The impact of kin support on urban American Indian families

Scholars believe that family ties extending out to previous generations, called kin support, may have allowed American Indians to withstand traumatic events. Although a series of traumatic and historical events disrupted the social structures of family life, kin support was found to be a major factor in the survival of American Indians. This study utilized the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to compare American Indians and whites (n = 1227) in factors that impact kin support. While urban American Indian mothers were similar to whites in a number of elements, American Indian mothers that were not married, fell below the poverty threshold, were younger in age and co‐resided with kin were more likely than their white counterparts to receive kin support. Implications for urban American Indian mothers suggest that maintaining their role as kin keeper may serve as an intrinsic reward and motivation for caring for kin. The role of a kin keeper may also promote the unique contribution in their families and the preservation of their culture. Given the minimal research in this area, results of this study can be used to guide future research and the development of intervention strategies for practitioners working with American Indian families.     

孝道与唐代人的衣食住行

孝道伦理广泛渗透到唐代人的社会生活之中,在衣食住行的方式上均有所体现。通过梳理及文献,发现子女需要尽心竭力地为父母长辈提供充足食物,并结合父母长辈的身体状况,合理搭配饮食;子女要将最好的衣服留给父母长辈,同时子女着装有礼仪要求;子女要尽可能地与父母长辈累世同居,并在居长期间有特殊要求;父母在时,子女尽量不远行,出行时要尊敬长辈,并为老者提供方便。可见,唐人的衣食住行方式总体遵循了尊长优先、便于行孝的原则。     

Social support and stress of kin caregivers of orphaned children in Addis Ababa,Ethiopia: Implications for practice and policy

Using a mixed methods research design, this study analysed available social supports and stressors among 127 kin caregivers who were caring for HIV‐ and AIDS‐affected orphans and vulnerable children in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The conceptual framework of the study was social support viewed as a buffer. Kin caregivers’ scores indicate a low level of social support and a high level of stress. The amount of support caregivers received from formal sources is considered inadequate, irregular and inconsistent. Kin caregivers’ stress is situational and largely related to poverty, especially food insecurity. Social service providers should consider programmes that strengthen support to help kin caregivers deal with major stressors. Policy makers should ensure that both specific child and caregiver supportive policies and related programmes respond to the overwhelming numbers of orphans and vulnerable children in Ethiopia through explicitly acknowledging the significant role of kinship care.     

The relationship between foster care families and birth families in a child welfare context: The determining factors

Children placed in foster care families usually continue to see their birth parents in supervised and home visits. These children deal with the fact that they belonged to two families in a context where the relationship between the two families is sometimes complex and tense. Based on 45 semi‐structured interviews conducted with foster care families and kinship foster care families, the present study examines the relationship between foster care parents and birth parents in a placement context, and focuses on the factors affecting the nature and quality of this relationship. The results showed that the quality of the relationship dynamics varies according to the following: how well and how often the parent–child visits took place, the birth parents' characteristics, and the foster carers' attitudes. The results also showed that placements in kinship foster care families were more likely to result in conflict and tension between the two parties than placements in regular foster care families.     

Negotiating conflict within the constraints of social hierarchies in Korean American discourse

This paper provides an interactional account of conflict negotiation strategies in Korean American discourse. With specific attention to the sociolinguistic phenomenon of codeswitching among Korean Americans, I argue that speaking Korean at particular moments evokes ideologies of social hierarchy that serve to mitigate potential conflicts. The Korean social ideology of relative status has a major influence on how bilingual Korean Americans interact with one another, regardless of whether they are using Korean or English. The use of codeswitching, among other mitigating strategies in discourse, serves to instantiate these hierarchical relationships and introduces particular social norms that guide the observable actions used in navigating meaning and social relations. The data analyzed here show how the evocation of Korean social ideologies may serve as an identifiable characteristic of Korean American discourse.     

从丧礼看妇女在亲属体系中的身份归属——以山东济宁农村个案为例

本文以山东一个农村的丧礼为分析对象,结合当地其他习俗,分析妇女在亲属体系中的身份归属.认为妇女在亲属体系中身份的不确定性一方面源于妇女一生中持续的的从其出生家族到其丈夫家族的身份转换过程;另一方面源于她在丈夫家族身份的确认是非天赋的,受其他很多机动因素的影响.     

亲属容隐:比较和启示

亲属容隐,即法律规定对违法犯罪的亲属,依法不仅可豁免告发、作证的义务,并可行使互相保护的权利.亲属容隐是中华法系的传统之一,有其深刻的合法性与合理性,因此也成为现代法治国家的立法原则之一.其中的比较对建设现代法治国家有宝贵的启示.     

Local Solidarities: How the Arab Spring Protests Started

Coming as a surprise to most observers and following the self‐immolation of a street vendor in a remote town of central Tunisia, the Jasmine Revolution of 2010–2011, the first uprising of the Arab Spring, has often been seen as a success story for digital communication through widespread use of social media. We suggest that this applied to the later phase of the protests in Tunisia but not to the initial phase, which occurred in local areas in impoverished and marginalized regions with highly limited access to the Internet. The initial phase lasted a full 10 days before the protests reached major cities where social media operated. Building on Tilly's concept of trust network, we offer the concept of local solidarities as key to the beginning of the Arab Spring uprisings and as encompassing spatial proximity, shared marginalized status, and kinship, all of which combined to serve as a basis for trust and collective action.     

Semantic Transfer of Chinese Kinship Terms to Occupational Address Forms since the Economic Reform

Semantic transfer of kinship terms in address forms to nonkin has always been an intriguing topic to researchers from different fields, anthropologists and sociolinguists alike, whose investigations involve data from various cultures. This study focuses on eight Chinese kinship terms used in twenty-one address forms for addressing nonkin in newly created occupations and practices during the recent economic reform in China, in an attempt to identify the driving force behind such transfer. By examining the use of these kinship terms in addressing nonkin in the economic reform, this study compares its findings to those from earlier studies and has found surprisingly that except gender, the other distinctive features, such as consanguinity, affinity, seniority, and generation, have all become neutralized in the semantic transfer, driven chiefly by the nonkin’s occupational status. The results from this study demonstrate that the “categorical falsity” evidenced in the semantic transfer of kinship terms in address forms to nonkin is in essence a manifestation of performing an attitudinal “speech act” by the general public about how the nonkin’s occupational status is evaluated in the economic reform.     

Nonfamilial kinship carers—Who are they and what support do they need to nurture children?

There is a growing body of literature about kinship care in the Western world; however, much of it focuses on grandparent care. A lesser known aspect of kinship care is the care of children by nonrelatives known to the child or their family. What little research exists about this group suggests that such placements are less stable than familial kinship care. This article reports a research study in Victoria, Australia, that explored nonfamilial kinship care through analysis of administrative data, interviews with young people and carers, and focus groups with kinship care support workers. It emerged that current administrative databases are not yet able to reliably identify the carer relationship, and thus the extent of such care arrangements cannot accurately be determined. Interviews and focus groups revealed that nonfamilial kinship care is diverse and qualitatively different from familial kinship care, bearing some similarities to foster care yet managed very differently. It is suggested that policymakers need to pay more attention to conceptualizing nonfamilial kinship care within kinship care policy frameworks and that greater attention is needed to the individual support needs of children in such placements and their carers.