Usefulness of families to acknowledge diversity Families usually live in same household and pool Chapter 6 188 190 Networks of Friends after divorce families often feel isolated rely on biological kin couples were heterosexual men Networks of friends are often defined as family for gays and lesbians Family of choice a family formed through voluntary ties among individuals who are not biologically or legally related Networks of friends and cohabiting partnerships are central to these constructed families Can be considered similar to kin networks among the poor or complex families formed More important to gays and lesbians because they cannot always rely on biological People they feel comfortable and enjoy spending time with More upper middle class gays couple have family of choice over lower class people who AA Latino and Asians were less likely to have extensive friendships and more likely to Cohabitation Among Lesbians and Gay Men Chapter 7 234 Cohabitation remains the only form of partnership available in some states for gay Nearly as many lesbian women were partnered as heterosexual in CA Cohabitation was common among gay men but they were less likely to partnered than Partnered lesbians were also more likely to have children present in their household Lesbian and Gay Parenthood Three types of families of gay and lesbians with children Chapter 9 288 290 o Child was born to a married parent who came out as lesbian or gay obtained a divorce and retained custody of children o Either adopted or conceived through a donor insemination the insertion of donated semen into the uterus of an ovulating woman o Or arrangements through a surrogate mother to carry fetus Studies of children in gay and lesbian families Too little information is available to make conclusions about kids in gay parents or kids with heterosexual parents Kids raised in lesbian couples are similar to children raised by heterosexual parents Similar levels of behavior problems and perform similar in school and are well adjusted Boys raised by lesbians had higher scores in feminity than boys of heterosexual couples but scored same in masculinity Boys living without father show more androgynous character Boys from lesbian couples are no different than boys with single heterosexual mothers Children who grow up with lesbian parent are more open to possibility of same gender relationships Growing up in lesbian family seems to have made the children more open to same gender relationships but still most identify as heterosexual Children raised by lesbian parents are as well adjusted as children raised by heterosexual parents and most appear to develop a heterosexual orientation although they may display more openness to same gender relationships Racial Ethnic Groups Chapter 5 notes Not many racial groups carry the long history of slavery and discrimination faced by African Americans and therefore are more flexible Racial ethnic group people who share a common identity and whose members think of themselves as distinct from others by virtue of ancestry culture and sometimes physical characteristics Often racial ethnic group members share identity reinforced by the way they are treated by outsiders Hispanic person in America who traces their ancestry to Latin America Asian American umbrella term of people who hail from nations as far apart as japan and Pakistan people who differ in religion language alphabet and physical features o South Asians indian Pakistanis and Bengalis are mostly Muslim and Hindus and speak languages belonging to the same indo European family from which English evolved Asian Indians alone were estimated to compromise 1 9 million Pannational identities in which people identify as Asian or Hispanic African Americans Hispanics Asians and pacific islanders native Americans and a category we can call non Hispanic whites meaning people who identify their race as white but do not think of themselves as Hispanic Is a non Hispanic white an ethnicity o Usually provides power and privileges o Those considered white can differ over time and from place to place European immigrants from Ireland and Italy first began arriving in the United States in the 1800s they weren t considered white Nearly all whites are descended from European immigrants and kinship patterns derive from the European historical experience 1970s African American men who did not have a college education watches their economic prospects plummet Without stable economic base many AA men were reluctant to marry and so were AA Three measures to compare black and white families o Marriage marriage may play lesser role in family life today for AA than for women whites o Childbearing outside of marriage fewer AA wait until marriage to have children o Single parent families AA have higher levels of childbearing outside of marriage and single parents with low education non college educated whites are changing childbearing outside of marriage has grown at a faster rate among whites in recent decades leading to narrowing this racial difference Explaining the Trends Availability o Changes in labor market affected young men without college education and hit AA especially hard decline in marriage for AA could be because low availability of spouses o Higher income is the greater chance the family will be headed by a married couple Culture o Black families are looked as problem ridden weak and overwhelmed o Black families at all income levels are often than white to include an extended family member often grandparents o Grandparents play a stronger role in black families than in white families o In AA families ties to a network of kin are more important compared with marital ties than is the case in white families o AA felt stronger obligations to aunts uncles nieces nephews and cousins did than white o White women were more likely to give financials support to kin and to receive it than were black women but black women were more likely to give and receive help with child care transportation and housework Reconciling the explanations but many to both Some people think changes in families are due to only economy and some to only culture African Americans increasingly reached into their took kits and seized the kind of family support system that their history and culture provided extended kinship networks rather than married couple families relied on mothers sisters and grandmothers Gender and Black families Earning gaps between jobs primarily held by men and job