Recent scholarship on motherhood has tried to trouble the idea that mothering is a set of instinctive "natural" behaviors that all women are born knowing, positing it rather as a set of fundamentally cultural practices, enacted within social and political contexts and intimately related to thinking about citizenship, responsibility, and…

Academically gifted girls often see unrealized and unfulfilled potential as a result of societal pressures to make the choice between being smart and fitting in. Gifted girls face many social issues in their lives that impact their education and interests from a young age. Gender stereotypes may be perpetuated by teachers, who have been shown to…

This paper is derived from the author's PhD dissertation (gender issues in higher education of Khyber Pukhtunkhwah (KPK) Pakistan). This study aimed at exploring the attitude of parents towards contemporary women higher education. The population for the study was the students' parents of four colleges of Peshawar, capital city of KPK, although the…

Female adult learners, the fastest growing subpopulation in community colleges, face challenges navigating domestic, professional, and academic roles and take time off from school to reconcile issues with multiple role navigation; thus, their education is disjointed and staggered, creating barriers to persistence. This interpretive design…

This essay outlines how the book, "Paths to Discovery: Autobiographies from Chicanas with Careers in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering" (Cantu, 2008) came about. I then use "testimonio" theory to analyze the narratives in this book as the data of a qualitative study, and I describe the general themes that the analysis highlights. I scrutinize…

Women are normatively expected to provide nurturance to the men in their lives through emotional support, and to the children in their lives through active, involved and expert mothering--indeed, being a caregiver is a master status for adult women in modernity. While this may be the case for all women, mothers who are disabled can have more a…

Contrasts different types of voluntary childlessness. The major difference disclosed is with respect to family background factors. In addition to the early v later decision to remain childless, socialization patterns in the family of orientation differentiate the two types of voluntarily childless women. (Author)

A social-psychological and historical context for understanding contemporary sex roles, fertility, parenting, and the family is provided by reviewing origins and objectives of the women's movement; feminist efforts to change social structures affecting women's choice of roles and fertility require continued attention. (Author)

Motherhood is built into social institutions and psyches. Examines the impact of the motherhood mandate and underscores complexities that must be reflected in research models and methods. (Author)

Investigated causes for rise in female age of marriage in Sri Lanka, studying 10,964 persons from 1,974 households. Found that rise in marriage age was not primarily a response to social pressure for fertility decline, but rather a result of urbanization, higher levels of education, unemployment, and consequent decline in parentally arranged early…

Expansion of women's schooling is associated with lower fertility and child mortality. This article provides demographic evidence and a framework for discovering how educational processes operate on maternal behavior. Findings from a study in Mexico focus on mother-infant interaction and social attitudes as important variables. Research needs are…

The study deals with inter- and intracultural differences in the perception of family roles. One hundred and fifty-six Japanese students (40 modern females, 76 traditional females, and 40 males) and 148 German students (58 modern females, 49 traditional females, and 41 males) answered questionnaires concerning the ideal and real decision-making…