Showing papers in "Sociology in 2010"
TL;DR: The authors argue that migration results in new ways of producing and re-producing (mobilizing, enacting, validating) cultural capital that builds on, rather than simply mirrors, power relations of either country of origin or the country of migration.
Abstract: A Bourdieusian concept of cultural capital is used to investigate the transformations and contestations of migrants’ cultural capital. Research often treated migrants’ cultural capital as reified and ethnically bounded, assuming they bring a set of cultural resources from the country of origin to the country of migration that either fit or do not fit. Critiquing such ‘rucksack approaches’, I argue that migration results in new ways of producing and re-producing (mobilizing, enacting, validating) cultural capital that builds on, rather than simply mirrors, power relations of either the country of origin or the country of migration. Migrants create mechanisms of validation for their cultural capital, negotiating both ethnic majority and migrant institutions and networks. Migration-specific cultural capital (re-)produces intra-migrant differentiations of gender, ethnicity and class, in the process creating modes of validation alternative to national capital.The argument builds on case studies of skilled Turk...
492 citations
TL;DR: Consumerism, together with industry promotion, medicalization, and deregulatory state policies are found to be drivers of increased pharmaceuticalization in ways that are largely outside, or sub-optimal for, significant therapeutic advances in the interests of public health.
Abstract: Sociological interest in pharmaceuticals has intensified, heightening awareness of `pharmaceuticalization. It is argued that pharmaceuticalization should be understood by reference to five main biosociological explanatory factors: biomedicalism, medicalization, pharmaceutical industry promotion and marketing, consumerism, and regulatory-state ideology or policy. The biomedicalism thesis, which claims that expansion of drug treatment reflects advances in biomedical science to meet health needs, is found to be a weak explanatory factor because a significant amount of growth in pharmaceuticalization is inconsistent with scientific evidence, and because drug innovations offering significant therapeutic advance have been declining across the sector, including areas of major health need. Some elements of consumerism have undermined pharmaceuticalization, even causing de-pharmaceuticalization in some therapeutic sub-fields. However, other aspects of consumerism, together with industry promotion, medicalization, and deregulatory state policies are found to be drivers of increased pharmaceuticalization in ways that are largely outside, or sub-optimal for, significant therapeutic advances in the interests of public health.
362 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that dislocation from tradition produces a reflexivity that can be very dependent on comparing experiences and can move others to reflect and reorder their own relations to self and others.
Abstract: Reflexivity refers to the practices of altering one’s life as a response to knowledge about one’s circumstances. While theories of reflexivity have not entirely ignored emotions, attention to them has been insufficient. These theories need emotionalizing and this article proposes that emotions have become central to a subjectivity and sociality that is relationally constructed. The emotionalization of reflexivity not only refers to a theoretical endeavour but is a phrase used to begin to explore whether individuals are increasingly drawing on emotions in assessing themselves and their lives. It is argued that dislocation from tradition produces a reflexivity that can be very dependent on comparing experiences and can move others to reflect and reorder their own relations to self and others. Thus, emotions are crucial to how the social is reproduced and to enduring within a complex social world.
279 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that representations of gay emancipation are mobilized to shape narratives in which Muslims are framed as non-modern subjects, a development that can best be understood in relation to the ‘culturalization of citizenship’ and the rise of Islamophobia in Europe.
Abstract: Sexuality features prominently in European debates on multiculturalism and in Orientalist discourses on Islam. This article argues that representations of gay emancipation are mobilized to shape narratives in which Muslims are framed as non-modern subjects, a development that can best be understood in relation to the ‘culturalization of citizenship’ and the rise of Islamophobia in Europe. We focus on the Netherlands where the entanglement of gay rights discourses with anti-Muslim politics and representations is especially salient. The thorough-going secularization of Dutch society, transformations in the realms of sex and morality since the ‘long 1960s’ and the ‘normalization’ of gay identities since the 1980s have made sexuality a malleable discourse in the framing of ‘modernity’ against ‘tradition’. This development is highly problematic, but also offers possibilities for new alliances and solidarities in lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning (LGBTQ) politics and sexual and cultural citi...
260 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of ethnic capital in ameliorating social class disadvantage among British Pakistani families was examined. But, the authors also pointed out that insufficient attention has been paid to the relation between education and ethnicity, and particularly the role that ethnic capital played in promoting educational achievement and social mobility.
Abstract: This article offers an explanation for recent trends that indicate higher numbers of young British Pakistani men and women pursue higher education compared to their white peers. Our qualitative research provides evidence for shared norms and values amongst British Pakistani families, what we term ‘ethnic capital’. However, our findings also highlight differences between families. The Bourdieuian notion of ‘cultural capital’ explains educational success among middle-class British Pakistani families. We argue, however, that insufficient attention has been given to the relation between education and ethnicity, and particularly the role of ‘ethnic capital’ in ameliorating social class disadvantage. Our research also recognizes the limitations of ‘ethnic capital’ and traces the interplay of ethnicity with gender and religion that produces differences between, and within, working-class British Pakistani families. We also emphasize how structural constraints, selective school systems and racialized labour markets, influence the effectiveness of ‘ethnic capital’ in promoting educational achievement and social mobility.
223 citations
TL;DR: This paper explored the phenomenon of lifestyle migration from Britain to Spain to interrogate the continued relevance of class in the era of individualizing modernity and found that lifestyle migrants articulate an anti-materialist rhetoric and their experiences of retirement or self-employment diminish the significance of class divisions.
Abstract: This article explores the phenomenon of lifestyle migration from Britain to Spain to interrogate, empirically, the continued relevance of class in the era of individualizing modernity (Beck, 1994). Lifestyle migrants articulate an anti-materialist rhetoric and their experiences of retirement or self-employment diminish the significance of class divisions. However, as researchers who independently studied similar populations in the Eastern and Western Costa del Sol, we found these societies less ‘classless’ than espoused. Despite attempts to rewrite their own history and to mould a different life trajectory through geographical mobility, migrants were bound by the significance of class through both cultural process and the reproduction of (economic) position. Bourdieu’s methodological approach and sociological concepts proved useful for understanding these processes. Employing his concepts throughout, we consider the (limited) possibilities for reinventing habitus, despite claims of an apparently egalitari...
197 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the relationship between sexuality, gender and homophobia and how they impact on 16- to 18-year-old boys in a co-educational sixth form in the south of England was examined.
Abstract: This ethnographic research interrogates the relationship between sexuality, gender and homophobia and how they impact on 16- to 18-year-old boys in a coeducational sixth form in the south of England. Framing our research with inclusive masculinity theory, we find that, unlike the elevated rates of homophobia typically described in academic literature, the boys at ‘Standard High’ espouse pro-gay attitudes and eliminate homophobic language. This inclusivity simultaneously permits an expansion of heteromasculine boundaries, so that boys are able to express physical tactility and emotional intimacy without being homosexualized by their behaviours. However, we add to inclusive masculinity theory by showing the ways in which boys continue to privilege and regulate heterosexuality in the absence of homophobia: we find that heterosexual boundary maintenance continues, heterosexual identities are further consolidated, and the presumption of heterosexuality remains. Accordingly, we argue that even in inclusive cultures, it is necessary to examine for the processes of heteronormativity.
195 citations
TL;DR: The concept of affordances is often said to offer the social study of technology a means of re-framing the question of what is, and what is not, social about technological artefacts.
Abstract: Borrowed from ecological psychology, the concept of affordances is often said to offer the social study of technology a means of re-framing the question of what is, and what is not, ‘social’ about technological artefacts. The concept, many argue, enables us to chart a safe course between the perils of technological determinism and social constructivism. This article questions the sociological adequacy of the concept as conventionally deployed. Drawing on ethnographic work on the ways technological artefacts engage, and are engaged by, disabled bodies, we propose that the ‘affordances’ of technological objects are not reducible to their material constitution but are inextricably bound up with specific, historically situated modes of engagement and ways of life.
153 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors revisited the concept of the total institution (TI), critically assessing the extent to which it has changed from being repressively coercive to relatively voluntaristic.
Abstract: This article revisits the concept of the total institution (TI), critically assessing the extent to which it has changed from being repressively coercive to relatively voluntaristic. I propose two new concepts, the ‘Reinventive Institution’ (RI) and ‘performative regulation’, to take the debate forward. The model of the TI outlined in Goffman’s Asylums has been (mis-)interpreted as rendering its inmates powerless, but they also demonstrated agency through gestures of resistance. Conversely, RIs, which members elect to join for purposes of self-improvement, appear to celebrate the subject’s autonomy but suggest a unique form of social control based on mutual surveillance. This performative regulation is enacted through the interaction order, as members actively produce, negotiate and legitimate the exercise of power.
137 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore how theories of diversity and intersectionality can improve our understandings of the lives of older lesbian, gay and bisexual adults, arguing that these theories are unable to fully account for differences that may exist within this social group.
Abstract: This article explores how theories of diversity and intersectionality can improve our understandings of the lives of older lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults. In so doing, it argues that theories of diversity help us to understand both the structural constraints and the advantages that may arise from being an older LGB adult. However, these theories are unable to fully account for differences that may exist within this social group. In order to address this omission, we argue that we need to move beyond a focus on diversity per se, to incorporate the multiplicity of identities suggested by intersectionality theory. We conclude by assessing the implications of this debate for policy and research. Throughout the article we draw on existing research as well as our own empirical studies with older LGB adults.
131 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors employ an intersectional approach to examine the ways in which lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people evaluate the severity of hate-motivated violence, and find that middle-class white respondents were more likely than low-income people of colour to perceive their violent experiences as severe, even though the latter experienced more physical violence than the former.
Abstract: This article employs an intersectional approach to examine the ways in which lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people evaluate the severity of hate-motivated violence. Previous studies of LGBT hate crime victims have typically focused on the psychological effects of violence. In contrast, this article explores the sociological components of hate crime by comparing the perceptions of poor and working-class LGBT people of colour with the perceptions of white, middle-class LGBT people. Data were collected from semi-structured, in-depth interviews, conducted in New York City, with 44 people who experienced anti-LGBT violence. Results indicate that middle-class white respondents were more likely than low-income people of colour to perceive their violent experiences as severe, even though the latter experienced more physical violence than the former. This finding suggests that the social position of LGBT people plays an instrumental role in structuring how they evaluate the severity of hate-motivated violence.
TL;DR: The authors identify characterizations of Muslim identities as antithetical to a wide range of western values, including democracy, secularization, gender equality and sexual diversity, and argue that Islam is a threat to these values.
Abstract: I begin by identifying characterizations of Muslim identities as antithetical to a wide range of western values, including democracy, secularization, gender equality and sexual diversity I argue t
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored how sexual orientation may impact on concerns about, and experiences of, end of life care and bereavement within same-sex relationships, drawing on exploratory data from four focus groups with lesbian and gay elders.
Abstract: This article explores how sexual orientation1 may impact on concerns about, and experiences of, end of life care and bereavement within same-sex relationships. We draw on exploratory data from four focus groups with lesbian and gay elders ( N = 15), which formed part of a larger project investigating a range of older people’s concerns about end of life care. We set the findings in the context of debates about broader changes to family forms within late modernity, alongside social change and demographic shifts. Our focus on end of life care and bereavement sheds light on a series of relatively neglected issues associated with lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) ageing and, more broadly, the topics of care and support within ‘non-traditional’ intimate relationships and personal networks. We point to the importance of further research into the lives of older lesbians and gay men facing issues of end of life care and bereavement.
TL;DR: The authors reframes the notion of work/life balance through analysis of branding and the immaterial labour process in a "new age capitalist" organization, arguing that much work actually takes place notionally outside or on the margins of their formally employed space and time.
Abstract: This article reframes the notion of work/life balance through analysis of branding and the immaterial labour process in a ‘new age capitalist’ organization. The company does not manufacture material products; rather, value is produced through branding imported goods to promote ‘alternative’ ways of living. This is achieved through incorporation of leisure activities and lifestyles of key employees, effectively putting their ‘lives’ to ‘work’ in the creation of value for the company. For employees, therefore, much work actually takes place notionally outside or on the margins of their formally employed space and time. We argue that this qualitatively transforms the conceptions of, and relations between, work and life that underpin the concept of work/life balance. We conclude by exploring the tensions generated by organizational incorporation of employee autonomy in the pursuit of aspirational branding.
TL;DR: This paper examined 30-year changes in men's contribution to domestic work and child care by differences in educational attainment and found a "catch-up" effect over time between fathers with different educational attainment in the case of domestic labour and a widening of the gap by education.
Abstract: In understanding processes of change in family work, examining differences in the degree of change between different social groups (‘changing differences’) can be more informative than focusing either on overall changes or on cross-sectional differences by social group alone. British and US time-use data sets are used to examine 30-year changes in men’s contribution to domestic work and child care by differences in educational attainment. Changes are compared for fathers in dual-earner couples with different levels of education. The findings illustrate two contrasting changing differences: a ‘catch-up’ effect over time between fathers with different educational attainment in the case of domestic labour; and in the case of child care, a widening of the gap by education. The challenges posed by these changing differences for common structural explanations of change in family work are discussed.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors outline the "reverse discourses" of black, African-American and Afro-Caribbean comedians in the UK and USA, which appear in comic acts that employ the sign-systems.
Abstract: This article outlines the ‘reverse discourses’ of black, African-American and Afro-Caribbean comedians in the UK and USA. These reverse discourses appear in comic acts that employ the sign-systems ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the meaning of physical family resemblances in the context of lesbian donor conception and argued that seeking family resemblance can be as much about creating distance as connectedness.
Abstract: Family resemblances and connectedness constitute a recent interest in sociological debate. This article seeks to build on and expand this debate by empirically exploring the meaning of physical family resemblances in the context of lesbian donor conception. This constitutes a neglected area as previous studies primarily explore gamete donation and physical resemblances in the context of heterosexual assisted conception. Considerably less attention has been paid to the specific dynamics inherent to lesbian donor conception. The article draws on a qualitative study comprising 25 lesbian couples in England and Wales with experiences of pursuing both self-arranged and clinical donor conception in the context of a lesbian couple relationship. Building on work in the area of kin, connectedness and family resemblance, this article argues that seeking resemblances can be as much about creating distance as connectedness in the context of lesbian couple donor conception.
TL;DR: This paper argued that youth cultural leisure and consumption practices have the potential to be sites for alternative political participation, an "everyday politics" that involves a personalizin... and argued that such practices can be used for political participation.
Abstract: This article argues that youth cultural leisure and consumption practices have the potential to be sites for alternative political participation, an ‘everyday politics’ that involves a personalizin...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors show that memberships in bridging groups are more strongly linked to positive civic values than those in bonding ones, and that the extended index behaves more consistently across institutional settings (i.e. Flanders and the UK) than both underlying measures independently.
Abstract: Recent research illustrates that two distinct interpretations and operationalizations of ‘bridging’ and ‘bonding’ social networks co-exist in the literature (based on links between diverse networks or between socio-economic groups within a given network, respectively), and that these do not coincide in empirical applications. The present contribution first confirms this conclusion using data from the United Kingdom. Then, we suggest a simple way to integrate both existing approaches into a more general measure of bridging and bonding. Applying this more general index to UK and Flemish data, a) provides stronger empirical support for the idea that memberships in bridging groups are more strongly linked to positive civic values than those in bonding ones, and b) shows that the extended index behaves more consistently across institutional settings (i.e. Flanders and the UK) than both underlying measures independently.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the disjuncture between the theory of international refugee protection, human rights and citizenship rights and their practice, and demonstrate that while the protection and rights frameworks exist, in reality undocumented migrants cannot access protection and/or rights.
Abstract: This article examines the disjuncture between the theory of international refugee protection, human rights and citizenship rights and their practice. Drawing on data from a sub-sample of 500 Zimbabwean migrants taken from a larger survey of 1000 Zimbabweans in South Africa and the UK, it explores the labour market and transnational lives of undocumented migrants and compares them with migrants with other immigration statuses. The article demonstrates that while the protection and rights frameworks exist, in reality undocumented migrants cannot access protection and/or rights.
TL;DR: Lesbian and gay parented families are often viewed through the lens of "families of choice" which assumes they are self-reflexive and innovative in structure as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Lesbian and gay parented families are often viewed through the lens of ‘families of choice’, which assumes they are self-reflexive and innovative in structure. In recent years, some lesbians and gay men have informally negotiated reproductive relationships with friends or acquaintances. The varied kinship assumptions underpinning such relationships are the focus of this article. Three main approaches to family formation are identified: ‘standard donor’, ‘social solidarity’ and ‘co-parenting’. I argue that a continuum of kinship intentions is evident in these different approaches, and that the degree of innovation and convention needs to be unpacked, particularly with regard to the status of friendship as kinship. I comment on the persistent appeal of co-habiting coupledom as the basis for parenting and the perceived asymmetry between biological motherhood and fatherhood. In conceptualizing and negotiating reproductive relationships, lesbians and gay men may accept or reconfigure the assumptions characteri...
TL;DR: In this paper, the radical insights of the pragmatist/interactionist tradition and its continued relevance to a distinctively sociological and feminist analysi cation is discussed.
Abstract: In this article we seek to rehabilitate the radical insights of the pragmatist/interactionist tradition and to establish its continued relevance to a distinctively sociological and feminist analysi...
TL;DR: This paper explored how Finch's concept of display might illuminate the new sociology of personal life as set out by Smart (2007). Drawing on narratives of family life and eating practices, from both parents and children, they considered how these work as tools of family display.
Abstract: In this article we explore how Finch’s (2007) concept of display might illuminate the new sociology of personal life as set out by Smart (2007). Drawing on narratives of family life and eating practices, from both parents and children, the article considers how these work as tools of family display. For some families, displays are used to affirm an idiosyncratic sense of their family through drawing on particular cultural motifs of ‘family’. For other families, practices of display work to smooth over challenges from within. Displays can also be more normative, confirming wider hegemonic models of what the family is. Thus, while displays — and therefore ideas of family — do take different forms, nonetheless they also demonstrate that, as Smart suggests, people’s personal lives need always to be understood as embedded in particular social and cultural worlds, rather than a function of lone, autonomous individuals.
TL;DR: This paper explored three aspects of social reliability during team coding: explicit team knowledge, implicit team suppositions and assumptions, and explicit and implicit emotionality, and suggested that researchers should endeavour to develop ways of explicitly recognizing and incorporating social reliability into their projects in order to enrich our understanding of research subjects.
Abstract: Much of the attention in team-based qualitative research has been on reflexivity, subjectivity, and emotionality in the relationships between researchers and subjects during data collection and analysis. There has been less emphasis on the relationships among researchers, especially the social dynamics of inter-coder agreement in what we call in this article ‘social reliability’. We explore three aspects of social reliability during team coding: explicit team knowledge, implicit team suppositions and assumptions, and explicit and implicit emotionality. Inter-coder reliability is not merely a methodological and scientific issue, but also a social one. Researchers ignore it at their peril. We suggest that researchers should endeavour to develop ways of explicitly recognizing and incorporating social reliability into their projects in order to enrich our understanding of research subjects.
TL;DR: In this article, the effects of wives' employment on marital stability across the countries of the United Kingdom, West Germany and the United States were investigated. And the results highlight the importance of the socioeconomic context in structuring the optimal employment participation of both partners.
Abstract: Many hail wives’ part-time employment as a work—family balance strategy, but theories offer competing predictions as to the effects of wives’ employment on relationship stability. We use panel data to test these competing hypotheses among recent cohorts of first-married couples in Great Britain, West Germany 1 and the United States. We find effects of wives’ employment on marital stability var y across the countries. In West Germany with its high-quality part-time employment, couples where the wife works part time are significantly more stable. In the more liberal British and US labour markets, neither wives’ part- nor full-time employment significantly alters divorce risk. In the United States, however, mothers working part time have significantly lower divorce risk. West German and British husbands’ unemployment proves more detrimental to marital stability than wives’ employment. These results highlight the importance of the socioeconomic context in structuring the optimal employment participation of both partners.
TL;DR: It is argued that this notion of the healthworld describes and provides a key analytical tool for the field of health in its social context; a tool that can explain the empirical complexity of health beliefs and behaviours, thereby illuminating possibilities for improving health practice and outcomes.
Abstract: People think about health and illness in multifaceted ways, evidencing a conceptual complexity that corresponds to equally complex behaviours in relation to a diversity of healing practices. Stimulated by fieldwork in Lesotho and elsewhere, and engaging principally with Jurgen Habermas, we set out to introduce, explain and develop a conceptual innovation: healthworld. We argue that this notion describes and provides a key analytical tool for the field of health in its social context; a tool that can explain the empirical complexity of health beliefs (importantly, including religion) and behaviours, thereby illuminating possibilities for improving health practice and outcomes. Framed in relation to Habermas’s notion of lifeworld, the healthworld is identified as a distinctive ‘region’ of the lifeworld defined by a particular telos — that of comprehensive well-being, a lifeworld without dysfunction.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyse the tensions arising from this paradox, specifically for older carers engaged in long-term care relationships, and highlight the social contexts in which carers make moral choices and identify the links between policy normativities and inequal inequalities.
Abstract: Informal carers in the context of late modernity must negotiate two potentially conflicting discourses. One is associated with a post-traditional and increasingly individualized society characterized by ‘pure’ relationships with an emphasis on authenticity and choice. The other is a more traditional discourse found particularly in current health and social policy which relies explicitly on significant input by family carers. This ar ticle analyses the tensions arising from this paradox, specifically for older carers engaged in long-term care relationships. The first, theoretical, section provides an overview of the ‘subjective turn’ associated with modernity together with the heterogeneous ethics of governmentality associated with liberal rule. The second, empirical, section discusses ‘moral narratives’ drawn from carers’ accounts of caregiving. The conclusion highlights the social contexts in which carers make moral choices and identifies the links between policy normativities on the one hand and inequal...
TL;DR: In this paper, a small qualitative study conducted in some of the most deprived urban communities in Glasgow was conducted with 10 youth workers and 40 young persons, with follow-up interviews conducted with senior operational police officers.
Abstract: In recent years, there has been continuing debate about the extent and significance of sectarianism in Scotland and the wider links with territorial gang culture. This article focuses on a small qualitative study conducted in some of the most deprived urban communities in Glasgow. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions were conducted with 10 youth workers and 40 young persons (aged 16-18 years), with follow-up interviews conducted with senior operational police officers. Social capital indicators generated by recent research were used as a lens through which to explore the participant responses. The findings suggest that the combined social forces associated with territoriality and intense football rivalry limit the young people's potential for maximizing social capital. However, the extent to which these issues can be fully ascribed to the continued existence of sectarianism in Scotland is less clear. The article concludes with some implications for further sociological debate around these issues.
TL;DR: In this article, a conceptual framework for theorizing the relationship between religion and peacemaking in conflict societies where religion is perceived to be part of the problem is proposed, and the authors illustrate the framework with evidence from several examples in order to show how comparative analysis simultaneously illuminates case studies.
Abstract: Despite the associations with conflict, religion is also a site of reconciliation The limited literature on this, however, is constrained by its case study approach This article seeks to establish a conceptual framework for theorizing the relationship between religion and peacemaking in conflict societies where religion is perceived to be part of the problem The key to this is civil society and the four socially strategic spaces that religious groups can occupy within civil society and by means of which they can play a role as ‘bridging social capital’ in peace processes However, religious peacemaking is mediated by the wider civil-society/state nexus This shows itself in two sets of variables that simultaneously constrain and facilitate the relationship between religion and peacebuilding We illustrate the framework with evidence from several examples in order to show how comparative analysis simultaneously illuminates case studies
TL;DR: The authors explored the question "Why do fathers resist paying child support?" through interviews with 26 separated or divorced non-residential fathers in Australia and found that the tension between child support as a gift and child support was informed by gendered power over money, a key element of fathering in traditional and non-traditional family structures.
Abstract: This article explores the question ‘Why do fathers resist paying child support?’ through interviews with 26 separated or divorced non-residential fathers in Australia. Drawing on Zelizer’s typology we argue that the men in this study attempt to define child support as a gift — a payment that emphasizes the power and beneficence of the payer and the obligation of the receiver — but struggle to do so in legal and bureaucratic structures that position its receipt as an entitlement. The tension between child support as a gift and child support as entitlement is informed by gendered power over money, a key element of fathering in traditional and non-traditional family structures.The payment and non-payment of child support is used to reinforce the economic dimensions of fathering identities and define family relationships in remarkably traditional ways.