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Papers by Elaine Kaplan
Berkeley Collection of Working and Occasional …, 1999
Visual Studies, 2014
ABSTRACT “We Live in the Shadow,” captures the perceptions of 54 at-risk kids ages 12-15 years-ol... more ABSTRACT “We Live in the Shadow,” captures the perceptions of 54 at-risk kids ages 12-15 years-old about their world within the inner-city of South- Central, LA. Thirty-four kids attended the USC sponsored Neighborhood Academic Initiative Program (NAI). The rest attended Willard Center Afterschool Program. The USC program offered them a path to an education at USC and the ability to critique their present lives. These kids challenge the assumptions and theoretical perspectives about dangerous, lazy and gang involved inner-city kids. These kids challenge these stereotypes by taking their cameras into their community, into their classrooms and into their living rooms. What we learn from these photos and stories is that they refuse to be labeled as Aghetto thugs@as outsiders do. While these kids see South-Central as dangerous, they also see themselves as confident enough to not to let the inner-city take them down. They develop powerful themes about social class, race and ethnic inequality and to some extent gender inequality, power and dominance. In fact, their openness shows them to be quite intent on lending their voices to the sociological and political discourse about kids’ inner-city life.
This study is based on in-depth interviews with thirty-two employed middle-class parents of teena... more This study is based on in-depth interviews with thirty-two employed middle-class parents of teenagers. This study addresses the parent’s notions about safety, danger, violence, the Internet and the care required to raise teenagers. The findings suggest that parents divide into two groups of parental care by age of the teenager: Each grouping captures these parents’ belief systems about parenting, their own experiences as teenagers, and their desire to understand the world of their teenagers. This study reveals that each group of parents had to contend with a number of challenges to their parental authority and with institutional and cultural changes that affected their relationships with their teenagers. In this study, parents admit to feelings of insecurity, uneasiness, and of doubting their ability to parent teenagers. The study concludes by arguing that parents of teenagers need support from their communities and from the larger society.
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 2010
ABSTRACT This study draws on the literature on care and on parents’ perceptions of their teenager... more ABSTRACT This study draws on the literature on care and on parents’ perceptions of their teenagers’ needs and on their own abilities and their spouses’ ability to perform the necessary caring tasks. Ethnographic interviews with 30 working parents revealed three specific caring strategies—the scheduling parent, the worry-shift parent, and the parent of last resort—all designed to maintain a sense of control over their teenagers. Rather than produce strategies that are based on negotiations with family members, parents in this study tended to develop their own individual strategies when confronted with a set of problems in caring for young teenagers, principle among these is the contested nature of teenagers’ need for care—contested by the educational institution, by employers, by spouses, and teenagers themselves. The study concludes by suggesting that these parents’ strategies lead to unequal divisions of emotional care that are shaped by gender and institutional intransigence.
Berkeley Collection of Working and Occasional …, 1999
Visual Studies, 2014
ABSTRACT “We Live in the Shadow,” captures the perceptions of 54 at-risk kids ages 12-15 years-ol... more ABSTRACT “We Live in the Shadow,” captures the perceptions of 54 at-risk kids ages 12-15 years-old about their world within the inner-city of South- Central, LA. Thirty-four kids attended the USC sponsored Neighborhood Academic Initiative Program (NAI). The rest attended Willard Center Afterschool Program. The USC program offered them a path to an education at USC and the ability to critique their present lives. These kids challenge the assumptions and theoretical perspectives about dangerous, lazy and gang involved inner-city kids. These kids challenge these stereotypes by taking their cameras into their community, into their classrooms and into their living rooms. What we learn from these photos and stories is that they refuse to be labeled as Aghetto thugs@as outsiders do. While these kids see South-Central as dangerous, they also see themselves as confident enough to not to let the inner-city take them down. They develop powerful themes about social class, race and ethnic inequality and to some extent gender inequality, power and dominance. In fact, their openness shows them to be quite intent on lending their voices to the sociological and political discourse about kids’ inner-city life.
This study is based on in-depth interviews with thirty-two employed middle-class parents of teena... more This study is based on in-depth interviews with thirty-two employed middle-class parents of teenagers. This study addresses the parent’s notions about safety, danger, violence, the Internet and the care required to raise teenagers. The findings suggest that parents divide into two groups of parental care by age of the teenager: Each grouping captures these parents’ belief systems about parenting, their own experiences as teenagers, and their desire to understand the world of their teenagers. This study reveals that each group of parents had to contend with a number of challenges to their parental authority and with institutional and cultural changes that affected their relationships with their teenagers. In this study, parents admit to feelings of insecurity, uneasiness, and of doubting their ability to parent teenagers. The study concludes by arguing that parents of teenagers need support from their communities and from the larger society.
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 2010
ABSTRACT This study draws on the literature on care and on parents’ perceptions of their teenager... more ABSTRACT This study draws on the literature on care and on parents’ perceptions of their teenagers’ needs and on their own abilities and their spouses’ ability to perform the necessary caring tasks. Ethnographic interviews with 30 working parents revealed three specific caring strategies—the scheduling parent, the worry-shift parent, and the parent of last resort—all designed to maintain a sense of control over their teenagers. Rather than produce strategies that are based on negotiations with family members, parents in this study tended to develop their own individual strategies when confronted with a set of problems in caring for young teenagers, principle among these is the contested nature of teenagers’ need for care—contested by the educational institution, by employers, by spouses, and teenagers themselves. The study concludes by suggesting that these parents’ strategies lead to unequal divisions of emotional care that are shaped by gender and institutional intransigence.