Integrating Life Course, Globalization, and the Study of Racial and Ethnic Families

Abstract

Despite the proliferation of studies that specifically employ life course perspectives for contemporary families, an important omission, with only a few exceptions, has been critical inquiry into how race, ethnicity, cultural diversity, and global processes affect individual and family development. Furthermore, this perspective has been seriously underutilized for understanding the diversity of human experiences in global contexts. A focus on these issues should help move the study of families away from the inherent ethnocentric lens that undergirds so much of the discipline. The life course perspective, with its focus on the interplay of micro and macro factors, is a critical theoretical tool in expanding our understanding of context, vantage point, pluralism, and power relationships. New approaches to understanding and incorporating a life course perspective may spur fresh pathways for researchers and policy makers as they attempt to make sense of complex social phenomena.

The temporal intersectional minority stress model: Reimagining minority stress theory

“…Integrating time and intersectionality with MST is important because it can account for the confounding stressors relevant to a particular sociohistorical context (Few‐Demo, 2014; Trask, 2018). Sociopolitical changes across time have changed mainstream norms and values such that some queer people today benefit from normativity (e.g., married gay men), while other queer identities and family formations continue to be pushed to the margins (Allen & Mendez, 2018).…”

Gender, Feminist, and Intersectional Perspectives on Families: A Decade in Review

“…Family scholars have recognized for decades that the model of the Standard North American Family (Smith, ) was not representative of all families and have concurred that it never was the standard bearer for comparing one type of family against which all others should be measured (Collins, ; Demo, Allen, & Fine, ). Family scholars also have recognized that one‐size‐fits‐all interventions in policy and practice cannot attend to the unique circumstances and needs of diverse families nationally or globally (Letiecq & Anderson, ; Muruthi, Bermúdez, Bush, McCoy, & Stinson, ; Trask, ). Family scholars have responded by incorporating critical literature to contextualize variation within and across family experiences and behaviors (e.g., Acosta, ; K. R. Allen & Jaramillo‐Sierra, ; Bermudez, Muruthi, & Jordan, ; Fish & Russell, ; Goldberg, ; Smith & Landor, ) as well as calling out the nature of unearned privilege (Letiecq, ), using different theoretical and methodological approaches to unpack and examine these complexities.…”

Between loneliness and belonging: narratives of social isolation among immigrant older adults in Canada

“…As a result, Divine had little choice but to return to Canada where she could take care of her complex health issues while simultaneously increasing her risk of social isolation. First, these examples challenge the assumption that family members are always readily available to provide social support to immigrant older adults (De Jong Gierveld et al, 2018); secondly, they speak to the importance of understanding the contributions of place and global inequality to the generation of social isolation and loneliness (Weldrick and Grenier, 2018); thirdly, they exemplify the value of applying a critical lifecourse lens that recognises the importance of power distribution and the interconnectedness of micro and macro forces on family relations (Trask, 2018).…”