Anthropological Approaches to Middle Class Working Families Conference

美国已经将自己定义为一个“中产阶级”社会，而世界上大多数人根本不能被定义为中产阶级。然而，尽管一些人类学家研究了中产阶级工人家庭，但很少有人将这一主题作为该学科的核心研究课题。对我们理解这些家庭如何面对当代生活挑战的贡献，来自人类学提供的深入、密集、长期的民族志数据，尚未得到明确的检验。该项目涉及由美国主要的人类学家专业协会美国人类学协会组织和管理的12名人类学研究人员会议。会议将于5月31日至6月2日举行，议程是确定人类学当前和未来对中产阶级工作家庭学术研究主题的贡献；1999年5月，人类学家在《人类学通讯》上发表了关于中产阶级工人家庭研究问题的评论，《人类学通讯》是美国人类学协会成员之间交流的主要工具；并向人类学家出版和传播研究议程，以鼓励对中产阶级工人家庭这一广泛主题的研究。会议由美国国家科学基金会资助，其他活动由斯隆基金会资助。这个项目很重要，因为通过确定潜在贡献的领域，会议和出版物将刺激新的研究。

The United States has defined itself as a `middle class` society, in contrast to much of the world where the majority of the population can in no way be characterized as middle class. Yet while some anthropologists have studied middle class working families, little attention has been focused on this subject as a core research topic for the discipline. The contributions to our understanding of how these families confront the challenges of contemporary life that derive from the in-depth, intensive, long-term ethnographic data that anthropology provides have not been explicitly examined. This project involves a conference of twelve anthropological researchers organized and administered by the American Anthropological Association, the major professional association for anthropologists in the US. The conference will occur on May 31-June 2, with an agenda to determine anthropology's current and future contributions to the academic research topic of middle class working families; publication in AY 1999 of commentaries by anthropologists on research issues involving middle class working families in the Anthropology Newsletter, the American Anthropological Association's main vehicle for communication among members; and the publication and dissemination of a research agenda to anthropologists to encourage research on the broad topic of middle class working families. The conference is supported by NSF funds, the other activities are supported by a grant from the Sloan foundation. This project is important because by defining areas of potential contributions, the conference and publications will stimulate new research.