Linda M Burton

• Duke University

Since Stack's (1974) landmark ethnography of kin support in a close-knit group of poor black mothers in the Midwest, there has been ample research on social support among low-income black families. While this body of work has largely painted a picture of the cohesive and supportive nature of families in black communities, recent research has highli...

In this article, we investigated low-income mothers' involvement in multiple partner fertility (MPF) relationships and their experiences as othermothers to their romantic partners' children from previous and concurrent intimate unions. Othermothering, as somewhat distinct from stepmothering, involves culturally-scripted practices of sharing parenti...

When we think about the impact of place on poor mental health outcomes our thoughts are often anchored in images of how urban ghettos’ influence the prevalence of problem behaviors and violence among individuals and families who reside within them. Within the last decade, however, social scientists have increasingly turned their attention to the em...

Using longitudinal ethnographic data from the Three-City Study, we examined the relationship between sixteen low-income Puerto Rican mothers' housing dependencies and their intimate partner relations. We traced mothers' dependent housing arrangements and entrée to marital or cohabiting relationships from their teens through their procurement of ind...

Using longitudinal ethnographic data on low-income families residing in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio, we explore the ways in which childhood illness, family comorbidity, and cumulative disadvantage shape behavioral and social contexts for young mothers' physical and mental health in later life. Data are from the Three-City Study ethnography, wh...

In the millennium's inaugural decade, 2 interrelated trends influenced research on America's families of color: the need for new knowledge about America's growing ethnic/racial minority and immigrant populations and conceptual advances in critical race theories and perspectives on colorism. Three substantive areas reflecting researchers' interests...

Recent scholarship concerning low rates of marriage among low-income mothers emphasizes generalized gender distrust as a major impediment in forming sustainable intimate unions. Guided by symbolic interaction theory and longitudinal ethnographic data on 256 low-income mothers from the Three-City Study, we argue that generalized gender distrust may...

This article provides a brief overview of how African American women are situated in and around the thesis of the Moynihan Report. The authors take the lens of uncertainty and apply it to a post-Moynihan discussion of African American women and marriage. They discuss uncertainty in the temporal organization of poor women's lives and in the new terr...

Using survey data on low-income mothers in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio (n = 1,722) supplemented with ethnographic data, we test 3 propositions regarding mothers' attitudes toward childbearing, marriage, and divorce. These are drawn from Edin & Kefalas (2005) but have also arisen in other recent studies. We find strong support for the propositi...

Examines the literature on the intergenerational family roles of elderly Black men and women. Roles are defined as the set of behaviors or activities enacted within a particular status position in the family. The discussion focuses on roles created by vertical ties in families: between aged parents and adult children, grandparents and grandchildren...

This article presents an emergent conceptual model of childhood adultification and economic disadvantage derived from 5 longitudinal ethnographies of children and adolescents growing up in low-income families. Childhood adultification involves contextual, social, and developmental processes in which youth are prematurely, and often inappropriately,...

This chapter addresses the dynamic relation between programs and policies that target poor children and families on the one hand and theoretical and empirical work in the field of child development on the other. It is divided into four major sections. We begin with a brief discussion of the official measure of income poverty and its relation to oth...

Mothers' and fathers' cultural socialization and bias preparation with older (M=13.9 years) and younger (M=10.31 years) siblings were studied in 162 two-parent, African American families. Analyses examined whether parental warmth and offspring age and gender were linked to parental practices and whether parents' warmth, spouses' racial socializatio...

This research article focuses on the coupling of geographic information system (GIS) technologies with ethnographic data, an approach we refer to as geo-ethnography. The data used here were gathered in an ongoing, multi-site study of low-income families and their children. Throughout our work, the goals have been to think creatively about how GIS c...

"Family time" is reflected in the process of building and fortifying family relationships. Whereas such time, free of obligatory work, school, and family maintenance activities, is purchased by many families using discretionary income, we explore how low-income mothers make time for and give meaning to focused engagement and relationship developmen...

In this article, we discuss perspectives on the "homeplace" that are important to consider in marriage and family therapy involving African American clients. The homeplace comprises individual and family processes that are anchored in a defined physical space that elicits feelings of empowerment, rootedness, ownership, safety, and renewal. Critical...

Using ethnographic data from Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study, we examined time obligations and resource coordination of low-income mothers. Longitudinal data from 75 African American, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic White families residing in Chicago, including information on daily routines, perceptions of time, and access to resourc...

In the 1990s, the most popular theoretical and empirical research issue concerning the local ecologies of families focused on the impact of family structures (e.g., household composition) and processes (e.g., child management strategies) on the relationship between urban neighborhoods and child and adolescent development. In this article, we synthe...

In considering the influences of microsystems on adolescent substance use, familial and peer contexts have received the most extensive attention in the research literature. School and neighborhood settings, however, are other developmental contexts that may exert specific influences on adolescent substance use. In many instances, school settings ar...

Discusses 4 conceptual and methodological issues pertaining to existing research on neighborhoods and child development as those issues relate to children's experiences in their communities. The four issues are: defining neighborhood boundaries; neighborhoods and the social address perspective; children and neighborhoods as interdependent systems;...

Sugar Hill works by a clock. The morning is the safe time, the afternoon is get-ready time … (that's when I find most of my truant kids) … and the night is your-kid-better-be-inside time. I don't think most parents understand how some neighborhoods flow and how they affect what their children do. Neighborhoods have rhythms just like music. Sometime...

In this commentary it is argued that ethnography is the "most important method" for studying development among ethnic minority teens growing up in high-risk neighborhoods. Data from a five-year ethnographic study of inner-city African American families and their adolescent children illustrates the utility of ethnography in identifying contexutal is...

This article reports findings from two exploratory qualitative studies of the relationship between age norms, family role transitions, and the caregiving responsibilities of mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers in multigeneration African American families. Families defined as having "normative on-time" transitions (n = 23) to the roles of...

This paper provides a conceptual discussion of the relationship between the surrogate parenting role of contemporary American grandparents and temporal, developmental, and ethnic/ra- cial contexts of the life course. Grandparents who are surrogate par- ents, either operate as co-parents by assisting their adult children in the rearing of their offs...

Values and assumptions that family researchers possess have an impact on their approaches to understanding families. An examination of one's own values may be a necessary prerequisite for the study of culturally diverse families. Such examination may lead to understanding the limitations of existing paradigms and canons, which have as their foundat...

This article reports findings from two qualitative studies of black grandparents and great-grandparents who are rearing their children's children as a consequence of parental drug addiction. Data were collected in two urban black communities from 60 grandmothers, grandfathers, and great-grandmothers (ages 43–82). Only 3% of the respondents received...

The purpose of this chapter is to discuss what conceptual perspectives and theoretical frameworks explain and predict family phenomena among ethnic minority families. Three major discussions provide the basis to our examination: (1) restructuring assumptions and values to reflect ethnic reality; (2) creating new ways of thinking about ethnic minori...

Conducted 2 ethnographic studies of 101 African-American grandparents and great-grandparents (aged 29–82 yrs) who were raising their grandchildren. Ss' challenges of surrogate parenting (SP) included providing care for multiple generations, providing long-term/permanent care for their grandchildren, and experiencing a toll on their personal lives....

Approaches to culturally relevant ways of thinking about the diverse elderly population are use of grounded theory, humanities as a source of information about the lives of ethnic minority elderly, and a life-course perspective. (SK)

This paper summarizes the findings of a three-year exploratory qualitative study of teenage childbearing in 20 low-income multigeneration black families. Teenage childbearing in these families is part of an alternative life-course strategy created in response to socioenvironmental constraints. This alternative life-course strategy is characterized...

examines the questions raised by [the experiences of African American women in the familial role of great-grandmother] / explores the relationship between the timing of childbearing, family structure, and the role responsibilities of women from an intergenerational perspective using data from a study of urban, working-class, Black female lineages...

Two commentaries follow this chapter: Linda M. Chatters and Rukmalie Jayakody comment on the concepts and methods employed in extant research on intergenerational support in African-American families, and Christine L. Fry comments on Burton's use of qualitative research methods. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)