Transcript Changing Numbers, Changing Needs

Families
Do Families Play an Important
Role in Explaining Racial
Inequality?
• Positive Effects of Families
– Colin Powell
– Oprah Winfrey
• Adverse Effects of Families
– Yvette (Anderson: Code of the Street)
– Vietnamese refugee (Zhou and Bankston:
Growing Up American)
A Central Concern: Single
Parent Families
• Are single parent families more
prevalent among racial and ethnic
minority groups?
• Why?
• What are some of the differences in life
chances associated with growing up in
a single parent family?
Table 1: Percentage of children aged 0-17, by family living
arrangements: 1990.
Arrangements
Group
Total White Black Latino Asian American
Indian
Both Parents
72%
81
37
64
84
56
Father
4
3
6
6
3
7
Mother
20
13
49
24
9
30
Relatives
2
1
6
3
2
4
Other
2
2
3
3
2
3
Total
100
100
100
100
100
100
Source: Hogan and Lichter, 1996, Table 3.2, p. 105.
Table 2: Percentage of children aged 0-17 below the poverty line,
by family living arrangements: 1989.
Arrangements
Percentage Poor
Total White Black Latino Asian American
Indian
Overall
18
11
39
31
17
39
9
6
15
22
14
25
Father
23
15
34
33
20
49
Mother
46
34
57
55
39
60
Relatives
34
21
47
36
35
46
Both Parents
Source: Hogan and Lichter, 1996, Table 3.3, p. 107.
What is a family?
• Nuclear Family
• Blended Family
• Extended Family
• Non-relatives? Moore: giveaways; Duneier:
life on the street
The Debate Over SingleParent Families
• Moynihan, The Negro Family: The Case
for National Action (1967)
– Continuing racism
– Three centuries of sometimes
unimaginable mistreatment
– “The Negro family in the urban ghetto is
crumbling.”
Alternative Views: Carol
Stack, All My Kin
• Support networks outside the nuclear family
• Low income, not absence of father figure,
seen as real problem
• Robin Jarrett: 1)low-income families can be
stable; 2)important to examine the functioning
of families, not just their demographic type
Evidence
• Family Structure as a risk factor
• Single parent families have become more
prevalent: changes in sexual behavior,
separation of childbearing and marriage;
divorce
• Racial and ethnic differences in family
structure
• Parental education, family size,
neighborhoods also play a role
Problems
• Low Incomes of Single-Mother Families
• Absentee Fathers and Child Support
• Teen Pregnancy
• Out-of-wedlock childbearing
Possible Solutions
• Strengthen Social Programs
• Fatherhood Initiatives
• Sex Education and Improved
Contraceptive Use
Changing Numbers, Changing
Needs
American Indian Families and
Children in the 21st
Century
Themes
• In many respects, American Indian
families are following the same trends
as non-Indian families.
• In most respects, American Indian
families are “worse off” than others.
• We find considerable variation across
groups and reservations.
• We must do more to help families and
children.
Some illustrations, 1990
USA Indian Reser Okla
% child/2 par 70.2 54.4 48.8 65.5
% wom NM
23.4 29.7 37.1 21.7
% wom Div
9.5 12.8
9.5 12.4
% poor
13.1 31
50.7 29.8
% unemp
6.3 14.4 25.6 12.4
Variations Across
Reservations
• Pine Ridge: 35.2% of children lived with
two parents and 43.5% of women aged
15+ had never married.
• Navajo: 57.2% of children lived with
two parents.
• Zuni: 31.3% of women aged 15+ had
never married
Enduring Ways of the Lac du
Flambeau
• Ojibwa or Chippewa: follows them
through a year
• Roles of nuclear and extended families
• Cultural preservation
Duneier, Sidewalk
• General Reactions to the book
• What made 6th Avenue a sustaining
habitat?
• Was Local Law 33 a good idea or a bad
idea?
Wacquant, AJS (May 2002)
• Duneier replaces negative stereotypes of
street vendors, panhandlers, and scavengers
with inverted cardboard cutouts.
– Parochial, solely American view of urban poor
– close to his subjects with insufficient attention to
larger sociological theoretical issues
– Mad scramble for accessible books on sexy topics
Duneier’s response
• Wacquant chooses to ignore the balanced
portrayal of the good and bad behaviors of
Sidewalk’s characters
• Ethnographers have tough choices to make
in deciding how to present their findings and
results.
• A major thrust of Duneier’s work has been to
reveal the common elements of humanity.