American Family – serie

Critically acclaimed and highly authoritative collection of parenting issues, featuring a unique balance of practical and scholarly information.This illustrated, A–Z encyclopedia on parenthood in America offers fresh insights and solid information, all based on the latest research. Parenthood in America is the work of the nation's real authorities, the heavy-hitters in psychology, health, sociology, anthropology, and family history. It aims to fill the gap between how-to books (which generally blend popular notions and authors' pet theories) and specialized texts aimed at scholars.Parents, teachers, students, and professionals working in the field will find something here to inform, surprise, and even entertain. Entries are concise, carefully illustrated, and accompanied by suggestions for further reading. Readers will find entries on the superstars of the field, both popular (Dr. Spock, Dr. Seuss, Mr. Rogers) and scholarly (Ainsworth, Bowlby, Erikson).

This groundbreaking reference work presents more than 100 articles by 98 high-profile interdisciplinary scholars, covering all aspects of girls' roles in American society, past and present.In this comprehensive, readable, two volume encyclopedia, experts from a variety of disciplines contribute pieces to the puzzle of what it means—and what it has meant over the last 400 years—to be a girl in America. The portrait that emerges reveals deep differences in girls' experiences depending on socioeconomic context, religious and ethnic traditions, family life, schools, institutions, and the messages of consumer and popular culture.Girls have been commodified, idealized, trivialized, eroticized, and shaped by the powerful forces of popular culture, from Little Women to Barbie. Yet girls are also powerful co-creators of the culture that shapes them, often cleverly subverting it to their own purposes. From Pocahantas to punk rockers, girls have been an integral, if overlooked and undervalued, part of American culture.

An authoritative, broad, and practical survey of the social, psychological, and physical development of American teenagers.In Adolescence in America, more than 100 leading experts from the fields of biology, medicine, behavioral and social science, law, education, and the humanities piece together the puzzle of adolescence. In readable, accessible language they analyze the explosion of research that has reshaped the study of adolescence in the last 30 years and explain how today's leading scientists and practitioners view the challenges of this developmental period. Best of all, they show parents how to apply the latest scientific knowledge, such as the 40 "developmental assets" that predict a child's behavior, to their own family situation.

An incisive, multidisciplinary look at the American family over the past 200 years, written by respected scholars and researchers.Family in America offers two powerful antidotes to popular misconceptions about American family life: historical perspective and scientific objectivity. When we look back at our early history, we discover that the idealized 1950s family—characterized by a rising birthrate, a stable divorce rate, and a declining age of marriage—was a historical aberration, out of line with long-term historical trends.Working mothers, we learn, are not a 20th century invention; most families throughout American history have needed more than one breadwinner. In the exciting new scholarship described here, readers will learn precisely what is new in American family life and what is not, and acquire the perspective they need to appreciate both the genuine improvements and the losses that come with change.