Rutgers
University Press is extremely proud to announce the publication of
Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care
by Karen V. Hansen. This book will be of interest to members of the ASA
Section of the Family so I hope you can include some notice of its
publication in your next issue of Announcements and News.
I am
including praise for the book from the author's peers, a description of
the book from the back cover, the table of contents, and the author's
biographical blurb. If, in addition to this information, you would like
to receive a review copy, please let me know. I can be reached at
pellien@rci.rutgers.edu or 732-445-7762, ext. 625.
Thank
you,
Jessica Pellien, Senior Marketing Associate
Praise
for Not-So-Nuclear Families:
“In
vivid portraits drawn from the top and bottom of the social-class
ladder, Hansen shows the profound effect social class has on care. Well
observed, beautifully written, this book is a must read.”—Arlie
Hochschild, author of The Commercialization of Intimate Life: Notes
from Home and Work
“Not-So-Nuclear
Families explains the often painful choices that parents have to
make for their children’s—and their own—well-being.”—Barbara Schneider,
professor of sociology and human development, director of the Data
Research and Development Center, and codirector the Alfred P. Sloan
Center on Parents, Children, and Work at the University of Chicago
About
the Book:
In
recent years U.S. public policy has focused on strengthening the nuclear
family as a primary strategy for improving the lives of America’s youth.
It is often assumed that this normative type of family is an
independent, self-sufficient unit adequate for raising children. But
half of all households in the United States with young children have two
employed parents. How do working parents provide care and mobilize the
help that they need?
In
Not-So-Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care, Karen
V. Hansen investigates the lives of working parents and the informal
networks they construct to help care for their children. She chronicles
the conflicts, hardships, and triumphs of four families of various
social classes. Each must navigate the ideology that mandates that
parents, mothers in particular, rear their own children, in the face of
an economic reality that requires that parents rely on the help of
others. In vivid family stories, parents detail how they and their
networks of friends, paid caregivers, and extended kin collectively
close the “care gap” for their school-aged children.
Hansen
not only debunks the myth that families in the United States are
independent, isolated, and self-reliant units, she breaks new
theoretical ground by asserting that informal networks of care can
potentially provide unique and valuable bonds that nuclear families
cannot.
About
the Author:
Karen V.
Hansen is an associate professor of sociology and women’s studies at
Brandeis University and is the coeditor of Families in the U.S.: Kinship
and Domestic Politics.
Table
of Contents:
-
Chapter 1: Networks of Interdependence in an Age of Independence
-
Part I. Profiles of Four Networks of Interdependence
-
Chapter 2: The Cranes: An Absorbent Safety Net
-
Chapter 3: The Aldriches: A Family Foundation
-
Chapter 4: The Duvall-Brennans: A Loose Association of Advisors
-
Chapter 5: The Beckers: A Warm Web of People
-
Part II. Constructing and Maintaining Networks
-
Chapter 6: Staging Networks: Inclusion and Exclusion
-
Chapter 7: The Tangle of Reciprocity
-
Chapter 8: Men, Women, and the Gender of Caregiving
SUBMITTED BY:
-
Jessica Pellien
Senior Marketing Associate
Rutgers University Press
100 Joyce Kilmer Ave.
Piscataway, NJ 08854
732-445-7762, ext. 625
732-445-7039
http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu
