HDSR 239: Persons & Systems: Books

Since the early 1990s, close to 250,000 children born abroad have been adopted into the United States. Nearly half of these children have come from China or Russia. Culture Keeping: White Mothers, International Adoption, and the Negotiation of Family Difference offers the first comparative analysis of these two popular adoption programs. Heather Jacobson examines these adoptions by focusing on a relatively new social phenomenon, the practice by international adoptive parents, mothers in particular, of incorporating aspects of their children's cultures of origin into their families' lives. "Culture keeping" is now standard in the adoption world, though few adoptive parents, the majority of whom are white and native-born, have experience with the ethnic practices of their children's homelands prior to adopting.

The authors address the need to better understand the diversity of family-related migration and its resulting family forms and practices, to question, if not counter, simplistic assumptions about migrant families in public discourses, to study family migration from a mix of disciplinary perspectives at various levels and via different methodological approaches and to acknowledge the state's role in shaping family-related migration, practices and lives.

In this book, in which definitions and examples of abuse from men and women from every continent and a very diverse set of backgrounds are considered. The volume provides information on the extent to which family violence is a recognized problem in each country, research findings available on different forms of family violence, and information on governmental responses to family violence. Finally, the value of an international human rights approach to abuse and violence in families is considered. Each chapter begins by describing the cultural context in which family violence and abuse take place. These sections emphasize the role of women and children in the country. Providing a multitude of voices, each chapter includes fascinating and often dramatic definitions and examples of abuse from ordinary citizens of the country.

The human family is ever-evolving, changing with time and adapting to place. This work explores how and to what degree do world cultures differ in their sexual, familial, and social habits, and what are the common features.

American families are far more diverse and complex today than they were 50 years ago. As ideas about marriage, divorce, and remarriage have changed, so too have our understandings about cohabitation, childbearing, parenting, and the transition to adulthood. Americans of all socioeconomic backgrounds have witnessed changes in the nature of family life, but as this book reveals, these changes play out in very different ways for the wealthy or well off than they do for the poor.

In the controversial public debate over modern American families, the vast changes in family life--the rise of single, two-paycheck , and same-sex parents--have often been blamed for declining morality and unhappy children. Drawing upon pioneering research with the children of the gender revolution, Kathleen Gerson reveals that it is not a lack of "family values," but rigid social and economic forces that make it difficult to have a vibrant and committed family and work life.