Showing papers in "Annals of The American Academy of Political and Social Science in 2009"
TL;DR: The authors document the emergence of mass incarceration and describe its significance for African American family life, and pose several key research questions that can illuminate the effects of dramatic growth in the American penal system.
Abstract: Released in 1965, the Moynihan Report traced the severe social and economic distress of poor urban African Americans to high rates of single-parenthood. Against Moynihan's calls for social investment in poor inner-city communities, politics moved in a punitive direction, driving massive growth in the prison population. The authors document the emergence of mass incarceration and describe its significance for African American family life. The era of mass incarceration can be understood as a new stage in the history of American racial inequality. Because of its recent arrival, the social impact of mass incarceration remains poorly understood. The authors conclude by posing several key research questions that can illuminate the effects of dramatic growth in the American penal system.
429 citations
TL;DR: The authors find a significant negative effect of a criminal record on employment outcomes that appears substantially larger for African Americans and employers' general reluctance to discuss the criminal record of an applicant appears especially harmful for black ex-offenders.
Abstract: In this article, the authors report the results of a large-scale field experiment conducted in New York City investigating the effects of race and a prison record on employment. Teams of black and white men were matched and sent to apply for low-wage jobs throughout the city, presenting equivalent resumes and differing only in their race and criminal background. The authors find a significant negative effect of a criminal record on employment outcomes that appears substantially larger for African Americans. The sequence of interactions preceding hiring decisions suggests that black applicants are less often invited to interview, thereby providing fewer opportunities to establish rapport with the employer. Furthermore, employers' general reluctance to discuss the criminal record of an applicant appears especially harmful for black ex-offenders. Overall, these results point to the importance of rapport-building for finding work, something that the stigmatizing characteristics of minority and criminal status make more difficult to achieve.
348 citations
TL;DR: A world in which the spatial organization of cities and the location of groups and people within them will increasingly be determined by an interaction of race and class is yielded, in which segregation will stem less from overt prejudice and discrimination than from political decisions about land use, such as density zoning.
Abstract: The nature and organization of segregation shifted profoundly in the United States over the course of the twentieth century. During the first two-thirds of the century, segregation was defined by the spatial separation of whites and blacks. What changed over time was the level at which this racial separation occurred, as macro-level segregation between states and counties gave way steadily to micro-level segregation between cities and neighborhoods. During the last third of the twentieth century, the United States moved toward a new regime of residential segregation characterized by moderating racial-ethnic segregation and rising class segregation, yielding a world in which the spatial organization of cities and the location of groups and people within them will increasingly be determined by an interaction of race and class and in which segregation will stem less from overt prejudice and discrimination than from political decisions about land use, such as density zoning.
317 citations
TL;DR: The author argues that what Moynihan identified as a race-specific problem in the 1960s has now become a class-based phenomena as well, and shows that unmarried parents come from much more disadvantaged populations than married parents.
Abstract: In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that nonmarital childbearing and marital dissolution were undermining the progress of African Americans. The author argues that what Moynihan identified as a race-specific problem in the 1960s has now become a class-based phenomena as well. Using data from a new birth cohort study, the author shows that unmarried parents come from much more disadvantaged populations than married parents. The author further argues that nonmarital childbearing reproduces class and racial disparities through its association with partnership instability and multipartnered fertility. These processes increase maternal stress and mental health problems, reduce the quality of mothers' parenting, reduce paternal investments, and ultimately lead to poor outcomes in children. Finally, by spreading fathers' contributions across multiple households, partnership instability and multipartnered fertility undermine the importance of individual fathers' contributions of time and money, which is likel...
236 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared fathers' patterns of leave-taking across twenty-four countries from 2003 to 2007 to present new types of father-care-sensitive leave models.
Abstract: Infant care is no longer purely a private family matter. As more mothers return to paid employment in their child's first year, governments develop provisions to support working parents with very young children. Statutory parental leave and flexible working provisions for fathers are expanding rapidly, particularly in Europe. The author compares fathers' patterns of leave-taking across twenty-four countries from 2003 to 2007 to present new types of father-care-sensitive leave models. Findings show that fathers' use of statutory leave is greatest when high income replacement (50 percent or more of earnings) is combined with extended duration (more than fourteen days). Father-targeted schemes heighten usage. Although studies are limited, parental leave has the potential to boost fathers' emotional investment in and connection with infants. Differential access to statuary leave raises the possibility of a new polarization for infants: being born into either a parental-leave-rich or -poor household and, indee...
211 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss social selection, stigmatization, and socialization/strain theoretical explanations for the intergenerational influences of parental incarceration on their children and find that paternal imprisonment decreases the educational attainment of children in emerging adulthood.
Abstract: The authors discuss social selection, stigmatization, and socialization/strain theoretical explanations for the intergenerational influences of parental incarceration on their children. Results with national survey data reveal that net of selection factors, paternal imprisonment decreases the educational attainment of children in emerging adulthood. While this pattern is found across race/ethnicity, the results in combination with disproportionate minority confinement suggest that parental incarceration is a mechanism of social exclusion of these groups. With data on Texas prisoners, the authors further find that about two-thirds of Hispanic fathers and about half of African American and Anglo fathers expect to live with their children and families when they return to their communities. This last finding suggests a broad foundation across racial/ethnic groups for the investment of resources in supporting the rehabilitation and reunification of these prospective families, for the welfare of the children, t...
193 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reflect upon the ways television changed the political landscape and consider how far new media, such as the Internet, are displacing television or reconfiguring the political communications ecology.
Abstract: This article reflects upon the ways television changed the political landscape and considers how far new media, such as the Internet, are displacing television or reconfiguring the political communications ecology. The analysis explores opportunities and challenges facing media producers, politicians, and citizens. The authors conclude by suggesting that the television-politics relationship that emerged in the 1960s still prevails to some extent in the digital era but faces new pressures that weaken the primacy of the broadcast-centered model of political communication. The authors identify five new features of political communication that present formidable challenges for media policy makers. They suggest that these are best addressed through an imaginative, democratic approach to nurturing the emancipatory potential of the new media ecology by carving out within it a trusted online space where the dispersed energies, self-articulations, and aspirations of citizens can be rehearsed, in public, within a p...
190 citations
TL;DR: The nature of employer attitudes about black and white workers and the extent to which these views are calibrated against their direct experiences with workers from each group are examined to develop a model of attitude formation and employer learning.
Abstract: Much of the debate over the underlying causes of discrimination centers on the rationality of employer decision making. Economic models of statistical discrimination emphasize the cognitive utility of group estimates as a means of dealing with the problems of uncertainty. Sociological and social-psychological models, by contrast, question the accuracy of group-level attributions. Although mean differences may exist between groups on productivity-related characteristics, these differences are often inflated in their application, leading to much larger differences in individual evaluations than would be warranted by actual group-level trait distributions. In this study, the authors examine the nature of employer attitudes about black and white workers and the extent to which these views are calibrated against their direct experiences with workers from each group. They use data from fifty-five in-depth interviews with hiring managers to explore employers' group-level attributions and their direct observations to develop a model of attitude formation and employer learning.
168 citations
TL;DR: It is found that economic indicators, crime rates, and demographic changes have little explanatory value for legislation aimed at restrictions on immigrant populations, and ideological framing is the most consistently important factor determining legislative responses to newcomers.
Abstract: Increasingly, state legislatures are enacting laws to regulate immigrant populations. What accounts for these responses to foreign-born residents? To explain legislative activity at the state level, the authors examine a variety of factors, including the size and growth of foreign-born and Hispanic local populations, economic well-being, crime rates, and conservative or liberal political ideology in state government and among the citizenry. The authors find that economic indicators, crime rates, and demographic changes have little explanatory value for legislation aimed at restrictions on immigrant populations. Rather, conservative citizen ideology appears to drive immigrant-related restrictionist state legislation. Meanwhile, proimmigrant laws are associated with larger Hispanic concentrations, growing foreign-born populations, and more liberal citizen and governmental orientations. These findings suggest that ideological framing is the most consistently important factor determining legislative responses...
163 citations
TL;DR: It is found that father involvement drops sharply after parents' relationships end, especially when they enter subsequent relationships and have children with new partners, suggesting that fathers' roles outside of conjugal relationships may be more strongly institutionalized in the black community.
Abstract: In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that the black family was nearing "complete breakdown" due to high rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing. In subsequent decades, nonmarital childbearing rose dramatically for all racial groups and unwed fathers were often portrayed as being absent from their children's lives. The authors examine contemporary nonmarital father involvement using quantitative evidence from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and qualitative evidence from in-depth interviews with 150 unmarried fathers. The authors find that father involvement drops sharply after parents' relationships end, especially when they enter subsequent relationships and have children with new partners. These declines are less dramatic for African American fathers, suggesting that fathers' roles outside of conjugal relationships may be more strongly institutionalized in the black community. The challenges Moynihan described among black families some forty years ago now extend to a significant minority of all American children.
145 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors address the question of why there are persistent gender differences in the responsibility for children and argue that understanding continuing gender divisions of domestic responsibility, particularly in the first year of parenting, requires attending to issues of identity; commitment; embodiment; deeply rooted socialization or habitus; and normative community assumptions around gender, breadwinning, and caring.
Abstract: This article addresses the question of why there are persistent gender differences in the responsibility for children. It argues that understanding continuing gender divisions of domestic responsibility, particularly in the first year of parenting, requires attending to issues of identity; commitment; embodiment; deeply rooted socialization or habitus; and normative community assumptions around gender, breadwinning, and caring. Rooted in three qualitative research studies conducted over the past eight years with more than two hundred Canadian fathers and forty mothers, the author argues for renewed thinking around issues of gender equality and gender differences and how these play out in domestic and community spaces in that first year of parenting. Bridging together time, space, and embodiment, the author also maintains that short-term potential differences in domestic responsibilities in parenting should not necessarily lead to long-term chronic inequities between women and men.
TL;DR: The crosscurrents for fathers: the promotion of work-family balance (WFB) and more involvedfathering versus work-focused competitiveness and productivity are the cross currents for fathers.
Abstract: European policy and discourse create crosscurrents for fathers:the promotion of work-family balance (WFB) and more involvedfathering versus work-focused competitiveness and productivitygoals in glo ...
TL;DR: This article assess the tenor of racial attitudes in white and black America across the ensuing four decades and conclude that negative stereotypes of African Americans, cultural (not structural or discrimination-based) accounts of black disadvantage, and deep polarization over the appropriate social policy response to racial inequality yield an ongoing legacy of tension and division.
Abstract: In 1965 Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed that the “racist virus in the American blood stream still afflicts us.” The authors assess the tenor of racial attitudes in white and black America across the ensuing four decades. Their core conclusion is paradoxical. On one hand, a massive positive change in social norms regarding race has taken place that dislodged Jim Crow ideology and now calls for integration and equality as the rules that should guide black-white interaction. On the other hand, negative stereotypes of African Americans, cultural (not structural or discrimination-based) accounts of black disadvantage, and deep polarization over the appropriate social policy response to racial inequality yield an ongoing legacy of tension and division. The authors link these trends in attitudes to broader changes in society (i.e., racial segregation, job discrimination, rates of intermarriage), patterns of intergroup and interpersonal behavior, and national political dynamics.
TL;DR: The authors examined thirty Afro-Caribbean youths' experiences with and perceptions of New York City police and concluded that aggressive policing tactics are intended to restrict and criminalize Latino/a youths' use of public space.
Abstract: Research has consistently shown that African American youth report less favorable evaluations of the police than their white counterparts. The literature on police-citizen relations in Latino/a communities is scant and narrowly focused on Mexicana/os and Chicana/os in southern and midwestern U.S. cities. Therefore, we know little about the experiences of Latino/a populations in other parts of the country. This article uses a Latina/o critical theory (LatCrit) perspective to examine thirty Afro-Caribbean youths' experiences with and perceptions of New York City police. Study findings highlight respondents' views that aggressive policing tactics are intended to restrict and criminalize Latino/a youths' use of public space. The authors conclude with recommendations for improving police—community relations with this population.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed how two different policy measures affect gender equality in child care and found that the special quota for fathers had a positive effect on the participation of fathers in the child care.
Abstract: This article analyzes how two different policy measures affect gender equality in child care. In the 1990s, Norway introduced two care policies reflecting different ideas about gender and family life. The fathers' quota policy supports the dual-earner family model while the cash-for-care scheme is based on a family model, providing cash benefits irrespective of the parent's work activities. The father's quota is a gendered policy because six weeks of the parental leave period is reserved for the father. Cash-for-care is gender neutral, in which working parents can choose which of them is to stay at home. The analysis is based on interview data from two studies, one on parental leave and one on cash-for-care. We find that the special quota for fathers has had a positive effect on the participation of fathers in child care. The cash-for-care system does not, however, challenge the existing gender structure in child care.
TL;DR: This article revisited neglected arguments of the Moynihan Report to yield insights for a contemporary understanding of racial inequality in American cities, arguing that the logic of the report implies three interlinked hypotheses: (1) the tangle of "pathology, or what today we call social dislocations, has a deep neighborhood structure, as does socioeconomic disadvantage; (2) neighborhood inequality is durable and generates self-reinforcing properties that, because of racial segregation, are most pronounced in the black community; and (3) neighborhood “poverty traps” can ultimately only
Abstract: This article revisits neglected arguments of the Moynihan Report to yield insights for a contemporary understanding of racial inequality in American cities. The author argues that the logic of Moynihan's reasoning implies three interlinked hypotheses: (1) the tangle of “pathology,” or what today we call social dislocations, has a deep neighborhood structure, as does socioeconomic disadvantage; (2) the tangle of neighborhood inequality is durable and generates self-reinforcing properties that, because of racial segregation, are most pronounced in the black community; and (3) neighborhood “poverty traps” can ultimately only be broken with government structural interventions and macro-level policies. Examining longitudinal neighborhood-level data from Chicago and the United States as a whole, the author finds overall support for these hypotheses. Despite urban social transformations in the post-Moynihan era, neighborhoods remained remarkably stable in their relative economic standing. Poverty is also stubbor...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take the lens of uncertainty and apply it to a post-Moynihan discussion of African American women and marriage and discuss uncertainty in the temporal organization of poor women's lives and in the new terrains of gender relationships.
Abstract: This article provides a brief overview of how African American women are situated in and around the thesis of the Moynihan Report. The authors take the lens of uncertainty and apply it to a post-Moynihan discussion of African American women and marriage. They discuss uncertainty in the temporal organization of poor women's lives and in the new terrains of gender relationships and how both influence African American women's thoughts and behaviors in their romantic relationships and marriages. They argue that much is to be learned from by focusing the lens in this way. It allows us to look at the contemporary romantic relationship and marriage behaviors of African American women in context and in ways that do not label them as having pathological behaviors that place them out of sync with broader societal trends.
TL;DR: This article explored how inequality in the character of internal and nearby neighborhood conditions leads to patterned racial and ethnic differences in violence across areas, and demonstrated that along with social and economic conditions that exist within neighborhoods, proximity to more disadvantaged and especially racially privileged (heavily white) areas is particularly critical in accounting for the large and visible differ.
Abstract: How can we understand the dramatic linkages among race, ethnicity, place, and violence in the United States? One contention is that differences in violence across communities of varying race-ethnic compositions are rooted in highly differentiated social and economic circumstances of the segregated neighborhoods inhabited by whites, African Americans, Latinos, and other groups. Here, the authors draw upon and expand this perspective by exploring how inequality in the character of internal and nearby neighborhood conditions leads to patterned racial and ethnic differences in violence across areas. Using data from the National Neighborhood Crime Study to examine the racial-spatial dynamic of violence for neighborhoods in thirty-six U.S. cities, the authors demonstrate that along with the social and economic conditions that exist within neighborhoods, proximity to more disadvantaged and especially racially privileged (heavily white) areas is particularly critical in accounting for the large and visible differ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the struggle to break free of poverty is as much a cultural process as it is political and economic in Indian village democracies (gram sabhas), where villagers make important decisions about budgetary allocations for village development and the selection of beneficiaries for anti-poverty programs and examine 290 transcripts of gram sabhas from South India to demonstrate how they create a culture of civic/political engagement among poor people.
Abstract: Employing a view of culture as a communicative phenomenon involving discursive engagement, which is deeply influenced by social and economic inequalities, the authors argue that the struggle to break free of poverty is as much a cultural process as it is political and economic In this paper, they analyze important examples of discursive spaces - public meetings in Indian village democracies (gram sabhas), where villagers make important decisions about budgetary allocations for village development and the selection of beneficiaries for anti-poverty programs They examine 290 transcripts of gram sabhas from South India to demonstrate how they create a culture of civic/political engagement among poor people, and how definitions of poverty and beneficiary-selection criteria are understood and interrogated within them Through this examination, they highlight the process by which gram sabhas facilitate the acquisition of crucial cultural capabilities such as discursive skills and civic agency by poor and disadvantaged groups They illustrate how the poor and socially marginalized deploy these discursive skills in a resource-scarce and socially stratified environment in making material and non-material demands in their search for dignity The intersection of poverty, culture, and deliberative democracy is a topic of broad relevance because it sheds light on cultural processes that can be influenced by public action in a manner that helps improve the voice and agency of the poor
TL;DR: In the past two decades, deregulation and digitalization have expanded the number of channels, but this fragmentation, combined with the growth of the Internet, has meant that the era in which shared domestic leisure was dominated by viewing of the major channels is closing as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Sport played a significant part in the growth of television, especially during its emergence as a dominant global medium between 1960 and 1980. In turn, television, together with commercial sponsorship, transformed sport, bringing it significant new income and prompting changes in rules, presentation, and cultural form. Increasingly, from the 1970s, it was not the regular weekly sport that commanded the largest audiences but, rather, the occasional major events, such as the Olympic Games and football’s World Cup. In the past two decades, deregulation and digitalization have expanded the number of channels, but this fragmentation, combined with the growth of the Internet, has meant that the era in which shared domestic leisure was dominated by viewing of the major channels is closing. Yet, sport provides an exception, an instance when around the world millions share a live and unpredictable viewing experience.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how data on the use of time might be used to investigate the multilevel connections between family-related policies and fathers' child care time in a cross-national context.
Abstract: In this article, the authors explore how data on the use of time might be used to investigate the multilevel connections between family-related policies and fathers' child care time in a cross-national context. The authors present a case study analysis of “fathering strategies” in which empirical findings from time-use data are compared with detailed policy information from Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. These analyses show that time-use data can not only shed light on the effects of specific policies in different national contexts but also point to the need to consider the complexity of multiple policies and their adoption in specific national contexts across time. The authors describe the development of a cross-national, cross-time database that combines time-use data with relevant social and family policy information, with the aim of providing a multilevel research tool to those interested in exploring further the relationships between policy and family work.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the policy discourse of the "involved father" promotes a particular role for fathers as educational facilitators, overlooking the more mundane aspects of care most often associated with motherhood.
Abstract: In the United Kingdom, current family policy seeks to prioritize fathering as a social issue. The author critically examines the assumptions and expectations that underpin this approach, comparing and contrasting it with data from qualitative interviews with fathers. It highlights the class-specific nature of fathers' everyday values and experiences, pointing to the way policy-sanctioned models of fatherhood are grounded in middle-class perspectives. The author also argues that the policy discourse of the “involved father” promotes a particular role for fathers as educational facilitators, overlooking the more mundane aspects of care most often associated with motherhood.
TL;DR: In this article, a contextual explanation for increases in downtown residential populations and updated data on current levels help assess the effects of this change on the area, as seen in earlier studies documenting the rise of this phenomenon.
Abstract: The “new American city” is composed of many parts, including downtowns of primary cities whose contents have changed over the past fifty years as a new paradigm about their functions has emerged. Housing has increasingly played an important role, as seen in earlier studies documenting the rise of this phenomenon. A contextual explanation for increases in downtown residential populations and updated data on current levels help assess the effects of this change on the area.
TL;DR: This paper found that one of the consequences of enhanced policing, surveillance, and punitive treatment of youth of color is the development of a specific set of gendered practices that obstructs desistance and social mobility.
Abstract: Analyses of the criminal justice system have revealed the racialized nature of crime and punishment in the United States. We know little, however, about how race, crime, and punishment are also experienced as gendered phenomena by marginalized adolescent males. Drawing from ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews, the author proposes that important insights about crime, race, and gender are gained by analyzing the experiences of adolescent males as they navigate through the criminal justice pipeline. Thus, the author examines how policing, incarceration, and probation offer masculinity-making resources that young men use to develop a sense of manhood. This study shows that one of the consequences of enhanced policing, surveillance, and punitive treatment of youth of color is the development of a specific set of gendered practices. One outcome of pervasive criminal justice contact for young black and Latino men is the production of a hypermasculinity that obstructs desistance and social mobility.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue for carving a new relationship between public infrastructure and cities that balances the goals of economic productivity and community place-making, and show that the replacement of elevated freeways with greenways, boulevards, and public transit can improve neighborhood quality and increase land values.
Abstract: In the United States, public infrastructure has been a necessary, though not sufficient, catalyst to economic growth and expansion, particularly in urban areas. However, infrastructure investments, and particularly highway construction, absent much in the way of proactive planning and farsighted land-use management, have for the most part also been sprawl-inducing. This article argues for carving a new relationship between public infrastructure and cities that balances the goals of economic productivity and community place-making. Often considered to be in conflict, they need not be. Experiences in San Francisco and Seoul show that the replacement of elevated freeways with greenways, boulevards, and public transit can improve neighborhood quality and increase land values. In Hong Kong, the aggressive application of value-capture strategies such as air-rights leasing with enhanced urban design increased economic rates of return.
TL;DR: Daniel Patrick Moynihan's views on employment and young black men in his 1965 report are reviewed and the evidence on their employment status is updated and policies that deal with a wide range of disadvantages and behaviors are reviewed.
Abstract: This article reviews Daniel Patrick Moynihan's views on employment and young black men in his 1965 report. The author then updates the evidence on their employment status and reviews the causes and policy implications of these trends. Moynihan was extremely insightful and even prescient in arguing that the employment situation of young black men was a “crisis . . . that would only grow worse.” He understood that these trends involve both limits on labor market opportunities that these young men face as well as skill deficits of and behavioral responses by the young men themselves. Policies that deal with a wide range of disadvantages and behaviors are needed to reverse these trends.
TL;DR: Moynihan's report as mentioned in this paper argued that ending legal segregation in the South was not enough and that black poverty was more intractable than white poverty owing to the legacy of slavery and the persistence of discrimination and segregation throughout the country.
Abstract: T Moynihan Report is probably the most famous piece of social scientific analysis never published. Completed in March 1965 as an internal document by a young assistant secretary of labor, it was written as input into an ongoing debate within the administration of President Lyndon Baines Johnson about how to move forward in grappling with “the Negro problem” in the wake of the landmark passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The report argued that ending legal segregation in the South was not enough and that black poverty was more intractable than white poverty owing to the legacy of slavery and the persistence of discrimination and segregation throughout the country. These factors combined to put unique pressure on the black family, which was buckling under the strain in ways that amplified the effects of other social problems and led to a “tangle of pathology” that perpetuated black poverty over time and across the generations. The purpose of the report was to make an impassioned moral case for a massive federal intervention to break the cycle of black poverty and put African Americans on the road to socioeconomic achievement and integration into American society. Moynihan was never shy about using vivid prose to make his points, especially in private, and in his report, he was in full flower, by remarking that race relations were in a state of “crisis” and referring to the rising share of Moynihan Redux: Legacies and Lessons
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparison between two models of publicness (one based on a type of television firmly anchored in the center, another depending on media that blur all distinctions between centers and peripheries) is made.
Abstract: This article presents a comparison between two models of publicness (one based on a type of television firmly anchored in the center, another depending on media that blur all distinctions between centers and peripheries) and asks what sort of sharedness do these two models allow? The article also explores the notion of “monstration.” Through what sorts of displays do contending media call on public attention? Can one speak of “acts of showing” the way one speaks of speech acts? What is the impact of such acts on a sociology of collective attention? Third, the article examines the coexistence between television of the center and new digital media. Is their relation agonistic or, paradoxically, cooperative? The present situation may echo many earlier cases in which old media learned to coexist with new media by starting unexpected dialogues and practicing a division of labor. Today’s situation might be a (reluctant) partnership in a multitiered public sphere.
TL;DR: The authors presented a critique of the various ways the literature constructs nonresident black fathers as absent from parenting and family relationships, and pointed out that contrary to popular belief, nonresident Black fathers are active participants in their children's lives Social capital is an important conceptual tool in highlighting the networks and resources available to these fathers in their parenting practices.
Abstract: Stereotypes show nonresident black fathers as absentee parents In this article, the author presents a critique of the various ways the literature constructs nonresident black fathers as absent from parenting and family relationships Drawing on the empirical data collected from two qualitative studies conducted in Britain, this article illustrates that contrary to popular belief, nonresident black fathers are active participants in their children's lives Social capital is an important conceptual tool in highlighting the networks and resources available to these fathers in their parenting practices These men's fathering experiences are also informed by cultural and historical factors and intersecting identities of race, ethnicity, class, and gender The article concludes by making explicit the different ways in which family policy can develop more inclusive strategies to support nonresident black fathers in their paternal role
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined low-income parents' motivations for having children in a context of socioeconomic disadvantage and found that "planned" and "unplanned" pregnancies are at either end of a continuum of intentionality and the vast majority of pregnancies are in intermediate categories along that continuum.
Abstract: Over the past several decades, nonmarital childbearing rates have risen sharply, especially among socioeconomically disadvantaged groups. Recent research suggests that disadvantaged Americans may defer or delay marriage in part because of perceived economic barriers. Yet, childbearing is also costly. Few studies have examined low-income parents' motivations for having children in a context of socioeconomic disadvantage. This study deploys qualitative data drawn from repeated, in-depth interviews with a heterogeneous sample of low-income, noncustodial fathers (N = 171) in which men describe in rich detail the circumstances surrounding the conceptions of each of their children and characterize their fertility intentions. The authors find that “planned” and “unplanned” pregnancies are at either end of a continuum of intentionality and that the vast majority of pregnancies are in intermediate categories along that continuum.