- Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
- 2-3 annotations.
Judy Olivares
SOC 3010
Professor Lopez
29 March 2019
Log 1: March 27
- So far I have three sources in my research project, which is Cultural competency training and indigenous cultural politics in California (Hester), Parenting Out of Control: Anxious Parents in Uncertain Times (Nelson) and Essays on Neoliberalism, the Family, and Popular Culture. One essay I found in the book Essays on Neoliberalism, the Family, and Popular Culture was “Neoliberal Guilt and Privatised Maternal Responsibility in Recent Domestic Crime Fiction” by Ruth Cain which focuses on problems and contradictions of contemporary motherhood and family life. Hester’s article allowed me to think about how minority family values than Western values on parenting which lead me to find sources on neoliberal parenting. From the first few pages of chapter fifteen in Essays on Neoliberalism, the Family, and Popular Culture gives me hope that I will find more sources on Western norms of parenting (footnotes will be helpful in that area). In Nelson’s book, the first chapter was really helpful at looking at the differences of socioeconomic classes in relation to “intensive mothering.” This makes me think about how I should organize my project, in other words, possibly bringing in how culture and socioeconomic status affects parenting and why some families cannot meet the expectations of western norms of parenting. From the sources I have collected my topic has not changed much, but after a couple of weeks looking for sources I’m trying to get more creative by using videos. For example, I found a clip from the show The Simpsons where Homer and his wife take parenting classes. But, I’m not sure if that would be useful on showing “good parenting.” I just thought it was cool that neoliberal parenting values are shown in cartoon media. I was thinking for the upcoming week if I should meet with Beth Hoppe to ask her for help on searching for more sources on neoliberal parenting. I think a problem I am having is how general and specific my sources should be on the values of parenting. I find it challenging on which direction I should go in researching sources for my project and I think that is because I am not sure if I want to write a 15 page paper or podcast etc. My goal for the upcoming week is to figure out which type of project I will do and I plan on reading the three sources I had and looking through the footnotes to see if there are other sources I could find that will be better for my research project (I’ll be coming to office hours Monday to go over this with you). I think after I read all three sources and get a sense on what kind of information will be helpful, I will get a better sense of the direction I want to take my project in.
Citations:
Nelson, Margaret K (2010). Parenting out of control : anxious parents in uncertain times (0-8147-5853-3, 978-0-8147-5853-3).
Garrett, Roberta, Tracey Jensen, and Angie Voela. We Need to Talk About Family: Essays on Neoliberalism, the Family and Popular Culture. , 2016. Print.
Hester, Rebecca J. “Cultural competency training and indigenous cultural politics in California.” Latino Studies 13.3 (2015): 316-338.
Comments:
Judy, the materials you described in this log seem like a good start. I think actually it would be very helpful for you to talk about good parenting in order to show how bad parenting is constructed as a social problem. You might want to consider, as you stated, how Western ideas about parenting dominate the practices of agencies such as CPS. If you draw a parallel with Han’s book, you can think of how the implementation of Western values into parenting in some ways reflects white ideals. This would mean that parents who are of color find it to be an uphill battle to meet dominant paradigms. Lastly, I do like Homer Simpson clip that you mention. This might be used as a helpful vignette when presenting your paper or podcast.