This book offers a critique of the popular claim that more data equals better health. In a study that redefines the public, academic, and policy debates around health, bodies, information and data, the authors consider the ways in which the phenomenon of self-diagnosis has created alternative worlds of knowledge and practices which are often at odds with professional medical advice. With a focus on data that concerns significant life changes, this book explores the potential challenges related to people's changing relationships with traditional health systems as access to, and control over, data continues to evolve.
Anna Tarrant’s revealing research explores the dynamics of men’s caring responsibilities in low-income families’ lives. The book draws on pioneering multigenerational research to examine men’s involvement in care for their families. It interrogates how this is affected by the resources available and the constraints upon them, considering intersections of gender, generation and work, as well as the impact of austerity and welfare support. Illuminating aspects of care within economic hardship that often go unseen, it deepens our understanding of masculinities and family life and the policies and practices that support or undermine men’s participation.
Anna Tarrant’s revealing research explores the dynamics of men’s caring responsibilities in low-income families’ lives. The book draws on pioneering multigenerational research to examine men’s involvement in care for their families. It interrogates how this is affected by the resources available and the constraints upon them, considering intersections of gender, generation and work, as well as the impact of austerity and welfare support. Illuminating aspects of care within economic hardship that often go unseen, it deepens our understanding of masculinities and family life and the policies and practices that support or undermine men’s participation.
Shifting marriage and divorce patterns, transformation in the workplace, the growth of the women′s movement and the development of the men′s movement, all these social and cultural changes have changed fathers′ traditional family roles and forced a reexamination of how fathers and children interact. Progress in this new understanding of fathers is highlighted in Fatherhood, a volume of empirical and theoretical research on fathers in families. The research pieces, written by such well-known scholars as Furstenberg, Seltzer, and Greif, examine differences in culture, class, nationality, and custodial status. The chapters focus on legal, economic, and policy questions, as well as on the interaction between fathers and children within the family. Some of the topics explored are fathers′ involvement in child care, fathering in the inner city, and single fathers who have custody of their children. Fatherhood is the most current assessment of our research base on fatherhood available for professional, scholarly, and classroom use and is important reading for those interested in men′s studies, family studies, gender studies, sociology, psychology, and social work.
The recent radical cutbacks of the welfare state in the United Kingdom have kept poverty and income management at the heart of intellectual, public, and policy discourse. This innovative book adds to that conversation, taking as its focus the role and significance of family in the context of poverty and low-income conditions. Based on a micro-level study carried out in 2011 and 2012 with fifty-one families in Northern Ireland, it draws from fresh empirical evidence to offer a new theorization of the relationship between family life and poverty. Different chapters explore such topics as parenting, the management of money, family support, and local engagement. Together, they detail the practices of constructing and managing family life and relationships in circumstances of poverty, making this book of interest to a wide readership including policy makers.
Across the political spectrum, unwed fatherhood is denounced as one of the leading social problems of today. Doing the Best I Can is a strikingly rich, paradigm-shifting look at fatherhood among inner-city men often dismissed as “deadbeat dads.” Kathryn Edin and Timothy J. Nelson examine how couples in challenging straits come together and get pregnant so quickly—without planning. The authors chronicle the high hopes for forging lasting family bonds that pregnancy inspires, and pinpoint the fatal flaws that often lead to the relationship’s demise. They offer keen insight into a radical redefinition of family life where the father-child bond is central and parental ties are peripheral. Drawing on years of fieldwork, Doing the Best I Can shows how mammoth economic and cultural changes have transformed the meaning of fatherhood among the urban poor. Intimate interviews with more than 100 fathers make real the significant obstacles faced by low-income men at every step in the familial process: from the difficulties of romantic relationships, to decision-making dilemmas at conception, to the often celebratory moment of birth, and finally to the hardships that accompany the early years of the child's life, and beyond.
American fathers are a highly diverse group, but the breadwinning, live-in, biological dad prevails as the fatherhood ideal. Consequently, policymakers continue to emphasize marriage and residency over initiatives that might help foster healthy father-child relationships and creative co-parenting regardless of marital or residential status. In Nurturing Dads, William Marsiglio and Kevin Roy explore the ways new initiatives can address the social, cultural, and economic challenges men face in contemporary families and foster more meaningful engagement between many different kinds of fathers and their children. What makes a good father? The firsthand accounts in Nurturing Dads show that the answer to this question varies widely and in ways that counter the mainstream "provide and reside" model of fatherhood. Marsiglio and Roy document the personal experiences of more than 300 men from a wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds and diverse settings, including fathers-to-be, young adult fathers, middle-class dads, stepfathers, men with multiple children in separate families, and fathers in correctional facilities. They find that most dads express the desire to have strong, close relationships with their children and to develop the nurturing skills to maintain these bonds. But they also find that disadvantaged fathers, including young dads and those in constrained financial and personal circumstances, confront myriad structural obstacles, such as poverty, inadequate education, and poor job opportunities. Nurturing Dads asserts that society should help fathers become more committed and attentive caregivers and that federal and state agencies, work sites, grassroots advocacy groups, and the media all have roles to play. Recent efforts to introduce state-initiated paternity leave should be coupled with social programs that encourage fathers to develop unconditional commitments to children, to co-parent with mothers, to establish partnerships with their children's other caregivers, and to develop parenting skills and resources before becoming fathers via activities like volunteering and mentoring kids. Ultimately, Marsiglio and Roy argue, such combined strategies would not only change the policy landscape to promote engaged fathering but also change the cultural landscape to view nurturance as a fundamental aspect of good fathering. Care is a human experience—not just a woman's responsibility—and this core idea behind Nurturing Dads holds important implications for how society supports its families and defines manhood. The book promotes the progressive notion that fathers should provide more than financial support and, in the process, bring about a better start in life for their children. A Volume in the American Sociological Association's Rose Series in Sociology
Despite a decade of sociological research documenting black fathers’ significant level of engagement with their children, stereotypes of black men as “deadbeat dads” still shape popular perceptions and scholarly discourse. In Fathering from the Margins, sociologist Aasha M. Abdill draws on four years of fieldwork in low-income, predominantly black Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, to dispel these destructive assumptions. She considers the obstacles faced—and the strategies used—by black men with children. Abdill presents qualitative and quantitative evidence that confirms the increasing presence of black fathers in their communities, arguing that changing social norms about gender roles in black families have shifted fathering behaviors. Black men in communities such as Bed-Stuy still face social and structural disadvantages, including disproportionate unemployment and incarceration, with significant implications for family life. Against this backdrop, black fathers attempt to reconcile contradictory beliefs about what makes one a good father and what makes one a respected man by developing different strategies for expressing affection and providing parental support. Black men’s involvement with their children is affected by the attitudes of their peers, the media, and especially the women of their families and communities: from the grandmothers who often become gatekeepers to involvement in a child’s life to the female-dominated sectors of childcare, primary school, and family-service provision. Abdill shows how supporting black men in their quest to be—and be seen as—family men is the key to securing not only their children's well-being but also their own.
This text focuses on violent fathering and discusses research in the context of domestic violence. It examines fathers' perceptions of their domestic violence amd its impact on children, their relationships with children and their parenting practices. It also recommends ways that policy and practice can be improved.
Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.
