Class contingencies in networks of care for school-aged children

Hansen

Karen V.

Hansen, Karen V.

Author

University of California, Berkeley

Center for Working Families

University of California, Berkeley. Center for Working Families

Sponsor

text

working paper

Berkeley, CA Center for Working Families, University of California, Berkeley 2001 2001 monographic

Berkeley, CA

Center for Working Families, University of California, Berkeley

2001

monographic

English eng

English

eng

electronic application/pdf 55 p. born digital

electronic

application/pdf

55 p.

born digital

This paper looks deeply at the manifest ways that working parents construct networks to help them care for their school-aged children. It explores how class contingencies shape the resources available to networks and how, in turn, people, given a particular constellation of resources, dynamically construct and call upon networks. Anchors consider a variety of issues in constructing their networks, including shared child rearing values, kinship status, convenience, and expertise.

The larger study from which these findings are drawn, based in a metropolitan area in Northern California, comparatively explores the connections between care giving, kinship, and class contingencies. It approaches each network as a case study, identifying and studying four cases across the economic spectrum: working class, middle class, professional middle class, and upper class. Through these comparisons it identifies the middle-class cases as unique rather than normative. The study's forty interviews include all of the people named by the network anchors as involved in giving direct care to children or support and advice to the parents.

Karen Hansen is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Brandeis University and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Working Families from 1999-2000.

Berkeley Center for Working Families Working Paper No. 27

Berkeley Center for Working Families Working Paper

No. 27

Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons "Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States" (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/)

wfn_bwpaper_27.pdf

MChB English eng

MChB

English eng

English

eng