Family In America Research Articles

Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America

Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America

Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America. By Timothy A. Hacsi (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. x plus 297pp. $39.95)

Journal Article Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America. By Timothy A. Hacsi (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. x plus 297pp. $39.95) Get access Judith Dulberger Judith Dulberger Youngstown, OH 44504 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 32, Issue 4, Summer 1999, Pages 1002–1004, https://doi.org/10.1353/jsh/32.4.1002 Published: 01 July 1999

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article:Sociology and Nature: Social Action in Context, by Raymond Murphy. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. 321 pages. Cloth, $72.00.Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, by James O'Connor. New York, NY: The Guilford Press, 1998. 350 pages. Paper, $19.95.Understanding Globalization: The Social Consequences of Political, Economic, and Environmental Change, by Robert K. Schaeffer. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997. 360 pages. Paper, $21.95.Ethnic Families in America: Patterns and Variations, edited by Charles H. Mindel, Robert W. Haberstein, Roosevelt Wright Jr., Fourth Edition. Upper Saddle River: NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998. 518 pages. Paper, $37.60.Shelter Blues: Sanity and Selfhood Among the Homeless, by Robert Desjarlais. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997. 307 pages. Cloth, $42.50; paper, $19.95.

Bibliography

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Frank Blair: Lincoln's Conservative

Known for his fearlessness in both the political arena and the battlefield, Frank Blair is a Missouri legend. As a member of one of the most prominent and powerful political families in America during the nineteenth century, possibly the equivalent of the twentieth-century Kennedys, Frank was steeped in politics at an early age. The youngest son of Francis Preston Blair, editor of Andrew Jackson's Washington Globe and adviser to Presidents Andrew Jackson through Andrew Johnson, Frank Blair was greatly influenced by his father, who had high political expectations of him.Volatile and combative, Blair was either strongly admired or hated by the public figures of his day. He held adamantly to his opinions and fought hard for his political causes. He was an ardent supporter of Abraham Lincoln and championed the president's program in Congress and in Missouri against the frequent assaults of the Radicals. Credited with being the principal leader in saving Missouri for the Union in 1861, Blair later served with great distinction at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, and in the Sherman campaigns throughout Georgia and the Carolinas. He is one of only two Missourians ever honored by his state in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol.Frank Blair: Lincoln's Conservative reveals the full extent of Blair's importance as a national political figure. Specialists in nineteenth-century America, students of Missouri history, and Civil War buffs will welcome this study, which will long stand as the definitive work on this influential and colorful character.

The Slave Family in Arkansas

THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY is central to the history of the United States and especially the South. As Ira Berlin recognizes in his recent study, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, slavery shaped Americans'definition of race. Since race remains a major force in our society today, understanding the basis of our racial thought continues to be critical. The earliest scholars of slavery tended to look at it as an institution the slaveholders made, but in the last thirty years researchers have turned toward understanding slavery from the perspective of the slaves themselves. What might be called revisionist historians have examined in detail the development of the various social dimensions of the slave community.1 This new scholarship, however, has had little impact on our understanding of slavery in Arkansas. Orville Taylor's Negro Slavery in Arkansas remains the standard work and was exemplary for its time. Published in 1958 before recent research developments, it contributes little to the current discussion of the nature of slave life.2 This study seeks to rectify that deficiency with a look at one aspect of the slave community, the family. The slave family has been of particular interest to scholars, since understanding it has been considered critical to explaining the basic dynamics of the master-slave relationship and thus the character of the institution. Serious scholarly study of the slave family began with the work of one individual, E. Franklin Frazier, who published The Negro Family in Chicago in 1932 and The Negro Family in the United States in 1939. Frazier, concerned with what he considered to be the instability of the African American family in the 1930s, located the roots of that instability in slavery. He concluded that the slave family was little more than an accommodation to the institution. It never had the capacity to tie together households into units of common interest and purpose. The reason for this failure, Frazier hypothesized, was that the slave family could not be protected by its adult members and, often dispersed by owners, seldom existed over any length of time.3 Later historians, such as Kenneth Stampp and Stanley Elkins, followed in Frazier's wake, agreeing with him that even where the slave household existed it lacked cohesiveness. The frequent breakup of families by masters prevented the development of strong bonds among family members. In the end, Stampp and Elkins concluded, as Frazier had, that the slave family reflected little more than the slave owner's desire to create stability within the plantation community. These conclusions became the textbook history for a generation and even the basis for public policy. Daniel P. Moynihan's book, The Negro Family in America: The Case for National Action, published in 1965, integrated this analysis into his explanation of modern problems of the African American family and his proposal for their solutions.4 Scholarship in the 1970s, by looking at the slave family from the viewpoint of the slaves, developed a different and revisionist interpretation. Examining new sources that ranged from the reminiscences of ex-slaves to plantation records, historians found an institution not simply shaped by the interests of the master but also by the interests of the African American slave community. They discovered stability rather than instability. The idea that slaves sought to create two-parent nuclear families that then became the vehicle for the formation of a larger and uniquely African American culture first appeared in 1972 in John Blassingame's Slave Community. It received subsequent support in Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman's controversial Time on the Cross and Eugene Genovese's Roll, Jordan, Roll. Herbert Gutman carried the idea further in his Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, concluding that the two-parent family was the norm among slaves.5 By the 1990s the revisionist model had displaced that of Frazier, Stampp and Elkins. …

Of Many Colors: Portraits of Multiracial Families

Based on an award-winning photo exhibit, this book documents the feelings and experiences of Americans who live in families. It tells the stories of 39 families who have bridged the racial divide through interracial marriage or adoption. Parents and children speak candidly about their lives, their relationships and the ways in which they have dealt with issues of race. Although the number of mixed-race families in America is steadily rising, this trend remains controversial. For centuries, America has depended on distinct racial categories for its social, political and economic organization. The current debate over the inclusion of a multiracial category on consensus forms illustrates the extent to which the deeply embedded construct of race continues to divide American society. Transracial adoption has also generated fierce controversy and debate. As in the case of racial categories, the discussion of transracial adoption reflects ever-changing social standards. As recently as 1987, 35 states had laws prohibiting the adoption of black children by white families. In 1996, however, President Clinton signed a bill making it illegal to prohibit adoptions based on race. The interviews in this book provide the reader with an understanding of how mixed-race families contradict stereotypes, challenge racism, and demonstrate that people of different races can indeed live together in harmony. Family members also have much to say about the most intimate form of integration, familial love, and this love is made visible in the photographs by Gigi Kaeser.

Second home: orphan asylums and poor families in America

Second home: orphan asylums and poor families in America

The Effectiveness of a Visitation Program in Fostering Visits with Noncustodial Parents

This investigation provides initial information about the effectiveness of a supervised visitation program to maintain the relationship between parent(s) and their adjudicated child(ren) through supervised visits. Through comparative analysis, this study examines families participating at a visitation center with those non-participating families. Participating families are more likely to have visitations occur and have several visits than non-participating families. These results provided evidence for positive impacts of the program on the families it serves (e.g., closing cases more quickly). Dramatic social, demographic, and economic changes during the past 30 years have transformed the American family (National Commission on Children, 1991). Generally, families in America are coping well with these changes. However, an increasing number of families are failing their children. From 1982 to 1992 the number of placements in foster care has increased by nearly 80% as reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (1996). Placement of a child occurs when a state protective services worker (under supervision of the state judicial system) determines that a child's family cannot provide a minimally safe environment for the child. Generally, placement occurs either because a member of the household has physically or sexually abused the child or because the child's caretaker(s) has severely neglected the child. In many of these situations, judges allow visitation between the noncustodial parent(s) and their child to occur only if supervised by a third party. Aiding parents in the visitation process presents a greater demand on family service programs. One approach to enhancing the visitation between the parent and child is found in a relatively recent social service: supervised visitation programs. The increase of placements coupled with the increased need for services from separated and divorced parents has been the major impetus for the growth of supervised visitation programs in America and other industrialized countries. Supervised Visitation Supervised visitation, by definition, is providing an opportunity for contact between a child and an adult, typically the noncustodial parent, in the presence of a third party. This third person is responsible for ensuring a safe environment for the individuals participating in the visit. Supervised visitation is needed when there is any situation that may place a child at risk (Straus, 1995). Supervised visitation programs frequently include established centers in which visits between dependent children and their noncustodial parents are supervised by trained observers. These supervised visitation centers have multiple foci. For example, the majority of these centers arrange visits among families; oversee visits and child-exchanges; provide parenting classes and support groups; and provide a coherent, just, family- and childcentered community response to custody and visitations (Straus & Alda, 1994). Overall, the purpose of supervised visitation programs is to provide a safe friendly environment that maintains and fosters the relationship of a child with his/her parent(s). Many scholars have highlighted the beneficial effects of children's contact with their biological parents while the children are in out-of-home care, as well as the detrimental effects of the absence of visiting, with respect to emotional adjustment of the children (Colon, 1978; Fanshel, 1975; Fanshel & Shinn, 1978; Hess, 1988; Oyserman & Benbenishty, 1992; Pringle & Clifford, 1962). Maintaining a secure attachment with a parent(s) through visits increases the likelihood of the positive development of a child in terms of their emotional health (Grigsby, 1994; Hess, 1982). In their extensive review of literature on visitation, Cantos and his colleagues (Cantos, Gries, & Slis, 1997) noted studies where frequent visits had also been found to help children in the expression of their feelings (Littner, 1975) and relate better to their foster parents (Van der Waals, 1960), helps calm separation fears (Hess, 1988), and gives both the placed children and the foster parents continuing opportunities to see the parents realistically instead of maintaining irrational notions. …

Second Home: Orphan Asylums and Poor Families in America

As orphan asylums ceased to exist in the late 20th century, interest in them dwindled as well. Yet, from the Civil War to the Great Depression, America's dependent children - children whose families were unable to care for them - received more aid from orphan asylums than from any other means. This omission in the growing literature on poverty in America is addressed in this book. As Timothy Hacsi shows, most children in 19th-century orphan asylums were half-orphans, children with one living parent who was unable to provide for them. The asylums spread widely and endured because different groups - churches, ethnic communities, charitable organizations, fraternal societies, and local and state governments - could adapt them to their own purposes. In the 1890s, critics began to argue that asylums were overcrowded and impersonal. By 1909, advocates called for aid to destitute mothers, and argued that asylums should be a last resort, for short-term care only. Yet orphanages continued to care for most dependent children until the depression strained asylum budgets and federally-funded home care became more widely available. Yet some, Catholic asylums in particular, cared for poor children into the 1950s and 1960s. At a time when the American welfare state has failed to provide for all needy children, understanding America's history in this area could be an important step toward correcting that failure.

For whom the bell tolls: The institutionalization of homeless families in america

Abstract A peek through the doors of New York City's Emergency Assistance Unit (EAU), the entryway into the City's family shelter system, presents a shocking snapshot of life for the poorest of America's welfare families: the homeless. Burgeoning with young single mothers and children sitting on floors and sleeping in chairs as they wait for someone to send them on to temporary shelter, the EAU offers a vivid example of the overburdened institutions of support on which poor families depend daily.

New Federal Welfare Law: No Hands For Picking Beans?

New Federal Welfare Law: No Hands For Picking Beans? Michael Miskowiec Appalachia is likely to feel the adverse effects of the new welfare law more acutely than any other region of the country. Southern Appalachian states are already facing changes that will impact people of all ages and poverty levels. On August 22, 1996, President Clinton signed into law the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, P.L. 104-193. This law shifts responsibility for the nation's poor families to the states. Furthermore, despite the rhetoric surrounding the bill's passage about granting states flexibility to move people from welfare to work, several provisions of the law tie the hands of the states to create effective programs to achieve an end to welfare dependency. The most striking change made by enactment of this welfare reform bill is the repeal of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program , a public assistance program in existence over sixty years that paid cash benefits to families with children who have been deprived ofparental support. In place of the AFDC program, the law creates a block grant program called the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program . Federal funding for the TANF program is fixed at a level below projected spending levels under prior law. The law specifically ends a family's entitlement to the assistance as a matter of federal law. Under the terms of the TANF program, states may not use federal funds to pay assistance to families that have received benefits for a total of sixty prior months. The law also requires the states to meet annual percentage targets for family members to be involved in work activity. The law also makes changes in the Supplemental Security Income program. The Supplemental Security Income provides cash assistance to needy disabled, aged, and blind individuals. The standard for disability The author writes, "I am an attorney in private practice in Charleston, West Virginia. In my practice, I handle Social Security and SSI disability andfederal black lung claims and issues concerning access to medical care. I was an attorney with Legal Services programs in West Virginia and Alabama for over thirteen years until January 1996. I worked primarily in the area of welfare and Medicaid litigation.,} 7 for children has been tightened. The requirement that claims be decided based on an individual assessment of the child's ability to function, which was first mandated by the Supreme Court in 1990, has been eliminated. The law also increases the number and type of disability cases that will be reviewed for continued benefits. Finally changes in the Food Stamp program will cause benefit levels to be reduced. In addition the law limits Food Stamp assistance to childless, non-working adults to a total of three months. The law also prohibits provision of a separate Food Stamp allotment to a parent under the age of twenty-one if the parent is residing with her parents. The most obvious impact on Appalachia from the new federal block grants is an almost certain reduction in assistance to low income families. According to the Urban Institute, one in four families in America depends to some extent on programs modified by P.L. 104-193. Given the high level of poverty in many areas of Appalachia, the financial impact on families in this region is likely to be even more widespread. The termination of entitlement status and a provision which allows states to implement different assistance programs in different locales within the state could lead to a return of the politicization of assistance programs in Appalachia. Before the U.S. Supreme Court in Goldberg v. Kelly established that families had a right to notice and a hearing before welfare assistance could be terminated, local políticos used welfare assistance to keep poor families allied with their respective factions. In many areas of Appalachia, families were required to obtain a letter or certification from the county executive before they could apply for welfare. These certifications were granted more often based on party affiliation and promises of future voting support than on any showing of need. Without the protection afforded by a federal entitlement to the assistance payment, poor families...

A Reply to Glenn: What's Most Important in a Family Textbook?

It is hard know how respond being named arguably the best book overall among 20 textbooks, none of which is rated excellent. It is like being named the best student in a class for slow learners. Still, I thank Professor Glenn for complimenting my textbook, Public and Private Families: An Introduction (Cherlin, 1996), as displaying excellent scholarship and treatment of the evidence and being very well written and edited. Since he did not criticize the book specifically, I can not determine what its supposed limitations are; but I will respond briefly what I think his criticisms might have been. However, I do not think it is productive devote this response mainly the issue of how many pages I wrote about issues x or y. Rather, I want comment more generally on what I think is the most important function of textbooks on the familyor on any other social scientific topic. And that is increase students' capacities for independent, critical thinking. I would imagine that Glenn agrees on the importance of this function; it is similar one of his key goals for family textbooks, to develop in the students the ability participate intelligently in the public debates about family issues. But Glenn seems focus nearly all his attention on the textbooks' treatments of marriage, both as a relationship and as a context for raising children. His implicit defense of as an institution is consistent with the goals of the centrist Council on Families in America, an organization of academics, writers, and family-oriented professionals of which he is member (Glenn, 1996). The Council's objective is foster and strengthen a renewed culture of marriage (Council on Families in America, 1996). Glenn is correct in maintaining that most members of this group, including David Popenoe and Jean Bethke Elshtain, are not right-wing in their family politics, although I think they are the right of the majority of family social scientists. Glenn's reaction the 20 textbooks, which he clearly sees as, at best, lukewarm toward marriage, can be understood in this context. Without disputing the continuing importance of marriage, I wish direct my comments topics he did not cover. First, however, a mea culpa and a quibble: since Glenn writes that Public and Private Families is relatively free of errors (his version of high praise) and commends its treatment of evidence, I assume it passed muster on his criterion of bias. By process of elimination, then, I conclude that I did not make it out of the slow learners class either because I did not write enough about the benefits of or because the book gives insufficient attention issues involving children. The former charge has some validity; the latter, assuming Glenn made it, I would dispute. As for marriage, the book does have broad coverage of the topic, including historical variation, assortative mating patterns, demographic trends, the division of labor, husbands' and wives' power, marital violence, racial and ethnic variation, etc. Still, I did not include an explicit discussion of the benefits of marriage. I think Glenn is right assert that this topic should be presented, such as through a discussion of Linda Waite's 1995 Presidential Address the Population Association of America (Waite, 1995) or other similar articles. The presentation should also include a brief discussion of the difficulty of distinguishing the extent which makes people happy from the extent which happier people are more likely marry and remain married. Furthermore, it should mention that the benefits appear be greater for men than for women. As for children's issues, the first chapter of my book, as well as its very title, is meant convey students that families have a public dimension as well as a private one. The public dimension involves the important tasks that families do for society, particularly raising children and caring for the frail elderly. …

A Response to Cherlin, Scanzoni, and Skolnick: Further Discussion of Balance, Accuracy, Fairness, Coverage, and Bias in Family Textbooks

I enjoyed reading all of the responses to my article, each being interesting for a different reason. Andrew Cherlin and I have little to debate. I downgraded his book (Cherlin, 1996) only on the criterion of coverage of crucial topics-the most subjective of the standards I used-and I agree with almost everything in his commentary. I was disappointed that his book ignores or treats lightly some of the family policy issues and child-related topics that I consider very important, but I may in some small way be responsible for his de-emphasis of some of those matters. When I reviewed the outline and sample chapters for McGraw-Hill, I said that active researchers and scholars such as Cherlin to have rather specialized interests and in a general textbook may tend to give short shrift to topics outside their areas of interest. . I doubt that this comment influenced Cherlin very much, but I regret writing it. His book would be stronger, in my opinion, if it were tilted more than it is toward his specialized interests, which include stepfamilies, the children of divorce, and similar topics. (I should have pointed out that his book does show more concern about problems in stepfamilies than any other textbook I reviewed.) One of Cherlin's statements needs to be corrected. To foster and strengthen a renewed `culture of marriage' is only one of several objectives of the Council on Families in America, and the report on marriage that Cherlin cites (Council on Families in America, 1996) is only one of a series of reports that will be issued by the Council. That this is my most important disagreement with Cherlin illustrates how closely I generally agree with his commentary. I heartily agree with Cherlin that what matters most in a textbook is whether or not it stimulates critical thought. Cherlin's book fares well in this respect, even though the reader is left with no doubt about the author's views, which are distinctly liberal. Most of the other books are much less balanced, being, intentionally or not, to a large extent arguments for orthodox liberal points of view on major family issues. Other perspectives generally fail to get a fair hearing. I appreciate Cherlin's discussion of the textbooks' treatment of differences between women's and men's behaviors-a topic I considered covering in my article but did not because of space limitations. The one-sided treatment of this topic in most of the sociology of the family textbooks is an embarrassment to the discipline of sociology. These and other unbalanced treatments of the topic in sociological publications contribute to a false image of sociologists that is widespread in the scientific community, namely, that we are dogmatic ideologues who use the mantle of science to further ideological and political agendas. The extreme social contructionist view of sex differences embraced by some sociologists and social psychologists deserves a fair hearing in the textbooks, but not to the exclusion of competing views. Whatever their personal beliefs may be, textbook authors should acknowledge the evidence that points toward an important contribution of nature to male-female differences. They should acknowledge and accurately summarize the dominant views among developmental psychologists who study sex differences, even though those views diverge substantially from the ones that prevail in sociology. However, even the books by authors who are not sociologists generally demonstrate no more than a superficial knowledge of the large literature on the psychology of sex differences. This deficiency illustrates one of the major problems with the way family textbooks are produced. Family social science is so broad that no one author can have in-depth knowledge of all of the topics that need to be covered. Although most of the best of the books I reviewed were written by one person, teams of authors from different disciplines, or at least with diverse specialized interests, might be able to produce textbooks superior to any of those now available. …

A Response to Glenn: The Battle of the Textbooks: Bringing in the Culture War

Norval Glenn's review raises provocative issues about the enterprise of writing textbooks, about the purpose of courses in marriage and the family, as well as about how research evidence should be interpreted. These are important questions that are seldom discussed. I agree with Glenn on number of points--especially on the relative lack of attention to children in family textbooks, and the need to be wary of one's own biases is writing and teaching in this highly contested and emotionally charged field. Yet I find the review deeply troubling. It is not only that I am an author singled out for criticism. What disturbs me is the blurring of the line between social science and cultural politics. Glenn seems to assume that any author whose coverage of specific topics, or whose interpretations of social research differ from his own, must be acting out of bias. In the name of rooting out ideology from family textbooks, Glenn has created series of litmus tests of his own making. Consider, for example, what he has to say about why children receive little coverage in family texts. Glenn acknowledges that this may result from the division of subject matter among disciplines. I agree. I hold Ph.D. in psychology (Yale, 1962) and have written textbook in child development (Skolnick, 1988) as well as sociology of the family texts. When I shifted to research on the family, it was clear these were different disciplines--with different theories, research questions, and methodologies. Glenn, however, prefers more insidious explanation, A major reason that the books give short shrift to child-related topics is likely to be ideological bias; persons who positively evaluate recent trends in family structure tend to be reluctant to admit that these trends may negatively affect the well-being and socialization of children and adolescents (p. 202). Glenn makes many other charges against family textbook writers, publishers, and those who teach from them. The core complaint is that the liberal or radical ideology of these writers leads them to undervalue marriage and to understate the harm done by divorce and single-parenthood to children and society. Before responding to Glenn's specific criticisms, I find it necessary to discuss the ideological framework in which they are embedded. As Hunter (1991) observed, the family is the central battleground of the culture wars that have raged across the American political and intellectual landscape in recent years. Cutting across the usual class, religious, and political cleavages, the culture war is essentially conflict between opposing assumptions, world views, and moral visions. And at the heart of the debate, Hunter argues, is the issue of defining the family. What form or forms of the family should be acknowledged by society? Shall the traditional two-parent married couple with children be the only pattern recognized by legal and public policy? Recent debates over divorce, single-parent families, and gay marriage are only the latest eruptions of the definition issue. These passionate public arguments serve as the crucial backdrop to Glenn's critique, but he does not say nearly enough about the range of views on these matters, or make his own biases clear. He does acknowledge that the review was first written as report to the Council on Families in America, which he identifies as group of about 20 professors, journalists, and public figures, himself included, concerned with family issues. But then he minimizes the possibility of bias because he claims, the Council is centrist, its members ranging from liberal to conservative; he is at a good vantage point from which to detect bias in the arguments of both the left and the right. More should be said, however, about The Council on Families in America. Headed by David Popenoe and Jean Bethke Elshtain, it is an offshoot of, and is sponsored by, the Institute for American Values (IAV) headed by David Blankenhorn and Barbara Dafoe Whitehead. …

Race and Gender in the American Economy: Views from across the Spectrum

I. VIEWS FROM ACROSS THE SPECTRUM. 1. My View. and Gender Issues Arise in Economics. Robert Solow. Inequality in the Economy Today. Glen Loury. and Income Differences. June Ellenoff O'Neill. Loaded Dice in the Labor Market: Racial Discrimination and William Darity, Jr. 2. Three Economic Paradigms. Conservative/Free Market, the Liberal/Imperfectionist, and the Radical/Exploitation Schools. Susan F. Feiner. 3. Women, Minorities, and the Recent Economic History of Inequality. Untouched by the Rising Tide. David Cutler and Lawrence Katz. Contrary to Popular Myth, the Economic Boom Did Trickle Down. Gary Becker. Trends: Implications for Family Policy? Shirley L. Zimmerman. Blacks: World Apart. Left in the Dust. Randy Albeda. II. EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATION. 4. The Changing World of Work. Meet Your Workforce. Sharon Nelton. Reflects on You. Ann Wendt and William Slonaker. Reaching for the Dream. William O'Hare. American Indians in the 1990's. Dan Frost. do Demographic Changes Affect Labor Force Participation of Women? Daniel Lichter and Janice A. Costanzo. Spare Sex. 5. Alternative Approaches to Diversity. Women's Staunchest Allies: Supply and Demand. Gary Becker. Women as a Business Imperative. Felice Schwartz. Can We Solve Black Youth Unemployment? Harry Holzer. Occupational Apartheid. Steven Steinberg. A Limit to Affirmative Action? James Blanton. Saving Affirmative Action. James Forman Jr. 6. Access, Earnings, and Education. Sins of Admission. Dinesh D'Souza. are Droves of Unqualified, Unprepared Kids Getting into Our Top Colleges? John Larew. Minority Access: Question of Equity. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Campus Racism. Walter E. Williams. Barriers in the Path of the Non-College-Bound. Anne Lewis. 7. Discrimination in Education. Classroom Climate for Women. Bernice R. Sandler. Are Girls Shortchanged in School? Rita Kramer. Race and the Schooling of Black Americans. Claude Steele.D American Indians in Higher Education: History of Cultural Conflict. Bobby Wright and William G. Tierney. Latino Youths at a Crossroads. Luis Duany and Karen Pittman. Rich Schools, Poor Schools. Arthur Wise and Tamar Gendler. III. HOUSEHOLDS, HABITATS AND HEALTH. 8. Vanishing Dreams of America's Young Families. Marian Wright Edelman. Family. Lester Thurow. At Issue: Do Men Experience a Huge Rise in Their Standard of Living After Divorce? Lenore J. Weitzman and Jed H. Abraham. Politics of Family in America. Jewell Gresham. 9. Children. Liberals, Conservatives, and the Family. Jessica Gress-Wright. New Start for Head Start. Douglas Besharov. Day-Care Reform Juggernaut. Ron Haskins and Hank Brown. A Fresh Start on Welfare Reform. Barbara Bergmann. 10. Community. Segregation Forever? Dan Gillmor and Stephen K. Doig. Enterprise Zones are No Solution for Our Blighted Areas. Sar A. Levitan and Elizabeth I. Miller. Redlining Cities: How Banks Color Community Development. Peter Dreier. 11. Culture and Behavior. Results from a Chicago Project Lead Social Scientists to a Rethinking of the Urban Underclass. Chris Raymond. Nihilism in Black America: Danger That Corrodes from Within. Cornell West. Rescuing the Urban Poor. Thomas H. Kean. Poverty Industry: Do Governments and Charities Create the Poor? Theresa Funiciello. Self-Help-A Black Tradition. Dorothy Height. 12. What Health-Care Crisis? Fred Barnes. Medical Apartheid: An Perspective. Durado D. Brooks, David R. Smith, and Ron Anderson. Women and Health Care: Unneeded Risks. Leonard Abramson. Hispanic Health in the United States. Council on Scientific Affairs. Pleading Poverty. Donald Korn. Paying for Health. Sir Douglas Black. IV. EVALUATING FAIRNESS, ELIMINATING INEQUALITY. 13. Economics, Policies, and Justice. What's So Bad About Being Poor? Charles Murray. Workfare Fails. Sarah k. Gideonse and William R. Myers. A Marshall Plan for America: Land of Diverse People Living and Working Together. John E. Jacob. Reparations for Black Americans. Charles Krauthammer. Pay Equity-Surprising Answers to Hard Questions. Barbara R. Bergmann. is Affirmative Action Like Crop Subsidies? Gary S. Becker. Great Society Didn't Fail. Margaret Burnham. 14. Diversity, Ideology, and the Struggle for Equality. Class Struggles. Robert Reinhold. Don't Be Happy-Worry. Susan Faludi. Equality: Why We Can't Wait. Adolph Reed Jr., and Julian Bond. Bishops on the U.S. Economy. James R. Crotty and James R. Stormes.

All-Black Schools Provide Role Models: Is this the Solution?

raditional two-parent families in America, reflecting a worldwide trend, are in a serious state of decline (Bronfenbrenner 1991). Although disputing causes, most experts agree that children's welfare is seriously suffering from this development (Etzioni 1992; Popenoe 1988, 1993; Leach 1994; Elkind 1992). Those families with the least resources and support systems are suffering the most (Wilson 1987; Moynihan 1993'; Carnegie 1994), particularly African Americans and other involuntary minorities (Ogbu 1978; Ingrassia 1994; Gresham 1994). Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory of development maintains that appropriate role models are necessary for children, particularly during adolescence (Powell 1983; Comer and Poussaint 1992). Yet in 1989 more than half of all black children, almost one-third of Hispanic children, and about 20 percent of white children lived in single-parent families (Lewin 1990; U.S. Census 1988). The figure for children living with a single parent who had never been married rose 85 percent between 1983 and 1993. In 1993, 6.3 million children were living in such homes, almost as many as the 6.8 million living with single parents who had been divorced, according to a recent U.S. Census report (U.S. Census 1993). This report also showed that the median two-parent family income was $43,578, as opposed to $9,272 for a never-married, single-parent family. This illustrates one of America's most urgent social problems: the lack of economic support and the absence of positive role models for many children, particularly inner-city black boys (Clark 1965; Rainwater and Yancey 1967; Kunjufu 1986; Moynihan 1993). An even more urgent problem is the increasing number of zero-parent children, concentrated in inner cities, where single mothers are becoming crack addicts, going to jail, or leaving their children for other reasons. These children now make up about 9 percent of all children (Gross 1992).

Family in America: Opposing Viewpoints

Family in America: Opposing Viewpoints

Sociology: Cultural Diversity in a Changing World

'Ourselves and Others,' 'Focus on Mexico,' and 'Focus on Japan' features in almost every chapter. Preface. 1. The World According to Sociology. Theme of the Text. The Sociological Style: Unraveling Human Social Patterns. Thinking Sociologically: Theoretical Paradigms. Doing Sociology: Is There a Method to Their Madness. 2. Culture. The Roots of Human Culture. The Normative Order. Cultural Diversity and Change. 3. Groups and Social Structure. The Concept of Social Structure. Groups and Other Collectivities. Types of Social Groups. Societies and Societal Development. 4. Socialization. On Being Human: Biology and Human Nature. On Being Human: Social Learning and Human Nature. Theories of Socialization as Human Development. Socialization as Social Learning. Socialization, Oversocialization and Social Control. 5. Inequality and Stratification. Assessing Social Inequality. Explanations and Interpretations of Stratification. Open and Closed Stratification Systems: Class, Caste, and Social Mobility. Inequality and Stratification in the United States. The Consequences of Social Stratification. 6. Race and Ethnicity. Race and Ethnic Relations: An Overview. Patterns of Racial and Ethnic Group Relations. Racial and Ethnic Intergroup Relations in the Unites States. Minorities and Poverty in the United States: A Declining Significance of Race? Minority Group Relations in the Global Village. 7. Gender and Gender Issues. Understanding Sex and Gender. Traditional Gender Stereotyping and Gender Roles. Becoming Women and Men: Gender Socialization. Theoretical Interpretations and Explanations of Gender Roles. Patterns of Gender Stratification. 8. Crime, Deviance, and Social Control. Deviance: A Sociological View. Theories of Crime and Deviance. Deviant and Criminal Behavior. 9. Marriage and the Family. The Family in America: A Brief History. Theoretical Perspectives. Love, Marriage, and Divorce American Style. Single-Parent Families. Gay Families. Violence in the Family. The Family and Modernization. The Impact of Industrialization. The Developing World. 10. Education and Religion. Education as a Social Institution. Theoretical Interpretations of Education The U.S. Educational System Problems and Proposals in U.S. Education. Religion as a Social Institution. Theoretical Perspectives on Religion Religion in the United States: From Puritans to Televangelists Religion and Modernization. 11. Economy and Politics. Economy as a Social Institution. Theoretical Interpretations of the Economy Types of Economies The U.S. Economic System 'Haves' and 'Have Nots' in the International Marketplace. Politics as a Social Institution. Theoretical Interpretations of Political Institutions The U.S. Political System Politics in a Changing World. 12. Population. Fertility. Mortality. Migration. Population Composition. Population of the United States. World Population. Controlling Fertility. The Politics of Food. 13. Urbanization. Early Cities. Preindustrial Cities. Cities in the Modern World. Human Ecology and the City. From Jamestown to Manhattan and Back. Sunbelt Cities. Winter Cities. The Metropolitan Transition. Urban Compositions and Lifestyles. Urban Problems. Urban Explosion in Developing Nations. 14. Modernization. Modern People. Modernization Theories. World System Theory. Women in the Third World. Pity the Children. Problems and Solutions. Glossary. References. Author Index. Subject Index.

Sexual Power: Feminism and the Family in America.

Sexual Power: Feminism and the Family in America.