Sociology Commons^™

A New Family Member Or Just Another Digital Interface? Smart Speakers In The Lives Of Families With Young Children, Giovanna Mascheroni

Human-Machine Communication

Based on longitudinal qualitative research involving twenty families with at least one child aged eight or younger, the article provides an account of how families, as distinctive communicative figurations, adopt, use and make sense of smart speakers through diverse socially situated practices. Findings show that parents and children enter in a communicative relationship with smart speakers based on their attribution of human-like or machine-like traits to the device, and the device response to their expectations. Moreover, engaging in communicative practices through and with smart speakers, family members subvert or reinforce existing power relations. However, smart speakers acquire new agency by …

All The Animals: Short Fiction About Multispecies Families, Becky Tipper

Animal Studies Journal

The five-part short story ‘All the Animals’ imagines an array of animals who feature in the life of a fictional human family over many years. The story is inspired by qualitative research into human-animal relationships in families with children in Lisbon, Portugal. ‘All the Animals’ aims to offer a fictional ‘thick description’ of multispecies families in a particular time and place, but also to provide a reflection on the role of storytelling in human-animal entanglements.

Community Assisted Fundraiser For Camp Rainbow Gold, Ethan Johnson

IPS/BAS 495 Undergraduate Capstone Projects

My service learning project was a garage sale using items donated by my local community. I gave 100% of the funds generated to Camp Rainbow Gold, a local charity that focuses their efforts on supporting children who have been directly impacted by childhood cancer, and their families. Camp Rainbow Gold is currently fundraising for their Hidden Paradise Project, which will be Idaho’s first medical camp aimed at providing a space for children and their families affected by childhood cancer to heal. I held the event on November 12^th and solicited donations from my local community through online sources such …

A Pluriversal Model For Equity In Family And Youth Stem Identity Research Praxis, Remy Dou, Heidi Cian

Department of Teaching and Learning

In this paper presentation, we present how we (re)consider and take into account the consequentiality of both our own (as researchers) and our participants’ onto-epistemological beliefs in relation to STEM and STEM contexts, particularly attending to the relationship between these beliefs and identity development through an ethico-political praxis centered on notions of equity as a pluriverse.

What Works? A Qualitative Exploration Of Play Therapy For Children In Pediatric Oncology, Caitlyn Dorsey

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This qualitative phenomenological study seeks to understand the use and perceived effectiveness of play interventions for patients with socio-emotional issues brought about by their treatment of pediatric cancer by exploring the perceptions of nine Certified Child Life Specialists and one Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker who works with this population. Interviews, done over Zoom with each participant, were semi-structured, and between thirty minutes to an hour in length. Questions asked explored what socio-emotional issues they see develop in their patients throughout their treatment, and their perceived effectiveness of play in mitigating those socio-emotional issues. After transcription nof each interview analysis …

A Narrative Investigation Of Black Familial Capital That Supports Engineering Engagement Of Middle-School-Aged Youth, Delean Tolbert Smith, Tamecia Jones, Monica E. Cardella

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

A major concern in engineering education involves ensuring that youth belonging to minoritized groups have equitable access to engineering career pathways. Related research often highlights the effect of student and school characteristics on engineering success but few studies have investigated the engineering-related assets that Black families provide. This work aims to provide counterstories that highlight the presence of Black families along the pre-college engineering pathways of three Black youth from the Midwest region of the United States. The application of a counternarrative approach centers the familial capital of Black families and serves as the analytical frame for this work. The …

African-American Lay Pastoral Care Facilitators’ Perspectives On Dementia Caregiver Education And Training, Nik M. Lampe, Nidhi Desai, Tomeka Norton-Brown, Alexandra C. H. Nowakowski, Robert L. Glueckauf

The Qualitative Report

The African-American Alzheimer’s Caregiver Training and Support Project 2 (ACTS 2) is a faith-integrated, skills-training and support program for distressed African American family caregivers of persons living with dementia across Florida. Caregivers participate in a 12-week, telephone-based, skills-building and support program led by faith community workers (i.e., lay pastoral care facilitators) who provide volunteer services to their denominations. In this case study, we examined facilitators’ perspectives and recommendations for supplementary audiovisual and written training materials to optimize group process and goal-setting skills. Utilizing a qualitative approach, we explored facilitators’ needs, experiences in using current training materials, and recommendations for supplementary …

Positive Family Relationships In A Digital Age: Hearing The Voice Of Young People, Nicola F. Johnson, Zoe Francis

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

This study focused on young people's perspectives about family relationships and how they can be strengthened or weakened through digital media practices. Located in Melbourne, Australia, 20 participants aged between 13 and 17 years were interviewed about how digital devices and practices shaped the way they interacted with family. The thematic analysis points to the young people's commitment to family cohesion. This was demonstrated through responsible use of social media, admitting the need for device-free time, acknowledging the challenges of being online, and their sense of responsibility as a family member, which informed and shaped the way they individually acted.

A Crisis Of Care: Effects Of Covid-19 On The Household Division Of Labor, Caroline Elliot Albro

Scripps Senior Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic brought monumental challenges to the lives of parents around the world. As schools shut down, children stayed at home, and employees worked from their living room couches or dining room tables, working parents struggled to balance paid labor, household labor, and childcare during this time. Working mothers faced particular challenges in reconciling household labor and employment due to the pressures of gender norms and the expectation for women to “do it all.” This paper explores the strategies that families utilized to deal with the household division of labor during the pandemic. Families employed a variety of strategies …

Family Dimensions Of Unequal College Experiences: Students’ Talk Of Self And College In Relation To Family Resources And Relationships, Michael Carl Ide

Doctoral Dissertations

The “college experience” is normatively presented as enacting independence, often while financially relying on parents. This view normalizes white, middle-class models of college and family. The three interrelated papers comprising this dissertation investigate race, class, and gender differences and inequalities at college through the lens of students’ talk of family. These inductive, qualitative studies draw on semi-structured intensive interviews with undergraduates to explore divergent ways they make sense of college, family, and their self-development. Analyses highlight the multifaceted, and sometimes contradictory meanings participants attach to themes commonly presented as simple and objective (i.e. “paying for college,” “independence,” and “adulthood”). Findings …

Connecting Families And Continued Learning Through Covid-19, Michael C. O'Neal, Tameka Tribble, Michelle Rice

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

For 20+ years in Savannah, Georgia, Parent University has successfully enhanced the ability of families to create an environment in which learning thrives for both children and parents. When the pandemic closed schools and disrupted normal programming, Parent University immediately pivoted to online programming to continue connecting families with relevant education, resources and support throughout this time of need. The pandemic also exposed a huge gap in technology and education. Therefore, Parent University is working to close that gap with our new Tech College at Parent University.

Housework: Socialization Influences On Individual Performance, Couple Division Of Labor And Mental Health, Jaala Robinson

Department of Sociology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Despite the continued gender inequality in the division of housework, little research has considered how family housework socialization influences the amount of housework a person performs and their mental health. Socialization processes occur via the amount of housework performed in the home during childhood by each parent and the parents’ gender division of household labor. This analysis details three studies that explore the impact of socialization to housework. All three studies take advantage of intergenerational data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID). The first study uses a social learning framework to test whether the amount of housework a …

Competency-Based Training In The Supervision Of Relational Telemental Supervision, Paul Springer, Richard Bischoff, Nathan C. Taylor, Vanessa Neuhaus, Cassandra Leow

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Supervision has long been considered essential to developing effective mental health practice, especially among COAMFTE accredited training programs. But with telemental health rapidly being accepted as a standard treatment medium for couple and family therapy, there is little guidance about how to supervise clinicians who are engaged in telemental health practice. This paper presents an important step toward increasing the effectiveness of the supervision of therapists who are delivering relational therapies online through the identification of relational competencies unique to this delivery medium. These competencies have been adopted and integrated into a COAMFTE accredited master's degree program that has been …

A Mule For The Patriarchy: Waking Up To The Harm Of Prostitution To Wives And Families, Andrea Heinz

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

I exited from commercial sexual exploitation eight years ago. Here, I share my reflections on how my actions directly impacted other women. I describe how my participation in the sex trade adversely affected the wives and girlfriends of sex buyers. I posit that sex sellers negatively impact these vicarious victims by subscribing to and endorsing “sex work” ideology. I assert that the collective good of all women is diminished by viewing sexual services as a market commodity. I stress that the collective good of all women is enhanced by assuming responsibility and compassion for one another.

Caregivers’ Expectations, Reflected Appraisals, And Arrests Among Adolescents Who Experienced Parental Incarceration, Cynthia J. Najdowski, Melissa Noel

Psychology Faculty Scholarship

This research sought to identify a potential process by which intergenerational crime occurs, focusing on the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ subsequent arrests. We drew from Matsueda’s work on reflected appraisals as an explanatory mechanism for this effect. Thus, the present research examined whether caregivers’ and adolescents’ expectations for adolescents’ future incarceration sequentially mediated the effect of parental incarceration on adolescents’ actual arrest outcomes. Propensity score matching was used to examine this effect in a sample of 1,735 15- to 16-year-olds using NLSY97 data. Parental incarceration was positively related to caregivers’ expectations of adolescents’ future arrest. Moreover, caregivers’ expectations …

How Receiving And Providing Relational Compensators And Religious Expectations Influence Religious Experiences, Elisabeth R. Kimball

Theses and Dissertations

Much research has been done on the concept of why people remain religious, formulating Rational Choice Theory. This involves the idea of compensators and religious expectations. In addition, other research and subsequent theories go into the duality of religious expectations and relational compensators—these relational compensators include love, support, forgiveness, and kindness from others. However, research has rarely explicitly explored what reportedly encourages individuals to stay in religious institutions despite religious demands. Through qualitative interviews with 198 highly religious families, this study analyzed the various expectations and demands individuals and families encounter, as well as the relational blessings they report receiving …

Supported Families Grow Healthy Children: Branching Out Services To Support Children, Families, And Communities Impacted By Punitive Practices In The Criminal Justice System, Patrick Clark, Janet Meegan, Troy Potter, Holly Schmitt, Jesse Valentin

Master of Social Work Student Policy Advocacy Briefs

The well-being of Minnesota’s children and families is negatively impacted by punitive practices. Investing in programs that divert parents from the criminal justice system ensures parental accountability while contributing to healthy children, families, and communities.

Families Belong Together: The Path To Family Sanctity In Public Housing, Mckayla Stokes

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

In its 2015 landmark civil rights decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the Supreme Court finally held that the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the United States Constitution guarantee same-sex couples’ marital equality. The Court’s unprecedented declaration that the right to marry is a fundamental right under the Due Process Clause strengthened married couples’ right to privacy because it subjects government actions infringing on marital unions to heightened scrutiny. The Supreme Court has the option to minimize the impact of Obergefell by interpreting the right to marriage very narrowly—as only encompassing the right to enter into a state-recognized union …

Bearing A Beloved Burden: Surrogates, Reproductive Labor, And Carrying Babies For Others, Anabel Stoeckle

Wayne State University Dissertations

Surrogacy is – as a result of new reproductive technologies – one of many options to start a family. However, surrogacy is not typically categorized as work. The simplistic taxonomy of forms of surrogacy as either “commercial” or “altruistic” has led to the classification of surrogacy as either “work” in transnational contexts or as “labor of love” in the US. Even when surrogacy is recognized as work in the US – a rare event – altruistic aspects are highlighted while the laboring aspects are downplayed. This dissertation examines how US surrogates describe their journeys and which aspects of carrying babies …

Work Related Paternal Absence Among Petroleum Workers In Canada, Simon Nuttgens, Emily Doyle, Jeff Chang

The Qualitative Report

Work-Related Parental Absence (WRPA) is common in contemporary family life. Industries such as aviation, fishing, logging, mining, and petroleum extraction all require the employee to work away from family from short to significant periods of time. In Canada’s petroleum industry, work schedules that involve parental absence are especially common. There has been ample research conducted on the impact of military deployment on families, some research on how mining families are impacted by WRPA, and a small amount of research on the effects of WRPA among offshore European petroleum workers and their families. However, there is no research currently available that …

Family Demography: Macmillan Encyclopedia Of Families, Marriages, And Intimate Relationships, Aurea K. Osgood

Sociology Faculty Publications

Family Demography is a book chapter from the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Families, Marriages, and Intimate Relationships. This encyclopedia was published in August 2019. Dr. Osgood is a faculty member in the Sociology, Criminal Justice, & Geography Department at Winona State University.

Motherhood Wage Penalty Across Life Course And Cohorts, Misun Lim

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation explores the connections between changing family structures and economic inequalities in the United States. While previous research shows that motherhood lowers women’s earnings, few studies explore how wage penalties for motherhood change over women’s lives. Moreover, most research examines only the baby boomer cohort; consequentially, little is known about how millennials experience this wage penalty and how such burdens of motherhood have changed across cohorts. This study investigates whether and how the motherhood wage penalty changes both across women’s life course and cohorts with these questions: (1) Does the motherhood penalty change over women’s lives? (2) What are …

A Post-Intentional Phenomenological Exploration Of A Sense Of Safety In Three-Generation Low-Income Families, Kaitlin Brigid Mulcahy

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Despite a wide body of literature that suggests safety as critical to human development and individual well-being (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Bowlby, 1969; Fosha, Siegel & Solomon, 2009; Marvin, Cooper, Hoffman & Powell, 2002; Porges, 2011; Tronick, 2007), a comprehensive review of the literature found a paucity of research that addresses the phenomenon of a sense of safety within family units. This study sought to fill this gap through an entirely strengths-based design that made use of post-intentional phenomenological methods and arts-based analysis. The research question that guided this study was: How is the phenomenon of a sense …

Work-Family Balance And The Relationship Between Parental Status And Marital Satisfaction : A Revision To The Marital Structure Approach, Michelle Lynn Barton

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Using data from the 1980 Marital Instability Over the Life Course Study and the 2000 Work and Family Life Study, this dissertation evaluates whether measures related to work-family balance are able to explain why parents with children in the household have lower levels of marital satisfaction compared to parents without children in the household and especially compared to those who are childless. Analyses presented here demonstrate the centrality of spousal interaction for understanding this relationship, and to a lesser extent, measures related to the perception of fairness in the division of household labor. While neither sex, cohabitation history nor race …

Family Instability As A Turning Point In The Life-Course : An Examination Of Whether And How Family Instability And Specific Types Of Family Instability Directly And Indirectly Influence Delinquency, Walter Shelley

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

“A family’s resources and the doors they open cast a long shadow over children’s life trajectories…This view is at odds with the popular ethos that we are makers of our own fortune.” (Alexander, Entwisle, & Olson, 2010, pg. 1). Perhaps no aspect about an individual’s life is not shaped in some way by their family. In fact, it could be surmised that families set the stage for all later outcomes in the life-course. An event in a family such as family instability could play an important role in shaping an individual’s behavior and outcomes in their life course. However, heterogeneity …

Prescribing The Impossible: State Ideals Of Intensive Parenting, Francesca Vescia

Sociology Honors Projects

The state is a powerful force in private life; families that challenge its framework face erasure or sanction. From what ideals do these families deviate? This paper investigates that question in relation to childrearing. Through a content analysis of three court-approved parenting courses for separating or divorcing parents, I explore what constitutes proper parenting in the eyes of the state. Drawing from the literature on ideologies of family and self, I find courses 1) make efforts to explicitly challenge dominant ideologies of family and parenting while implicitly naturalizing them and 2) grapple to reconcile the logics of intensive parenting and …

Social Work Support For Families In Crisis At Our Southern Border, Gil Villagran

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

"What the hell is going on at the U.S.-Mexico border?"Knowing of my 35 years of Child Welfare direct practice social work for the Santa Clara Social Services Agency, and 20 years of teaching social work at San Jose State University, as well as my study of human rights and Latin American history, many of my friends have been asking me, about as our president might ask: "What the hell is going on at the U.S.-Mexico border?"

Family Experiences In Engaging In Employment: How Do We Improve Outcomes?, John Kramer, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

ThinkWork! Publications

Session 018: Abolishing Exploitive Labour Practices Room: Freedom H

Sponsors: Disability Youth, Aging, and the Life Course

Organizer, Presider &

Discussant: Katherine Caldwell, University of Illinois at Chicago

Papers:

“Differences in Earnings among Persons with and without Disabilities,” Alexandra Krause, Florida State University

“Family Experiences in Engaging in Employment: How Do We Improve Outcomes?” John Kramer, University of Massachusetts Boston

“Shifting the Paradigm through Entrepreneurship,” Katherine Caldwell, University of Illinois at Chicago

A Content Analysis Of The First Decade Of The Journal Of Glbt Family Studies, Jacqueline Bible, Autumn Bermea, Bradley Van Eeden-Moorefield, Kristen E. Benson, April L. Few-Demo

Department of Family Science and Human Development Scholarship and Creative Works

The emergence of several specialized journals that examine the experiences of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) individuals, families, and communities, particularly the Journal of GLBT Family Studies, has profoundly shaped GLBT research. Engaging in taking stock activities helps to identify trends on which future research should focus to further develop the field. For example, scholars suggest critical analysis of journal publications is necessary for field development, which was done here. Specifically, this content analysis examines the first decade of publications appearing in the Journal of GLBT Family Studies from 2005 to 2015 (N = 233) to identify trends in …

Families And Employment Of People With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities: Results From A Scoping Study, John Kramer, Jennifer Bose, Jean Winsor, Thinkwork! At The Institute For Community Inclusion At Umass Boston

ThinkWork! Publications

Purpose: Recent policy changes expanding community employment for people with intellectual/developmental disabilities (IDD) and awareness of the important role of family members as facilitators of these opportunities motivated this scoping review of the literature on family engagement with the IDD service system.

Methods: Researchers used Arksey and O’Malley’s six-stage scoping review methodology (2005) to map a wide range of literature to discover the resources and strategies available to families supporting people with IDD to find employment; the resources and strategies to support people with IDD and families to develop a vision of employment; and the resources and strategies to support …