Attachment--and loss.

A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

A Treatise on the Family

การวจยเชงคณภาพ เปนเครองมอสำคญอยางหนงสำหรบทำความเขาใจสงคมและพฤตกรรมมนษย การวจยแบบการสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล กเปนหนงในหลายระเบยบวธการวจยเชงคณภาพทกำลงไดรบความสนใจ และเปนทนยมเพมสงขนเรอยๆ จากนกวชาการ และนกวจยในสาขาสงคมศาสตร และศาสตรอนๆ เชน พฤตกรรมศาสตร สงคมวทยา สาธารณสขศาสตร พยาบาลศาสตร จตวทยาสงคม ศกษาศาสตร รฐศาสตร และสารสนเทศศกษา ดงนน หนงสอเรอง “ConstructingGrounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis” หรอ “การสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล:แนวทางการปฏบตผานการวเคราะหเชงคณภาพ” จะชวยใหผอานมความรความเขาใจถงพฒนาการของปฏบตการวจยแบบสรางทฤษฎจากขอมล ตลอดจนแนวทาง และกระบวนการปฏบตการวจยอยางเปนระบบ จงเปนหนงสอทควรคาแกการอานโดยเฉพาะนกวจยรนใหม เพอเปนแนวทางในการนำความรความเขาใจไประยกตในงานวจยของตน อกทงนกวจยผเชยวชาญสามารถอานเพอขยายมโนทศนดานวจยใหกวางขวางขน

Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/5/110/206.full.pdf

The american psychological association.

Individualism and collectivism

Findings are presented of a longitudinal study of the sexual orientation of adults who had been raised as children in lesbian families. Twenty-five children of lesbian mothers and a control group of 21 children of heterosexual single mothers were first seen at age 9.5 years on average, and again at age 23.5 years on average. Standardized interviews were used to obtain data on sexual orientation from the young adults in the follow-up study, and on family characteristics and children's gender role behavior from the mothers and their children in the initial study. Although those from lesbian families were more likely to explore same-sex relationships, particularly if their childhood family environment was characterized by an openness and acceptance of lesbian and gay relationships, the large majority of children who grew up in lesbian families identified as heterosexual. Opinion varies among biological and psychological theorists regarding the extent to which it is possible for parents to influence the sexual orientation of their children. From a purely biological perspective, parents should make little difference. In contrast, psychoanalytic theorists believe that relationships with parents in childhood are central to the development of sexual orientation in adult life. Research on adults raised in lesbian families provides an opportunity to test theoretical assumptions about the role of parents in their children's sexual orientation; if parents are influential in whether their children grow up to be heterosexual, lesbian, or gay, then it might be expected that lesbian parents would be more likely than heterosexual parents to have lesbian daughters and gay sons. With the exception of Gottman's (1990) investigation of adult daughters of lesbian mothers in which actual sexual behavior was not reported, research on lesbian families has focused on children rather than adults, and sexual orientation has not been assessed (Golombok, Spencer, & Rutter, 1983; Green, Mandel, Hotvedt, Gray,SHoeffer, 1981; Kirkpatrick, Smith, & Roy,

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/32/1/3.pdf

Do Parents Influence the Sexual Orientation of Their Children? Findings from a Longitudinal Study of Lesbian Families.

There is a variety of families headed by a lesbian or gay male parent or same-sex couple. Findings from research suggest that children with lesbian or gay parents are comparable with children with heterosexual parents on key psychosocial developmental outcomes. In many ways, children of lesbian or gay parents have similar experiences of family life compared with children in heterosexual families. Some special considerations apply to the context of lesbian and gay parenting: variation in family forms, children's awareness of lesbian and gay relationships, heterosexism, and homophobia. These issues have important implications for managing clinical work with children of lesbian mothers or gay fathers.

Lesbian mothers, gay fathers, and their children: a review.

The aim of the study was to investigate family functioning and the psychological development of children raised in fatherless families from their first year of life. Thirty lesbian mother families and 42 families headed by a single heterosexual mother were compared with 41 two-parent heterosexual families using standardised interview and questionnaire measures of the quality of parenting and the socioemotional development of the child. The results show that children raised in fatherless families from infancy experienced greater warmth and interaction with their mother, and were more securely attached to her, although they perceived themselves to be less cognitively and physically competent than their peers from father-present families. No differences were identified between families headed by lesbian and single heterosexual mothers, except for greater mother-child interaction in lesbian mother families.

Children Raised in Fatherless Families from Infancy: Family Relationships and the Socioemotional Development of Children of Lesbian and Single Heterosexual Mothers

Growing Up in a Lesbian Family: Effects on Child Development. Fiona L. Tasker & Susan Golombok. New York: Guilford. 1997. 187 pp. ISBN 1-57230-170-8. $26.95 cloth. Rare enough are longitudinal studies of family life following the impact of parents' life circumstances and behavior on their offspring from childhood through adult life. Rarer still is research on sexual orientation over time, regardless of the focus of the project. So the empirical project of Fiona L. Tasker and Susan Golombok tracking the lives of children raised in lesbianmother households over a 14-year period presents a unique accomplishment. Interviewing young adults whose mothers they had studied years earlier, Tasker and Golombok provide clues about how parents contribute to the development of sexual identity. This is an issue, of course, of tremendous controversy. It is a practical issue in custody disputes when a divorcing parent is lesbian, gay, or bisexual. It is also of some importance as increasing numbers of same-sex domestic partners are choosing to raise children. The early phase of this research has been one of the foundations of the small, yet robust, literature that has failed to uncover any untoward effects on children of being raised by a lesbian or gay parent. The lack of deleterious effects studied cross-sectionally whets the appetite for the crucial longitudinal data. By carefully locating many of their research participants and involving their now-adult offspring in a follow-up, Tasker and Golombok explore whether being raised by a lesbian mother impacts family relationships, peer relationships, intimate relationships, and personal adjustment. And, yes, they also tell us how many of these children become lesbian or gay adults. This is sketched out against a comparison group of single, heterosexual mothers whose adult children were similarly pursued by the researchers. The final numbers are quite small, however: 18 of the original 27 lesbian mothers and 16 of the original 27 single, heterosexual mothers. There were 25 young adults from the lesbian families and 21 young adults from the heterosexual families in the follow-up interviews. Contrary to predictions of simplistic theories attributing sexual orientation to biology, parental personality disorder, or social learning, Tasker and Golombok find remarkable complexity. Most important in a heterosexist cultural context is that young adults from lesbian-mother households emerge every bit as well adjusted as their counterparts raised in heterosexual, single-mother households. This, despite the greater complications of growing up with a lesbian mother and, for some, her domestic partner. About 10 years old at the first assessment, the children weathered a divorce in most cases and coped with their growing awareness of their mothers' sexual orientation. In addition to the usual development challenges, these children needed to integrate their mothers' romantic partners, as well as their biological fathers, any siblings, and extended family, into their new family structures. They also faced peers, teachers, and other community figures. As they approached adolescence, their sensitivity about their family's distinctiveness increased, and one third wished that their mothers could have been more circumspect about being lesbian. …

Growing Up in a Lesbian Family: Effects on Child Development.

A longitudinal study of 25 young adults from lesbian families and 21 raised by heterosexual single mothers revealed that those raised by lesbian mothers functioned well in adulthood in terms of psychological well-being and of family identity and relationships. The commonly held assumption that lesbian mothers will have lesbian daughters and gay sons was not supported by the findings.

Fiona Tasker

Papers

Do Parents Influence the Sexual Orientation of Their Children? Findings from a Longitudinal Study of Lesbian Families.

Lesbian mothers, gay fathers, and their children: a review.

Children Raised in Fatherless Families from Infancy: Family Relationships and the Socioemotional Development of Children of Lesbian and Single Heterosexual Mothers

Growing Up in a Lesbian Family: Effects on Child Development.

Adults raised as children in lesbian families.