The face of noncompliance in family interaction

Abstract

AbstractThis article examines the co-construction of dispute in parent-child remedial interchanges, where preference for provocation rather than agreement exists. Employing methodologies of video ethnography, linguistic anthropology, and conversation analysis, we examine practices for dispute management in middle class Los Angeles families (1540 h of video across 32 US families were collected and examined between 2002 and 2005) as well as in (sub)-working-class families in the historic center neighborhood of the Quartieri Spagnoli in Napoli, Italy (120 h of video across six families were collected and examined between 2008 and 2010). We problematize the notion that preference structures featuring politeness and moves towards swift social equilibrium in remedial interchanges are the basic organizing principles used in family interaction. Our findings suggest that rather than quickly restoring ritual equilibrium, children can create their own “character contests” in which they compete with parents for control. In response to a child’s breach, noncompliance, or offensive action, the parents can sanction inappropriate behavior, and socialize the child into what counts, in the family culture, as morally appropriate behavior. Whereas in US middle class families, the parents pursue apologies, in Neapolitan (sub)-working-class families, the parents are more concerned about explanations and accounts for inappropriate desires and actions. There is no expectation that the children apologize for untoward behavior. Across culture and class, during adult-child socializing encounters, moral claims intersect with affective stances to develop and negotiate personhood, identity, and adherence to cultural norms.