Families Across the Income Spectrum: A Decade in Review

During the past decade, scholars continued to focus on how larger economic trends impacted families across the income spectrum. From income and wealth inequality to economic insecurity, the gaps between the haves and the have nots remained, and some widened during this period. The authors' comprehensive review found the following three major takeaways: first, the biggest economic divides run through families with children; second, low-income families face concentrated disadvantage marked by insecurity and precarity; and third, inequality and insecurity shaped the “dynamism” of family life, including how families respond culturally and emotionally to economic changes, and how these responses unfold over time. They examine active areas of research, including parenting trends and the transition to adulthood. They also document a new scholarly emphasis on uncertainty and instability along with the forces that exacerbate or mitigate them, such as job quality, economic volatility, wealth, and incarceration. Research during the past decade focused on the experience and consequences of dynamism, reflecting not only the reality that families evolve but also that they face continual change in their economic, social, and political contexts. The authors highlight research investigating how families “do dynamism,” work that looks over time or offers in-depth examinations of how families adapt to and cope with dynamism every day. This research reveals that inequality and insecurity are not only matters of levels and gaps but also ongoing matters of meaning-making, identity, and feeling. The authors conclude by highlighting some strengths and weaknesses of these research streams and pointing out new avenues for future scholarship.     

“The One-Box Challenge: Providing a Federated Search That Benefits the Research Process” Revisited

A doctoral student approached the column editor and suggested that an update on a “The Balance Point” column entitled “The One-Box Challenge: Providing a Federated Search That Benefits the Research Process” (2006) would be of interest and useful to readers, and the editor agreed. Contributors to the original column were asked to reflect upon their experiences with federated searching, including successes and failures over the past 10 years, and to provide insights into future challenges and issues. This edition of “The Balance Point” focuses on the ongoing challenges, lessons learned, possible future directions, and issues involved in providing one-box searching to library patrons.     

The World Bank and housing policy in Madras

The World Bank began its involvement with housing and urban programmes in 1972, offering a new theory and practice. This new theory emphasised “affordability” and the recovery of costs from the beneficiaries of programmes. It stood in contrast to the conventional way of doing things, with government providing “permanent construction” housing with extensive subsidies. “Affordable” housing would take the form of serviced plots of land on which the occupants arranged their own building (i.e. sites-and-services schemes), and in situ slum upgrading. In Madras, policymakers and senior public servants had a positive attitude to housing, especially for low-income groups. Consequently Madras contains much interest for developing countries generally in an evaluation of World Bank experience there, commencing in 1977.     

Community Cleavages: Gay and Bisexual Men’s Perceptions of Gay and Mainstream Community Acceptance in the Post-AIDS,Post-Rights Era

Changes in gay and bisexual men’s connectedness to the gay community are related to the declining public visibility of HIV/AIDS and greater acceptance for homosexuality and bisexuality in mainstream society. Little work, however, has focused on perceived acceptance for subgroups within the gay community or broader society. Using interviews (n = 20) and a survey (n = 202) of gay and bisexual men in a mid-sized Canadian city, we find perceived hierarchies of acceptance for the various subgroups as well as an age effect wherein middle-aged men perceive the least acceptance for all groups. These differences are linked with the uneven impact of social, political, and institutional changes relevant to gay and bisexual men in Canada.