Functioning to Address the Challenges of European-American Postdivorce Families	455	(15)
Margaret Crosbie-Burnett
Edith A. Lewis
Part VII. Recognizing Diversity, Encouraging Solidarity
Poverty, Social Rights, and the Quality of Citizenship	470	(8)
Roger Lawson
William Julius Wilson
The Case for a Race-Specific Policy	478	(9)
Stephen Steinberg
The Family Values Fable	487	(4)
Judith Stacey
Selected Bibliography of Recent Sources	491	(9)
Maya Parson
Permissions Acknowledgments	500