Naomi Gerstel – författare

Nuclear Family Values, Extended Family Lives shows how the current emphasis on the nuclear family – with its exclusion of the extended family – is narrow, even deleterious, and misses much of family life. This omission is tied to gender, race, and class. This book is broken down into six chapters. Chapter one discusses how, when promoting "family values" and talking about "family as the basic unit of American society," social commentators, politicians, and social scientists alike typically ignore extended kin ties and focus only on the nuclear family. Chapters two and three show that the focus on marriage and the nuclear family is a narrow view that ignores the familial practices and experiences of many Americans – particularly those of women who do much of the work of maintaining kin ties and racial/ethnic minorities for whom extended kin are centrally important. Chapter four focuses on class and economic inequality and explores how an emphasis on the nuclear family may actually promulgate a vision of family life that dismisses the very social resources and community ties that are critical to the survival strategies of those in need. In chapter five, the authors argue that marriage actually detracts from social integration and ties to broader communities. Finally, in chapter six, the authors suggest that the focus on marriage and the nuclear family and the inattention to the extended family distort and reduce the power of social policy in the United States.

In 2004, Michael Burawoy, speaking as president of the American Sociological Association, generated far-reaching controversy when he issued an ambitious and impassioned call for a 'public sociology'. Burawoy argued that sociology should speak beyond the university, engaging with social movements and deepening an understanding of the historical and social context in which they exist. In this volume, renowned sociologists come together to debate the perils and the potentials of Burawoy's challenge. The contributors include Andrew Abbott, Michael Burawoy, Patricia Hill Collins, Barbara Ehrenreich, Evelyn Nakano Glenn, Sharon Hays, Douglas Massey, Joya Misra, Orlando Patterson, Frances Fox Piven, Lynn Smith-Lovin, Judith Stacey, Arthur Stinchcombe, Alain Touraine, Immanuel Wallerstein, William Julius Wilson, and Robert Zussman.

What is the relationship between work and family in a world where employment creates endless tensions for families and families create endless tensions for the workplace? This collection of articles broadens this discussion by addressing issues from the perspectives of often neglected populations: from white middle-class women with young children to people of colour, to poor families, to the families gays and lesbians are struggling to construct, to fathers and to older children. To discuss work and family is also to discuss gender. Ranging from California's Silicon Valley to a remote fishing village, part one shows how new work arrangements have created new expectations for what it means to be a woman or a man, and how slow and uneven the pace of change can be. Nowhere are the tensions of work and family more potent than around childcare. Part two takes up these tensions, showing how various ""solutions"" to caring for children of all ages (whether infants or teenagers) create problems. Parts three and four turn outward to show how the relationships between families and work are changing the relationships between families and the communities in which they live and generating social policy dilemmas.

What is the relationship between work and family in a world where employment creates endless tensions for families and families create endless tensions for the workplace? This collection of articles broadens this discussion by addressing issues from the perspectives of often neglected populations: from white middle-class women with young children to people of colour, to poor families, to the families gays and lesbians are struggling to construct, to fathers and to older children. To discuss work and family is also to discuss gender. Ranging from California's Silicon Valley to a remote fishing village, part one shows how new work arrangements have created new expectations for what it means to be a woman or a man, and how slow and uneven the pace of change can be. Nowhere are the tensions of work and family more potent than around childcare. Part two takes up these tensions, showing how various ""solutions"" to caring for children of all ages (whether infants or teenagers) create problems. Parts three and four turn outward to show how the relationships between families and work are changing the relationships between families and the communities in which they live and generating social policy dilemmas.