The class meets on Thursdays, from 3:00 to 4:30, in 422 Thompson at Teachers College
Class notes are available by clicking on the date for the class meeting.
Reserves: Information about where to get the readings is also available here.
Whitehead, Barbara "Dan Quayle was right." Atlantic Monthly, April 1993.
Bumpass, Larry "Social Change and the American Family." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1038, 1: 213-219. 2004
recommended
1/30 -- Politics and policies of family: Discursive continuities
Moynihan, Daniel P. The Negro family: The case for national action Office of Policy Planning and Research, United States Department of Labor March 1965 (also in The Moynihan report and the politics of controversy. Edited by L. Rainwater and W. Yancey, 41-124. Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press 1967 [1965])
Wilson, Julius Wilson More than race: Being Black and poor in the inner city. New York: W.W. Norton 2009 (Chapters 1 & 4)
recommended
2/6 -- Nature? Sociobiology and its challenges
Daly, Martin and Margo Wilson The truth about Cinderella: A Darwinian view of parental love. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1998.
Hrdy, Sarah, B. Mother nature: Maternal instincts and how they shape the human species. New York: Balentine Books. 1999 (Chapter 12)
recommended
2/13 -- The culturing of nature: Historical and cross-cultural issues
Lévi-Strauss, Claude The elementary structures of kinship Chapters 1,2,3 Tr. by J. Bell and J. von Sturmer. Boston: Beacon Press. 1969 [1947].
recommended
2/20 -- Inheritance
Goody, Jack Production and Reproduction: A comparative study of domestic domains. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
recommended
2/27 -- The labor of birth: The social construction of biological processes
Jordan, Brigitte. Birth in Four Cultures. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, 1993. (Chapters 1, 2, 3, 6, 7)
recommended
Ochs, Elinor and Bambi Schieffelin "Language acquisition and socialization: Three developmental stories and their implications." in Culture theory. Edited by R. Shweder and R. LeVine, 276-320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984
recommended
3/13 -- The sociology of childhood: Childhood, caretaking and nannies
Boon, James "Anthropology and nannies." Man 9: 137-39. 1974
Drummond, Lee "Transatlantic nanny: notes on a comparative semiotics of the family." American ethnologist 5: 30-43. 1978
recommended
3/27 -- The dilemmas of adolescence: Courtship and sentimental education
Canaan, Joice "Why a 'slut' is a 'slut': Cautionary tales of middle-class teenage girls' morality." in Symbolizing America, ed. by H. Varenne, 184-208. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. 1986.
Holland, Dorothy, and Debra Skinner "The cultural models behind Americans' talk about gender types," in Cultural models in language and thought, ed. by D. Holland and N. Quinn, 78-111. New York: Cambridge University Press. 1987
recommended
4/3 -- Schooling and social reproduction: Class struggles through families and schools
Varenne, Hervé Families, education and the State in America. New York: IUME, Teachers College, Columbia University (Introduction, Parts I and II
recommended
4/10 -- Love and divorce: Cultural possibilities in America: expansions and change
Weston, Kath Families we choose: Lesbians, gays, kinship. New York: Columbia University Press. 1991
recommended
4/17 -- Couples with children: everyday life, disability and disease
de Wolfe, Juliette
Varenne, Hervé "Talk and real talk: The voices of silence and the voices of power in American family life." Cultural Anthropology 2: 369-394. 1987
recommended
4/24 -- Old age and death
Kaufman, Sharon ...and a time to die: How American hospitals shape the end of life. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2005
recommended
5/1 -- Cycles of exchange: The extension of family and its possible functions in the modern world.
Furstenberg, Frank, et al. Managing to make it: Urban families and adolescent success. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. 1999 -- Chapters 1, (2), 4, 5, 6, 7
recommended
5/8 -- Family policy in the United States: Independence, control, resistance, regulation
Varenne, Hervé Families, education and the State in America. New York: IUME, Teachers College, Columbia University (Part IV)
recommended
The College will make reasonable accommodations for persons with documented disabilities. Students are encouraged to contact the Office of Access and Services for Individuals with Disabilities for information about registration (166 Thorndike Hall). Services are available only to students who are registered and submit appropriate documentation. As your instructor, I am happy to discuss specific needs with you as well.
IN Incomplete. The grade of
Incomplete is to be assigned only when the course attendance
requirement has been met but, for reasons satisfactory to the
instructor, the granting of a final grade has been postponed because
certain course assignments are outstanding. If the outstanding
assignments are completed within one calendar year from the date of the
close of term in which the grade of Incomplete was received and a final
grade submitted, the final grade will be recorded on the permanent
transcript, replacing the grade of Incomplete, with a transcript
notation indicating the date that the grade of Incomplete was replaced
by a final grade.
If the outstanding work is not completed within one calendar year from
the date of the close of term in which the grade of Incomplete was
received, the grade will remain as a permanent Incomplete on the
transcript. In such instances, if the course is a required course or
part of an approved program of study, students will be required to
re-enroll in the course including repayment of all tuition and fee
charges for the new registration and satisfactorily complete all course
requirements. If the required course is not offered in subsequent
terms, the student should speak with the faculty advisor or Program
Coordinator about their options for fulfilling the degree requirement.
Doctoral students with six or more credits with grades of Incomplete
included on their program of study will not be allowed to sit for the
certification exam.