The ability to understand how our work-life experiences impact our pursuits as emerging scholars, parents, and individuals is critical to our successful performance in each role. We explore the intricacies of our work-life systems using collaborative autoethnography, a technique in which several autobiographical ethnographies are analyzed in a…

This study delves into the experiences of two female online doctoral students who navigate the complexities of motherhood and rural living, aiming to enhance understanding and improve persistence rates in their academic pursuits. By employing a narrative inquiry approach, the research highlights the transformative power of narratives and…

Values have complex constructions and are influenced by the larger cultural ideologies of the society. The child-rearing values parents embrace for their children exert telling influences on their development. This study explores the values mothers wish to instil in their children in Jordan. Semi-structured interviews with 71 mothers were…

Two influential tragic incidents in 2011 are discussed in connection with the cultivation of morality in Japan. One is the suicide of a junior high school student due to bullying in his school--a scandal which eventually led to the country's redefinition of the status of moral education in the school curriculum. The other is the huge earthquake…

This article offers a consideration of the ways that the politics of normative childhoods are shaped by discourses of happiness predicated on heteronormativity. Responding to the work of Cristyn Davies and Kerry Robinson (2013, this issue), the authors argue that non-normative families and in particular, non-normative parenting, are obliged to…

We investigated how 3-7-year-olds weigh and coordinate information about specific mental states with social norms in the domain of contextually conventional rules. With increasing age, participants increasingly took into account an actor's mental state to predict that actor's behavior. In a criticism judgment task, 7-year-olds could assign…

Expectations of parenting are highly prescribed and the media is an important channel for adults learning what this role entails. The pedagogical role of the media involves making judgements on what counts as valid and desirable parenting practices and suggest goals to be(come) the "good parent"--a construct which appears to take no…

Parenting is a recurring topic in books, newspapers, magazines and TV shows in Western societies. Often it involves experts giving advice to adults. Hence, parenting is made visible, categorised, evaluated and corrected in public. Judgements on what is desirable are demonstrated, and objectives to be achieved are pointed out. In the present study,…

AIDS is the leading killer of African Americans between the ages of 25 and 44, many of whom became infected when they were teenagers or young adults. The disparity in HIV infection rate among African Americans youth residing in rural Southern regions of the United States suggests that there is an urgent need to identify ways to promote early…

Immigrants find themselves in a liminal state of limbo between two societies. In this zone, competing cultural ideas coexist. This essay examines how Latino immigrant family childcare providers in the United States questioned US norms of childrearing and how they engaged in liminal cultural work to produce a bicultural childrearing. They are…

Over the second half of the twentieth century, changes occurred in parent reports of their engagement in cognitive activities with their young children in the United States. This article argues that the growing trend of "parenting for cognitive development" in young children in the latter half of the twentieth century is associated with the…

This article provides the rationale for doing research on childlessness and parenthood in late life. Childless older adults have been rendered invisible in the social scientific literature. A central goal of this issue is to make them visible and to expose unstated assumptions about normal adult life. Parenthood emerges as a key organizer of the…

Found that oppositional behaviors were universal among preschool subjects but the intensity of resistance varied significantly. Suggests negativism can be minimized by giving verbal warnings of impending requests, giving choices and allowing "time-out" during power struggles. Discusses oppositional behavior as a normal phase of child…

Examined United States survey data from the 1950s through the 1980s for changes in family life norms and values. Found in 1960s and 1970s data a weakening of imperative to marry and remain married, stay monogamous, have children, and maintain gender role separation. Observed flattening of trends during early 1980s. Links family life trends to…

Based on a 24-year medical practice, observes that Native American societies maintained group unity and suppressed interpersonal conflict through behavioral norms: noninterference, noncompetitiveness, emotional restraint, and sharing. Understanding these child-rearing norms, along with traditional attitudes and nonformal teaching practices, is…