People in Sociology - Faculty

HOW ARE FAMILIES, AS KEY SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS, AND INDIVIDUAL FAMILY MEMBERS AFFECTED BY PERSISTENT AND GROWING PATTERNS OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY?

.........Families are key social institutions in reproducing, sustaining, and socializing humans for success in the social world; however, their ability to effectively perform these activities is largely shaped by their own internal structures of inequality and the inequalities they face in the broader society. In recent decades the growing demand for gender equality, the rise of the global economy, and the declining wage-earning abilities of men have undermined marriage, the stability of families and, in many cases, the welfare of children.
........Social class inequality has grown dramatically in the United States in the past few decades, sparking revolutionary families and in their ability to care for their members. My research focuses on how families are affected and cope with these inequalities. For example, as a medical sociologist, I am interested in how health policies affect poor families and their ability to manage the care of their chronically-ill members.
........I am also interested in how changes in families are affecting the educational attainment of children. In Black Intimacies I take a broader approach to studying African American families, looking at how they are shaped by the intersection of racial, class, and gender inequalities. I am especially interested in the implications of growing social class diversity among African Americans, but also the necessity of understanding how gender tensions, racial injustice, and poverty continue to adversely the quality of their family life. Indeed, these forces are restructuring families in all nations, and I am currently conducting research for a book that examines families in global perspective.