Coming Home to The Brady Bunch

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (4) ◽  
pp. 430-460
Author(s):  
Miroslava Chávez-García
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Visual Analysis ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Racial Ethnic

The television sitcom The Brady Bunch (1969–1974) and its subsequent reruns presented upper-middle-class whiteness and a version of idealized family life as normative. Its underrepresentation of racial, ethnic, and class differences did more than serve as a form of escapism for young Latina/o television watchers—it impacted their sense of identity and self-esteem, their attitudes toward their own parents, and their own later modes of parenting, as the author’s personal experience illustrates. At the same time, the series’ few episodes that did depict minority characters encouraged stereotyping that influenced the larger population. A content and visual analysis of episodes of The Brady Bunch confirms the sitcom’s repeated themes of gender and sexuality and its near absence of focus on differences of race, ethnicity, and class.

Discrimination

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James W. Nickel
Keyword(s):  
Self Esteem ◽  
Equal Treatment ◽  
Religious Groups ◽  
Institutional Discrimination ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Racial Ethnic

A principle forbidding discrimination is widely used to criticize and prohibit actions and policies that disadvantage racial, ethnic and religious groups, women and homosexuals. Discriminatory actions often rely on unfavourable group stereotypes and the belief that members of certain groups are not worthy of equal treatment. A prohibition of discrimination applies to the distribution of important benefits such as education and jobs, and says that people are not to be awarded or denied such benefits on grounds of characteristics such as race, ethnicity, religion or gender. Attempts have been made to expand this principle to cover institutional discrimination. Discrimination is morally wrong because its premise that one group is less worthy than another is insulting to its victims, because it harms its victims by reducing their self-esteem and opportunities, and because it is unfair.

Androgyny and self-esteem in the upper-middle class: A replication of Spence.

1978 ◽  
Vol 46 (5) ◽  
pp. 1168-1169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin O'Connor ◽  
David W. Mann ◽  
Judith M. Bardwick
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
Class A ◽  
Upper Middle Class

scholarly journals Intersectional Inequalities and Intimate Relationships: Dating, Class and ‘Race/Ethnicity’ among Divorced Women in the ‘Second Phase’ of Life

Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 003803852090928
Author(s):  
Sarah Milton ◽  
Kaveri Qureshi
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Second Phase ◽  
Gender And Age ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Working Class Women ◽  
Intimate Life ◽  
Racial Ethnic

Responding to increasing discomfort with the lack of diversity in studies of intimacy in later life, this article explores the making of couple relationships among White British middle-class women and British Asian working-class women in their ‘second phase of life’. We consider what intimacy means for women at this juncture in mid-life and how they traverse the socio-sexual spaces of dating post-divorce. We examine how women’s navigation of dating reproduces wider structures of inequality in intimate life. Talk of compatibility is examined as a veil for the classed and racialised habitus, and deeply implicated in the reproduction of social structures. ‘Racial-ethnic’ and class inequalities are co-constitutive of the gender and age inequalities stacked against older women’s efforts at repartnering. We therefore contend that repartnering is a matter of concern for intersectional feminism.

More than one way to grow up: An interview with Annette Lareau

2019 ◽  
Vol 100 (7) ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Rafael Heller
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Social Classes ◽  
Natural Growth ◽  
Parenting Strategies ◽  
Concerted Cultivation ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Middle Class Families

Kappan editor Rafael Heller interviews Annette Lareau about her research into different experiences of childhood and family life. In her observations of families of different social classes, she learned that upper-middle-class families approach parenting as an act of “concerted cultivation” requiring ongoing attention, making them more likely to become active participants in their children’s education. Working-class and poor parents, in contrast, focus on “natural growth” and are more likely to defer to teachers’ expertise. Lareau contends that both parenting strategies have advantages and disadvantages.

The Right to Dream: Gender, Modernity, and the Problem of Class in Kate O'Brien's Bourgeois Bildungsromane

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 276-289
Author(s):  
Naoise Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Coming Of Age ◽  
Female Identity ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Class Status ◽  
The Right ◽  
Aristocratic Culture ◽  
Modern Form

Feminist critics have celebrated Kate O'Brien's pioneering approach to gender and sexuality, yet there has been little exploration of her innovations of the coming-of-age narrative. Creating a modern Irish reworking of the Bildungsroman, O'Brien's heroines represent an idealized model of female identity-formation which stands in sharp contrast to the nationalist state's vision of Irish womanhood. Using Franco Moretti's theory of the Bildungsroman, a framing of the genre as a thoroughly ‘modern’ form of the novel, this article applies a critical Marxist lens to O'Brien's output. This reading brings to light the ways in which the limitations of the Bildungsroman work to constrain O'Brien's subversive politics. Their middle-class status remains an integral part of the identity of her heroines, informing the forms of liberation they seek. Fundamentally, O'Brien's idealization of aristocratic culture, elitist exceptionalism and ‘detachment of spirit’ restricts the emancipatory potential of her vision of Irish womanhood.

Emily Parker and Her Family

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy J. Miller ◽  
Grace E. Cho
Keyword(s):  
Social Skills ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Self Esteem ◽  
European American ◽  
American Family ◽  
Her Family ◽  
Normative Practices

Chapter 8, “Emily Parker and Her Family,” is the first of four chapters that focus on individual children and their families. Forming the “Persons” part of the book, these chapters provide intimate portraits of the children and their circumstances, complementing the preceding chapters, which focused on normative practices. Emily Parker was the middle child in a middle-class European American family. She was an affectionate child who loved to please people and remained close to her older sister, despite their wrangles. Emily was sensitive to criticism from her parents but was unperturbed by her sister’s jibes. Mr. and Mrs. Parker immersed their children in a rich and varied social life in which Emily developed precocious social skills—evidence, her parents believed, of her high self-esteem. Emily learned to praise herself and to ask adults for help.

Privilege Accumulation Among Upper Middle-Class Youth in Mexico

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Minor Mora-Salas ◽  
Orlandina de Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Life Histories ◽  
Social Processes ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Mexican Families ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
Class Background ◽  
Upper Middle Class ◽  
Class Youth

This chapter demonstrates how upper middle-class Mexican families mobilize a vast array of social, cultural, and economic resources to expand their children’s opportunities in life and ensure the intergenerational transmission of their social position. The authors analyze salient characteristics of families’ socioeconomic and demographics in the life histories of a group of young Mexicans from an upper middle-class background. Many believe that micro-social processes, especially surrounding education, are key to understanding how upper-class families mobilize their various resources to shape their children’s life trajectories. These families accumulate social advantages over time that accrue to their progeny and benefit them upon their entrance to the labor market.

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