Dismantling Public Housing,Reconstructing the Lives of Children

Just as the lives of adults may be turned upside down when a move is made from public housing, so too may be the lives of children. Over the course of 5 years, mothers relocated out of a housing development in the southwest U.S. participated in surveys and focus groups, discussing among many topics the lives of their children after the move. Mothers talked about their children's behaviour, the lack of play spaces, their children experiences in their schools, and the schools' responses. The mothers offered insights into ways to ease the relocation process and make the new space home.     

Reconfigured Everyday Lives of Children from Divorced-Parent Families in Singapore

With the termination of a marriage, children involved inevitably experience dramatic changes in different facets of their lives. This article makes use of narrative accounts of divorced single parents to investigate how their marital dissolution has impacted and changed their children's lives. Empirical data was collected through semi-structured, in-depth interviews with 25 Singaporean divorced parents. Within the policy and social context of Singapore society, I highlight transformations in three specific aspects of the children's lives: one, the reconfigurations of familial relationships and formation of a new family unit; two, the creation of and adaptation to new family practices and routine; three, the adoption of new social identity following parental divorce. This article hopes to present a more nuanced understanding of the divorce experience by emphasizing both the precarious and productive aspects in the children's lives, contra to the existing divorce literature that typically focuses on the former.     

Costs and Rewards of Children: The Effects of Becoming a Parent on Adults' Lives

How do new parents differ from their childless counterparts in social and psychological resources, daily strains, and psychological well‐being? Using a nationally representative panel of 1,933 adults who were childless at the first interview, we compare 6 indicators of adults' lives for those who became parents and those remaining childless several years later, controlling for earlier states. Becoming a parent is both detrimental and rewarding. With the exception of social integration, which is greater for all groups of new parents compared with their childless counterparts, the effects of parental status on adults' lives vary markedly by gender and marital status. Unmarried parents report lower self‐efficacy and higher depression than their childless counterparts. Married mothers' lives are marked by more housework and more marital conflict but less depression than their childless counterparts. Parental status has little influence on the lives of married men.     

Interventions to Strengthen Noncustodial Father Involvement in the Lives of Their Children

Abstract

This paper describes quantitative evaluation of a program designed to increase noncustodial fathers' visitation frequency and financial assistance to their children. The initial program objectives were to enhance parental skills and work opportunities for fathers. Discussion group data revealed that additional obstacles to father involvement included conflicts between parents and substance misuse and abuse. Communication skills, anger management, alternative methods of coping with stress and increased activities for families were added to the program components in response to these needs. Future plans for strengthening community connections to expand educational, training and employment opportunities as well as increased outreach to families were based on additional assessment of interventions needed for successful co-parenthood.     

The Political Lives of Girls

Girls are increasingly being publically celebrated as community leaders, models for ideal citizenship, and central to economic development. Contemporary girlhood is rich with political implications and significance. In this essay, I outline some of the scholarship on the public discourses that idealize girls as model neoliberal citizens and address important findings and contributions from empirical research on the political lives of girls: girls' political beliefs, political socialization, political identities, and their practices of political and civic engagement. There is a growing body of scholarship that suggests that studying the political lives of girls enables and requires a re‐thinking of some key concepts in political sociology, including the meaning of politics, of engagement, and of citizenship for different populations.     

Working Nine to Nine: The New Women of Prime Time

Contemporary psychoanalytic gender theory has posited two psychic structures typical of the heterosexual family's gender arrangements: male defensive autonomy and female relational submissiveness. This essay looks at recent television shows that normalize defensive autonomy in women. These shows, and the young women they reach, are products of a “stalled” feminist revolution and an impoverished cultural imaginary that offers its subjects, male and female, only these two split positions.     

The Future Lives of Sociology Graduates

After earning a bachelor's degree, the fate of sociology undergraduates is mysterious. We know little about how many Canadians have sociology degrees and even less about what they do after graduation. Using a variety of data sources from Statistics Canada, we paint a historical portrait of the discipline by charting how many people, and who, become sociologists. We also examine where they are employed, how much they earn, and how satisfied they are with their degrees. Our findings show that sociology graduates are competitive with other fields of study on both wages and employment, but are less satisfied with their degrees. We stress how the discipline would be wise to pay more attention to our graduates and their opportunities. Nous en savons peu sur l'avenir et le nombre de Canadiens ayant des diplômes de sociologie et encore moins ce qu'ils font après la graduation. Grâce à des données de Statistiques Canada, nous dressons un portrait historique de la discipline en montrant combien de personnes, et quel genre de personnes, deviennent sociologues. Nous examinons aussi où ils travaillent, combien ils gagnent et leur niveau de satisfaction par rapport à leurs diplômes. Nos résultats démontrent que les gradués en sociologie sont compétitifs par rapport aux autres champs d’étude en termes de salaire et de taux d'emploi, mais qu'ils sont moins satisfaits de leurs diplômes. Nous notons que la discipline aurait intérêt à porter plus d'attention sur les gradués et leurs opportunités.     

Colonialism,Disability, and Possible Lives: The Residential Treatment of Children Whose Parents Survived Indian Residential Schools

This article performs an institutional autoethnography of working in a residential treatment center, proposing a moral economy in which the exaltation of white nondisabled professionals is tethered to the denigration of disabled Aboriginal children. It describes how resident and staff resistance, respectively, can be taken up so as to facilitate the smooth continuity of the status quo. And it raises questions about everyday institutional practices such as physical restraints, behavior modification, and life-skills curricula, suggesting they may not do what they are intended to do and may instead wither away knowledge and skills that residents had cultivated before their “intake.”     

The Australian Disability Rights Movement Lives

The Australian Disability Rights Movement is surviving despite funding threats to advocacy programmes. The integral relationship of advocacy funding to the Australian Disability Rights Movement is outlined. A brief history of the Australian Disability Rights' Movement is given, and whether this is a new social movement, or not, is discussed. The role of Women With Disabilities Australia is outlined.     

Honourable Sacrifice: A Visual Ethnography of the Family Lives of Korean Children with Autistic Siblings

Literature on the siblings of disabled children has been dominated by western psychosocial theories that focus on stresses associated with being a ‘young carer’ or on children as active agents realising their ‘rights’ rather than as the victims of familial expectations. This article presents the findings of a visual ethnographic study exploring the lives of nine children living with an autistic sibling in South Korea (hereafter Korea). Despite personal challenges and family tensions, experiences of ‘being’ a sibling were strongly influenced by Confucian familist cultural values in which sacrifice plays a central role in achieving honourable and harmonious family life.     

Directing Lives

YANG Yang is he director of China Television PlayCenter.Before the arrival of the series Holding Hands,she filmed television plays reflecting women and marriage.Examples of her work include Niu Yuqin and Her Trees and theMidnight Trolley.The artistry and sympathy towards women inthese programmes make it obvious that they were directed by awoman.Holding Hands especially cements this connection.     

The Materialisation of School in Families' Everyday Lives

This article explores how school is materialised within Danish families and the significance for both children and parents. Based on ethnographic research and inspired by materiality studies and by family and childhood studies, the analysis describes how school-related objects, such as schoolbags, actualise school within the family and create intensive ‘school parenting’. The article also illustrates how the materialisation of school both entangles with family routines, becoming part of being a family and feeds into processes of demarcation and ways of reducing the importance of school in family routines.     

What Role Has the Law Played in Getting Rid of Racism in the Lives of Children?

SUMMARY. It is only relatively recently that a detailed knowledge of how the Race Relations Act 1976 works in practice has made it possible to use it more effectively - to eliminate that element of racism - discrimination. The later Children Act 1989 and its accompanying Guidance, in requiring a heal authority, (when making a decision about a child for whom it is responsible), to take account of the child's religious persuasion, racial origin and cultural and linguistic background establishes a framework to promote equality of opportunity and to counter the learning of racist attitudes. This paper attempts to identify the role of these two Acts in getting rid of racism in children's lives. Knowledge of both Acts will empower parents and professionals' to be able to challenge discrimination and identify anti-racist practice.     

Chapter Nine

Even though religious persons cannot rely on a generally accepted protocol for ethical decision-making, every religious person has a particular tradition out of which he or she speaks when making ethical choices in a given situation. This chapter describes a Christian perspective on the three cases.     

Our Changing Lives

WHEN recalling her llfe of 20 years ago,a 45-year-old middle school teacher said the mostimpressive thing for her was a bicycle.“In 1978,I met my husband for the first time.He wanted to buy me anew bicycle to replace my worn one.However,at that time