Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Family Formation ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Social Rules ◽  
The Core ◽  
Army Wives ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Gestational Surrogacy

Opening with a brief exploration of the television series “Army Wives,” the introduction relates the theme of surrogacy presented in the drama to the foundational topics of this book; namely, it illustrates the changing perception of surrogacy in American culture. Our understanding of reproduction has always been informed by social rules and expectations, and these norms influence how individuals go about imagining the possibilities for family formation. The contemporary technologies that separate conception, pregnancy, and parenthood seem to offer new ways to think about reproduction, and thus much more agency to the individual to create families that may flaunt cultural norms. Considering terms such as “cross-racial gestational surrogacy,” “traditional surrogacy,” “reproductive technologies” and more, the introduction establishes the core themes of the text, relating these terms and technologies to the traditional, nuclear family within the United States.

Fifty Years of Family Change

2014 ◽  
Vol 654 (1) ◽  
pp. 12-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank F. Furstenberg
Keyword(s):  
Family Formation ◽  
Family System ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Current System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
The Family ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
Developed Nations

The first section of the article discusses how and why we went from a relatively undifferentiated family system in the middle of the last century to the current system of diverse family forms. Even conceding that the family system was always less simple than it now appears in hindsight, there is little doubt that we began to depart from the dominant model of the nuclear-family household in the late 1960s. I explain how change is a result of adaptation by individuals and family members to changing economic, demographic, technological, and cultural conditions. The breakdown of the gender-based division of labor was the prime mover in my view. Part two of the article thinks about family complexity in the United States as largely a product of growing stratification. I show how family formation processes associated with low human capital produces complexity over time in family systems, a condition that may be amplified by growing levels of inequality. The last part of the article briefly examines complexity in a changing global context. I raise the question of how complexity varies among economically developed nations with different family formation practices and varying levels of inequality.

At the Heart of Freedom: Feminism, Sex, and Equality. By Drucilla Cornell. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. 254p. $14.95 paper.

2002 ◽  
Vol 96 (1) ◽  
pp. 174-174
Author(s):  
Gayle Binion
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Classical Liberalism ◽  
Equal Rights ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Sexual Equality ◽  
Radical Feminist ◽  
The Core ◽  
Princeton University ◽  
The Individual

Drucilla Cornell has two goals: Pinpoint equal freedom as the core of sexual equality and make the case for the equal rights of gays and lesbians. Interwoven within these themes is a case for sexual freedom itself, for men and women. With erudite references to a wide multidisciplinary swath of literature, she succeeds in hammering home these concerns and in demanding that the sociolegal order reform its policies affecting sexuality, reproduction, and definitions of family. In these respects, this is a valuable study of how the United States specifically and other societies referentially fall short of what Christine Littleton calls making sex “cost free.” Cornell's book, which in the subjects and issues it analyzes covers very familiar territory, is intriguing for a very different reason. It is one of a very few works in radical feminist thought that is fundamentally about employing the tenets of classical liberalism, if not libertarianism, in the service of progressive social change. In contrast with the paradigms of modal feminism, which address social structures and connectedness, and which are concerned predominantly with equality, this work unabashedly focuses on the individual and stresses the freedom of each as a sexual being.

The nuclear family as the functional unit in psychiatry

1962 ◽  
Vol 108 (456) ◽  
pp. 675-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. G. Howells
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Child Psychiatry ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Functional Unit ◽  
The United States ◽  
Family Group ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Family ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Individual

In the introduction to his Chairman's address in 1959, Warren (24) reminded us that both Cameron (6) from this country and Kanner (17) from the United States, had, in recent years, surveyed the historical background of child psychiatry. Chairmen of this Section may thus deem themselves exempted from repeating that task for some years to come. Warren took as his theme some relationships between the psychiatry of childhood and that of adulthood. It seemed to me appropriate to follow his lead and to carry our thoughts a step further by considering the child and adult as members of the family group, and to study how far it would be useful to accept the nuclear family, rather than the individual patient, as the functional unit in psychiatry.

“A TAX ON THE MANY, TO ENRICH A FEW”: JACKSONIAN DEMOCRACY VS. THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 277-289
Author(s):  
William S. Belko
Keyword(s):  
Majority Rule ◽  
The United States ◽  
Andrew Jackson ◽  
The Core ◽  
Protective System ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Jacksonian Democracy ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Individual

The core concepts underlying Jacksonian Democracy—equal protection of the laws; an aversion to a moneyed aristocracy, exclusive privileges, and monopolies, and a predilection for the common man; majority rule; and the welfare of the community over the individual—have long been defined almost exclusively by the Bank War, which commenced in earnest with the election of Andrew Jackson in 1828. Yet, this same rhetoric proved far more pervasive and consistent when one considers the ardent opposition to the protective system. Opponents of the protective tariff, commencing with the Tariff of 1816 and continuing unabated to the Walker Tariff of 1846, thus contributed directly to the development of Jacksonian Democracy, and, by introducing and continually employing this language, gave to the tariff debates in the United States a unique angle that differed from the debates in Europe.

scholarly journals Cultural Influences on Environmental Consciousness and Green Environmental Behavior

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 20
Author(s):  
Bashar S. Gammoh ◽  
Sam C. Okoroafo ◽  
Anthony C. Koh
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Environmental Behavior ◽  
Cultural Influences ◽  
Measurement Model ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Environmental Consciousness ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Study Results ◽  
The Individual

This paper focuses on investigating the relationship between culture and green attitudes and environmental behavior across two countries representing societies with different cultural norms. The paper presents a theoretical model suggesting that individual level cultural differences influence consumer’s environmental consciousness which then influence their green consumerism and active ecological Behaviors’. Data was collected using survey research from two countries representing societies with different cultural norms—the United States and India. SmartPLS was used to assess the quality of the measurement model and test the proposed research hypotheses. Although the United States is a society that is generally driven by individualism and mastery orientation, study results indicate that at the individual level people attitudes and behaviors might be influenced by different orientations depending on the consumption situation. Overall, study findings highlight the value in understanding the influence of cultural factors at the individual level and not just at the country level.

Simulating Success or Failure: Another Look at Small-Population Dynamics

1997 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 683-697 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia W. Gaines ◽  
Warren M. Gaines
Keyword(s):  
Family Formation ◽  
Nuclear Family ◽  
Small Population ◽  
Sensitivity Analyses ◽  
Term Survival ◽  
Mortality Statistics ◽  
Monte Carlo Techniques ◽  
Founding Population ◽  
Prehistoric Southwest ◽  
The Individual

Simulation can be an effective tool for investigating the demography of small, prehistoric Southwest Pueblo communities. The model presented here incorporates biological and physiological, cultural, and behavioral characteristics and tracks each individual as the simulation of a small population is carried forward through 70 years of annual iterations. Sensitivity analyses are performed for a suite of critical parameter values. Many of parameters and functions are probabilistic, and Monte Carlo techniques are used to obtain statistically significant results. Simulation results are collected on numerous variables that profile the individual and group characteristics such as mortality, immigration to emigration ratio, nuclear family formation, and distribution of population size and mix. Initial success is dependent on the attributes of the founding population and its gender mix. The long-term survival of a small population is extremely sensitive to the mortality schedule, attributes of the founding population, and marriage-residence rules. Small shifts in the age-specific mortality statistics dramatically affect the population growth and the frequency of site collapse. The consequences of inaccuracies in mortality statistics are highlighted.

scholarly journals Cross-friend effects on entry into marriage and parenthood: A multiprocess approach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicoletta Balbo ◽  
Nicola Barban ◽  
Melinda C. Mills
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Family Formation ◽  
Unobserved Heterogeneity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Contextual Effects ◽  
Event History ◽  
National Longitudinal Study ◽  
Independent Events ◽  
The Individual

This paper aims to investigate whether friends’ and peers’ behavior influences an individual’s entry into marriage and parenthood of young adults in the United States. After first studying entry into marriage and parenthood as two independent events, we then examine them as interrelated processes, thereby considering them as two joint outcomes of an individual’s unique, underlying family-formation strategy. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we engage in a series of discrete time event history models to test whether the larger the number of friends and peers who get married (or have a child), the sooner the individual gets married (or has a child). Results show strong cross-friend effects on entry into parenthood, whereas entry into marriage is only affected by more general contextual effects. Estimates of a multiprocess model show that cross-friend effects on entry into parenthood remain strongly significant even when we control for cross-process unobserved heterogeneity.

The Path to Gestational Surrogacy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The United States ◽  
Reproductive Technologies ◽  
Reproductive Technology ◽  
Vitro Fertilization ◽  
Technology Industry ◽  
First Child ◽  
Gestational Surrogacy

This chapter places reproductive technologies in historical perspective, beginning with the birth of the first child born through in vitro fertilization in 1978, the accompanied explosion of infertility services in the United States, and the development of gestational surrogacy. This chapter also considers how the advent of gestational surrogacy complicated the selection of a surrogate, the surrogate population, and the role of race in the reproductive technology industry. This chapter also introduces the feminist framework within which this book is situated by contextualizing the varied feminist responses to ARTs in the last several decades.

scholarly journals A Critical Literary Review of the Melting Pot and Salad Bowl Assimilation and Integration Theories

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Berray
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
The United States ◽  
Collective Good ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Diversity And Inclusion ◽  
The Individual

Immigrant communities have varying degrees of acculturation based on their predispositions for specific cultural norms, and their propensity to exhibit similarities in principles, values, and a common lifestyle with dominant racial and ethnic groups. Food metaphors like the Melting Pot and the Salad Bowl theories have illustrated different approaches to integration by explaining the political and power dynamics between dominant and minority groups. Yet, little consideration is given in either theory to existing local contexts that influence the actions of these groups. By combining ethnic identities into homogenous outcomes, food metaphors empower dominant ethnic groups and sets the tone for discriminatory legislative policies that eliminate programs aimed at helping minorities. For refugees, this obscures their actual socio-political circumstances and erases their historical experiences. This paper aims to review and critique existing literature about metaphorical homogenous assimilation and integration theories, especially with regards to their application in the United States. This paper postulates that using a homogenous common good as the baseline metaphor of assimilation disregards the individual accommodations that need to be made for both dominant and minority communities. These accommodations, although sometimes separate from the collective good, have a significant role in creating conducive environments for diversity and inclusion.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

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