Constructing Gay and Lesbian Parent Families “Beyond the Closet”

This paper provides a multilayered analysis of how lesbian mothers and gay fathers construct their families in a social context that has been described by Steven Seidman (2004) as “beyond the closet.” We stress how our participants’ family-building experiences are comparable to other non-biologically related families, but distinct due to heterosexual dominance. Using in-depth qualitative interviews with 18 lesbian birth mothers and 22 gay fathers, the authors discuss how participants navigate heterosexual dominance in institutions and in personal interactions.

Lesbian classics in Germany? A film historical analysis of Mädchen in Uniform (1931 and 1958)

The films M?dchen in Uniform (Leontine Sagan, 1931, Germany; Géza von Radványi, 1958, Germany) both tell the story of a schoolgirl falling in love with her teacher at a Prussian boarding school. Whereas the 1931 version is regarded as a lesbian classic in queer (German) cinema, the 1958 remake, however, is not even considered part of the lesbian genre. The following analysis examines both films within their historical context to answer the question what makes M?dchen in Uniform (1931) a lesbian film and why the remake did not measure up to its original's significance.     

The End of Football and Fiesta? Social Insurrection and National Identity in Twenty-First-Century Brazil

ABSTRACT

Carnaval and futebol (football) have both been central to the construction of Brazil in the imagination of global audiences. This includes contributing to stereotypes of Brazil as a country of peaceful, festive, and sensualized people, even though historically Brazilian Carnaval and football have always been sites of social contestation and popular participation in the construction of collective identity. In recent years, Brazil has burst onto the global stage as a key player due to its economic rise, its more proactive international diplomacy, and its venture as the host of major global sport events. Protest and political violence have erupted on the streets of Brazil in a manner quite at odds with the circulating reports on the ‘success story' of Brazil. A combination of the country's increasing global prominence and developments in media and communication technologies of the global era means that global and local audiences have access to more detailed, nuanced, and grounded information about Brazil than has ever been possible before. This moment of intensified visibility has brought Brazil's imagined identity (both within Brazil and within the global imaginary) to a turning point; one where national symbols such as Carnaval and football are declining in relevance. In this article we argue that due to this combination of forces, Carnaval and football, at least in their manufactured forms that are visible to global audiences, no longer have the popular potency within Brazil that they once did, but have rather become what Bakhtin would call ‘mere spectacles’. We consider Carnaval and football within historical and contemporary context drawing upon a variety of sources, including secondary literature and mainstream and alternative media reports.     

Chinese Culture in A Foreign Land

ALTHOUGH Zong Hua isn's a professional coach of taiji shadow boxing, she practices every morning to help stay in shape. She didn't stop practicing even after she went to Japan as a representative of her company in China Impressed by her good health and slim, flexible figure, some of her Japanese colleagues asked if Zong     

Community Foundations in China: In Search of Identity?

This paper provides an assessment of the current state of China’s community foundation movement. We use a mixed-methods approach that combines the collection and analysis of secondary data with interview-based comparative case studies. We first present a typology, followed by an estimate of the number of existing community foundations. We then present a comparative analysis of two community foundation types (independent vs. government-affiliated). Our findings, organized around four themes, suggest the presence of dual identities among Chinese community foundations: government-led social reform and civil society-led social innovation. Although vastly outnumbered by their government-affiliated counterparts, independent community foundations are able to achieve greater strategic agility, suggesting a promising future for this new form of institutional philanthropy in China.

     

Who Uses Formal,Early Child Care in California? A Comparative Study of Children from Immigrant and Nonimmigrant Families

The purpose of this study is to examine the predictors of formal, early child care usage and to study the differences between immigrant and nonimmigrant families in their use of formal (center-based, preschool, Head Start, and family child care) and informal child care arrangements (grandparent and nanny) among California’s children. Since the California Health Interview Survey (CHIS) had children from California’s immigrant and nonimmigrant families, the data for 897 preschool age children who attended child care for 10 h or more were retrieved from the CHIS 2005 Child Survey. This study found that immigrants are twice more likely (OR = 2.006; p < 0.005) to use formal child care than nonimmigrant families in California. The study concludes with implications for social work.     

(New) Bulgarian Enlighteners and Ambassadors? The Reinvention of National Identity in Times of Crisis

Drawing on empirical data from 37 Bulgarian students and young professionals in the UK, this article explores the intersection of the discourses produced by the European crises and migrants' national identity. In Bulgaria, the crisis narrative is embedded in the arguably never-ending democratic transition, manifested in socio-economic instability and political volatility. Simultaneously, “Brexit Britain” is enveloped in strong Eurosceptic sentiments, propelled by a combination of austerity measures and intensified Eastern European migratory flows. Both contexts subject Bulgarian migrants to stigmatizing representations. Looking at migrants' everyday practices, the data reveals that young Bulgarians draw on the related ideas of the “new” Enlightener and Ambassador to counterbalance negative discourses. Thus, the article explores the meanings and significance attributed to the Enlighteners and the Ambassadors, arguing that the participants engage in “social creativity” and “individual mobility” strategies that lead to reinvention of national identity.     

Conflict in Divorcing and Continuously Married Families: A Study of Marital,Parent–Child and Sibling Relationships

ABSTRACT

Family members in both separated or divorcing and married families completed a range of questionnaires about the conflict in 3 relationships—couple, parent–child, and sibling—across 2 phases of the study approximately 12 months apart. In addition, the adolescents completed measures of adjustment: self esteem, depression, and anxiety. Adolescents in a subset of the divorcing families were interviewed about the conflict in their families across the 2 phases (107 at Phase 1 and 35 at Phase 2). Analyses showed that conflict was higher in the separated or divorcing families across all 3 relationships, and that the highest levels of conflict occurred for the high-conflict divorcing families. Qualitative data from interviews illustrated the nature of the conflict that was occurring.     

The Roles of Instability and Housing in Low-Income Families’ Residential Mobility

Given the repercussions of residential mobility, increased understanding of correlates of mobility is important for efforts to support family well-being. Using survey data on low-income families from the Three City Study (N = 2393), multilevel mixed longitudinal analyses examined factors associated with family residential mobility across the domains of family instability, housing and neighborhood contexts, and family characteristics. Results revealed contributions of family instability and housing and neighborhood contexts to residential mobility, with a higher rate of residential moves associated with experiences of intimate partner violence, relationship transitions, and job transitions, as well as with living in private-market rentals, substandard housing, and disordered neighborhoods. However, owning a home and living in disadvantaged neighborhoods predicted a lower rate of residential moves.     

What is Love? The Materiality of Care in Ghanaian Transnational Families

In the West, economics and intimacy are assumed to occupy separate – even antithetical – domains. In Ghanaian family life, however, affection is understood to be expressed through the distribution of material resources across generations and a person’s life cycle. Such an understanding of love means that migrant parents who leave their children behind in Ghana can continue to be good parents by sending remittances, and, in fact, may be considered better parents than caregivers who stay and are poorer. This construction of love also means that children tend to attach themselves to more financially secure caregivers over those with fewer economic opportunities — to men in favour of women, to those abroad over those in Ghana. It is precisely because love is signalled through material exchanges that children long to be with parental migrants far away who support them and feel abandoned by those parents who do not. The intertwining of economic and emotional ties in Ghanaian transnational families has significant implications for policy, as discussed in the conclusion.     

Families in the Time of the Pandemic: Breakdown or Breakthrough?

The COVID‐19 pandemic has taken a toll on all individuals and their families around the world. Some suffer more adversely than others depending on their unique developmental needs, resources, and resilience. However, instead of breaking down, many families and therapists have hunkered down to cope with this ‘wicked’ situation as it continues to evolve. This article examines the unique challenges and opportunities of COVID‐19 for families at different life developmental stages, as well as the challenges and opportunities for systemic therapists as they venture into unfamiliar territory. Through a case example and by integrating recent literature related to this pandemic, we apply three key and interconnected systemic themes (unsafe uncertainty, family life cycle, and social diversity) to discuss the challenges and opportunities for families and therapists, respectively. We are optimistic that there are many possibilities as families and therapists draw on, and often reinvent, currently available resources to navigate their course in this pandemic. We also find that while the pandemic continues to present unsafe and uncertain situations, there are new ways of being and behaving, especially when families and professionals work together collaboratively. Despite formidable challenges, there are many opportunities, both within families and communities that cut through different social contexts related to family, culture, economics, and even politics. Families and therapists could endure better when they are more cognisant of how and what these contexts may impact and offer them.     

Mentoring Siblings of Gang Members: A Template for Reaching Families of Gang Members?

Mentoring has become a popular model of intervention to reduce the risk of offending, and has been proposed as an effective tool to tackle the risk of gang membership. This paper reviews the existing literature on mentoring and reports on a qualitative evaluation of a mentoring programme targeted at young people ‘at risk’ of gang membership in an English city. The study highlights important issues around these interventions. Although we found it a useful way to engage otherwise hard‐to‐reach families, important limitations remain: their potential labelling impact and their limited impact in isolation from other more ambitious measures.     

The Working Families’ Tax Credit and Some European Tax Reforms in A Collective Setting

A framework for simplified implementation of the collective model of labor supply decisions is presented in the context of fiscal reforms in the UK. Through its collective form the model accounts for the well known problem of distribution between wallet and purse, a broadly debated issue which has so far been impossible to model due to the limitations of the unitary model of household behavior. A calibrated data set is used to model the effects of introducing two forms of the Working Families’ Tax Credit. We also summarize results of estimations and calibrations obtained using the same methodology on data from five other European countries. The results underline the importance of taking account of the intrahousehold decision process and suggest that who receives government transfers does matter from the point of view of labor supply and welfare of household members. They also highlight the need for more research into models of household behavior.

Family Functioning Patterns as Predictors of Engagement: Which Families Participate in Services and Which Ones Do Not?

The present study examines the relationship between specific areas of family functioning and family engagement in prevention services. A sample of 147 families who initiated youth-centered treatment services from a non-profit agency was selected. Statistical analysis was used to test for relationships between family scores on the Family Assessment Measure (version III, General Scale) and family levels of engagement in services. Results of binary logistic regression analysis indicated that individual and family characteristics are associated with family engagement in services. In addition to demographic variables of age and race, family patterns of denial made a significant individual contribution to the evaluated model. Implications for engaging families in prevention services are discussed and suggestions are made for future research.     

Lesbian discourses in mainstream magazines of post-war Japan: is onabe distinct from rezubian?

This paper elucidates the changes in the meanings associated with the term rezubian (the Japanese term for "lesbian") through an analysis of its discourse in magazines for general readership published in post-war Japan. The category of "rezubian" first appeared in mainstream magazines in the 1960s as a generic category that referred to both "masculinized women" and "women who engage in sexual acts with other women." Masculinized women, in particular, were called "onabe." At first "onabe" denoted "a tachi rezubian," meaning a lesbian who plays "top," but gradually a distinction came to be made between "rezubian who are onabe" and "rezubian who aren't." The early 1990s saw the differentiation of "onabe" as a category distinct from that of "rezubian." Focusing particularly on this process of differentiation, this paper traces the transitions in the signifying practices pertaining to the category rezubian. doi:10.1300/J155v10n03_09.     

Dependency or Self-Reliance? The Contradictory Case of Work in UK Small Business Families

The focus of this article is a relatively neglected area of social and family policy: its relationship with small business. Economic policy makers have encouraged enterprise, particularly in the form of small business, as a solution to problems of competitiveness and economic growth. The article uncovers what an enterprise culture actually means for some of those families who first embarked upon business ownership in the 1980s in the UK Using data from a qualitative study, it contends that, in contradiction to the enterprise rhetoric, for micro-businesses owners and their families, values of self-reliance and dependency often are found as opposite characteristics necessary for the success of a small business. A recent survey of micro-businesses in contrasting British regional economies suggests that such experiences are likely to be found amongst a substantial proportion of micro-businesses.     

From ‘Fighting Family’ to ‘Belligerent Families’: Family–Military–Nation Interrelationships and the Forming of Israeli Public Behavior among Families of Fallen Soldiers and Families of MIAs and POWs

The army–family relationship is vital for control by a state aware that the family is the central agent influencing their son to enlist. A historically ‘affectionate’ relationship prevailed between Israel's army and families. During and after the Yom Kippur War, families of captive and missing soldiers, and bereaved families, adopted ‘new’ social behaviors. They organized in an institutionalized manner, clashing with the establishment. Our research highlights the changing behavior patterns. Previously, Israel's ‘fighting family’ had applied a ‘hegemonic behavior model’. Families could process their loss privately, or publicly – as cultural agents committed to state values. After the war, many spurned that model and entered the public space, calling senior government officials ‘enemies’, ‘guilty’ of their plight. The new behavior fell on fertile ground: the declining traditional ‘network of elites’ and the burgeoning social-civil arena. Families of captive and MIA soldiers, and of fallen soldiers, adopted the trailblazing model. We first address theoretical aspects of ties between state and society, parenthood and family. Next we explore the ‘hegemonic model’ describing the pre-Yom Kippur War relationship between families and the establishment. We describe the ‘new’ behavior of two groups: families of captive and missing soldiers, and families of fallen soldiers. The state's co-opting of the family appears to be a regressive process, and the two institutions have begun operating competitively.