Changing American Families

by Aulette, Judy Root

• ISBN13: 9780205343157
• ISBN10: 0205343155
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-01
• Publisher: Allyn & Bacon

Summary

A one of a kind text that examines family life in the United States from colonial times to modern day, and provides a distinctly feminist perspective focusing on gender inequality during this period. Each chapter contains a three-part format that cover the key issues related to the topic, theoretical debates that exist within the field, and human agency and social movements that include the actions people have taken to cope with, resist, or change specific family problems. How to study families in the twenty-first century; a history of U.S. families with a focus on Euro-American and African-American families; Families and the economic system; the organization of race, class and gender; work and the family, love and sex; marriage; divorce; battering and marital rape are all covered. For anyone interested in studying family issues and concerns. Family Therapists, Counselors, Social Workers and others who search for better understanding of the complexities of family dynamics.

Table of Contents

Preface	xi
How to Study Families in the Twenty-First Century	1	(24)
Analyzing Social Life	2	(1)
The Sociological Imagination: Bridging the Gap between Individuals and Society	3	(3)
Micro and Macro Levels of Analysis	3	(1)
Society is a Human Invention	4	(2)
Families as a Political Issue	6	(4)
Families: Hot Issue in the United States	6	(2)
The Personal is Political	8	(2)
Recent History of the Sociology of Family	10	(12)
Women's Liberation Movement	11	(1)
Revisioning Families	12	(1)
Challenging the Myth of the Monolithic Family	13	(1)
Appreciating Diversity	14	(2)
The Monolithic Family and the Denial of Historical Change	16	(1)
Observing That Families are the Sites of Many Different Social Activities	17	(2)
Acknowledging Differences within Families by Gender and Age	19	(1)
Asking Whether Families are Separate from the Rest of Society	20	(1)
Creating Families That Provide Both Love and Individual Freedom	21	(1)
Asserting the Need to Change Families so They Can Better Serve the Needs of Women, Men and Children	21	(1)
The Question of Theory	22	(3)
A History of Families with a Focus on Euro-Americans	25	(30)
Studying the Social History of Families	26	(1)
Stages in the History of Euro-American Families	27	(24)
The Godly Family	28	(3)
Iroquois Families	31	(1)
The Modern Family, Stage 1: The Democratic Family	32	(1)
The Split between Family and Work among Euro-Americans	33	(1)
The Cult of True Womanhood	34	(2)
The Ideal of Real Womanhood	36	(1)
Capitalist Industrialization and the Working-Class Family	37	(1)
The Problem of the Family Wage	38	(1)
Pioneer Families: Leaving Friends, Facing Hardship	39	(1)
The Modern Family, Stage II: The Companionate Family	40	(1)
The Twentieth Century and the History of Childhood	41	(1)
Families during the Great Depression	42	(1)
World War II and Families	43	(1)
World War II and Marriage	44	(1)
World War II and Divorce	45	(1)
Japanese American Families during the War	46	(2)
The Fifties	48	(3)
Periodicizing	51	(1)
The First-Wave Women's Movement	52	(1)
The Micro-Macro Connection	53	(2)
A History of U.S. Families with a Focus on African Americans	55	(27)
Diversity in American Families	56	(2)
Four Periods in African American History	58	(19)
Slavery	58	(2)
Family Life under Slavery	60	(2)
Family Organization and Black Women's Role in a Community of Slaves	62	(3)
Comparing White Middle-Class Women to African American Women in the Nineteenth Century	65	(2)
Reproduction	67	(1)
Split Households among Chicanos and Chinese Americans	67	(1)
Chicano Families	68	(1)
Chinese American Families	68	(1)
Sharecropping	69	(2)
Who Shall Control Women's and Children's Labor?	71	(2)
Gender Equality and Changes in Families Under Sharecropping	73	(2)
Industrialization	75	(2)
African American Families in the Struggle for Equality	77	(2)
Structuration Theory and the Importance of Agency	79	(1)
The Micro-Macro Connection	80	(2)
Families and the Economic System	82	(25)
The Critical Link between Families and the Economy	83	(1)
The Contemporary Economic Scene in the United States: The Great U-Turn	83	(16)
Unemployment	85	(1)
Economic Decline and Poverty	86	(2)
The New Economy	88	(1)
More Workers per Family	88	(2)
Increased Debt	90	(1)
Housing	90	(2)
Growing Homelessness	92	(1)
The Rich Get Richer	93	(1)
Economic Decline and U.S. Families	94	(1)
Homelessness	94	(1)
Shelters: An Inadequate Solution	95	(1)
Blue-Collar Layoffs	96	(2)
Downward Mobility in the Middle Class	98	(1)
Responding to Economic Crisis	99	(2)
Social Victims or Social Critics?	100	(1)
Campaign for a Living Wage	101	(1)
What is Behind the Great U-Turn?	101	(5)
The First Revolution	102	(1)
The Second Revolution	102	(1)
Postindustrial Society: A Third Revolution?	103	(3)
The Micro-Macro Connection	106	(1)
Families and the Organization of Race, Class, and Gender	107	(31)
Systems of Stratification	108	(8)
What is Social Class?	110	(1)
Race Ethnicity	111	(4)
Immigration	115	(1)
Gender	116	(1)
Social Class, Race Ethnicity and, Gender and Family Life	116	(14)
Upper-Class Families: Gatekeepers	117	(1)
Middle-Class Families	118	(1)
Geographic Mobility	119	(1)
The Black Middle Class	120	(1)
Working-Class White Families	121	(1)
Working-Class African American Families: The Moynihan Report and its Historical Context	122	(2)
The Flats	124	(1)
Swapping	124	(2)
Bloodmothers and Other Mothers	126	(1)
Household and Family	126	(1)
Extended Network Families in Racial Ethnic Communities	126	(2)
Women's Domestic Authority	128	(1)
Immigrant Families	128	(1)
Mexican Americans	128	(2)
Vietnamese Immigrant Families	130	(1)
What is a Family?	130	(6)
Renewed Interest in Poor Families	131	(1)
The Culture of Poverty	132	(2)
Social Structural Model	134	(1)
Do Families Contain the Seeds of Resistance?	134	(1)
The Mothers of East Los Angeles	135	(1)
The Micro-Macro Connection	136	(2)
Work and Family	138	(29)
Myth of Separate Spheres	139	(9)
The Study of Work and Family is Distorted by the Concept of Separate Spheres	140	(1)
Young Women Speak of Work and Family in Their Future	141	(2)
Women in the Paid Labor Force	143	(1)
Why Have Women Increasingly Entered the Labor Force?	143	(1)
How do Women Choose to Work?	144	(1)
Chicanas and a Fifth Way of Choosing to Work for Wages	145	(2)
Why do Men Work?	147	(1)
How Does Work Influence Families?	148	(8)
Absorption	149	(1)
Time and Timing	149	(2)
A Special Case of Timing: Working Parents and Their Children	151	(1)
Teenage Workers and Their Families	151	(1)
Retirement	152	(1)
Income	152	(1)
Exchange Theory	153	(1)
A Feminist Critique of Exchange Theory	154	(1)
Worldview	155	(1)
Emotional Climate	156	(1)
The Influence of Families on Work	156	(5)
Bringing the Family to Work	157	(2)
Managing the Contradiction	159	(2)
Can Families Put Pressure for Change on Employers?	161	(5)
Flextime	161	(3)
Family Leave	164	(2)
The Micro-Macro Connection	166	(1)
Housework	167	(27)
Housework, the Invisible Occupation	168	(2)
What is it Like to Be a Housewife?	169	(1)
Who Does the Housework?	170	(12)
How are the Tasks Divided?	172	(1)
Social-Class Variation	172	(2)
Children's Work in Families	174	(2)
Feeding the Family	176	(2)
The Difference between Full-Time Housewives and Part-Time Housewives	178	(1)
High Tech and Housework	179	(2)
A Recent Addition to the Tasks of the Housewife	181	(1)
Why is Housework Divided Unequally?	182	(4)
Socializing Housewives	182	(1)
Making a Rational Choice	183	(1)
Unequal Work and the Politics of Gender	184	(2)
What Can be Done about Inequality in the Division of Housework?	186	(6)
Negotiating New Ways to Divide Work	187	(1)
Mothers as Gatekeepers	188	(1)
Hiring a Maid	189	(2)
Solving the Problem of Housework through Policy Change	191	(1)
The Micro-Macro Connection	192	(2)
Love and Sex	194	(29)
What is Love?	196	(2)
Historical Development of Love	196	(1)
Postmodern Romance	197	(1)
Human Sexuality	198	(14)
Sexual Standards	199	(1)
Sex and the Law	200	(1)
Problems in Sex Research	201	(1)
Ideas about Sex	202	(3)
Premarital Sex	205	(2)
Teen Romance	207	(3)
The Marriage Bed	210	(1)
Nonmonogamous Activity	211	(1)
HIV/AIDS	211	(1)
Some Theoretical Debates on Sexuality	212	(4)
Heterosexuality, Homosexuality, and Lesbianism	212	(2)
Explaining the Focus on Sex	214	(2)
Abortion	216	(6)
Debates about Abortion	220	(2)
The Micro-Macro Connection	222	(1)
Marriage	223	(31)
Characteristics of Marriage	224	(13)
Marriage is a Legal Contract	225	(1)
Three Periods of Marriage and Family Law	226	(2)
Marriage is an Economic Arrangement	228	(1)
Marriage is a Sexual Relationship	229	(1)
Marriage Means Commitment	230	(1)
Marriage is a Political Arena	231	(2)
Power in Communication	233	(1)
Religion, Politics, and Marriage	234	(3)
Statistics on Marriage	237	(11)
Age at First Marriage	237	(1)
Racial Ethnic Differences in Age at First Marriage	238	(2)
Marrying across Racial Ethnic Lines	240	(2)
Long-Term Marriage	242	(1)
Widowhood	243	(1)
Transition to Marriage	244	(1)
Cohabitation and Domestic Partnerships	245	(2)
Singles	247	(1)
Theoretical Debate on Marriage	248	(2)
Families We Choose	250	(3)
The Micro-Macro Connection	253	(1)
Divorce and Remarriage	254	(32)
How to Measure Divorce	256	(8)
Rates of Divorce	257	(1)
What are the Correlates of Divorce?	257	(2)
Historical Changes in Divorce	259	(2)
Another American History of Divorce	261	(2)
Why do Women Choose Divorce?	263	(1)
Divorce Transitions	264	(11)
Social Stigmatization	264	(1)
Economic Difficulties for Women	265	(4)
Divorce as an Opportunity	269	(3)
Remarriage	272	(3)
Children and Divorce	275	(7)
Child Custody	276	(2)
Child Support	278	(2)
Why Don't Men Pay?	280	(1)
Divorced Fathers	281	(1)
Finding Solutions: Where Were the Feminists?	282	(2)
The Micro-Macro Connection	284	(2)
Battering and Marital Rape	286	(29)
Prevalence of Violence in Families	288	(7)
Woman Battering	289	(4)
Murder by Intimates	293	(1)
Marital Rape	293	(2)
Measuring the Social Costs of Domestic Violence	295	(1)
Theories about Violence in Families	295	(11)
Why Does Violence Occur?	297	(1)
Explaining Woman Battering as a Result of Individual Characteristics	297	(1)
Violence-Prone Family Structure in Our Society	298	(3)
A Feminist Social-Structural View on Battering and Marital Rape	301	(2)
The Controversy over the Battered Husband Syndrome	303	(1)
Three Points of View, Three Strategies for Policy	304	(1)
The Discovery of Violence in Families	305	(1)
Finding Solutions	306	(7)
The Get-Tough-with-Abusers Campaign	309	(3)
The Battered Women's Movement	312	(1)
Violence Against Women Act	312	(1)
The Micro-Macro Connection	313	(2)
Parents	315	(33)
Parents and Parenting	316	(3)
Parenting Role	317	(1)
Transition to Parenting	318	(1)
Mothering	319	(19)
Choosing Single Motherhood	320	(2)
Lesbian Mothers	322	(1)
Teenage Mothers	323	(4)
Delaying Childbirth	327	(1)
High Technology and Mothering	327	(3)
What about Fathers?	330	(1)
Bringing Fathers into Parenting	330	(1)
New Fathers in Word and Deed	331	(1)
Gay Fathers	332	(1)
Single Fathers	333	(1)
Other Fathers	334	(1)
Childless by Choice	335	(1)
Grandparents	336	(2)
Is Biology Destiny?	338	(4)
What is Wrong with the Sociobiological Model?	340	(1)
If Biology is Not Destiny, Are Men and Women Identical as Parents?	341	(1)
Child Care	342	(5)
Lessons from History	346	(1)
The Micro-Macro Connection	347	(1)
Children	348	(35)
Post-Modern American Children	350	(25)
Children as Learners of Adult Culture	350	(1)
Gender Socialization in Families	351	(3)
Social Constructionist Theory	354	(1)
Racial Socialization	354	(4)
Television Socializes Children	358	(2)
Children as Threats	360	(2)
Positive Effects of Children on Parents	362	(3)
Children as Victims: Child Abuse	365	(3)
Mothers, Fathers, and Child Abuse	368	(2)
Incest	370	(1)
Radical Feminist Theory on Incest	371	(1)
Children as Victims: Poverty	372	(2)
Sisters and Brothers	374	(1)
Theoretical Problems in the Study of Children	375	(4)
How Do We Think of Children and Childhood?	376	(1)
How Accurate is Our Image of Children?	377	(2)
Resistance against Child Abuse and Incest	379	(2)
Child Victims of Sexual Abuse: A Bill of Rights	380	(1)
The Micro-Macro Connection	381	(2)
Families, Family Policy and the State	383	(28)
The Welfare State and Family Policy	386	(1)
Social Policy and Families: The Case of the Welfare System	387	(5)
Persistent Myths about Welfare Mothers	389	(2)
Welfare and Gender and Race	391	(1)
History and Trends for the Future in Welfare	392	(5)
Family Support Act	395	(1)
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act	396	(1)
Why is There No Explicit Family Policy in the United States?	397	(8)
What is a State?	400	(2)
The State and Inequality	402	(3)
Resistance to the Welfare System	405	(3)
The Micro-Macro Connection	408	(3)
References	411	(44)
Index	455