Social Norms, Expectations and Experiences in Urban and Rural Contexts

SES-1061591 Linda Burton杜克大学在美国当前不断变化的城市和农村社区的背景下，研究小组将研究正在塑造当代美国家庭生活的社会规范，行为期望和社会经验。 这项研究将审查有助于持续家庭发展的社会规范、期望和经验的类型，以及为什么它们在某些城市和农村环境中盛行，而在另一些环境中却不流行。 研究人员将特别关注当代关于婚姻的信念和行为是否会导致建立长期承诺的婚姻或替代的短暂的有孩子的家庭结构。 这项研究将完成对城市和农村家庭的全面纵向团队民族志的二次分析。 数据将使用生活史方法进行分析，特别关注城市和农村文化如何影响家庭结构和行为。鉴于最近美国婚姻、同居和非婚生育模式的巨大变化，关于塑造当代家庭生活的社会规范、期望和经验的许多问题已成为社会科学家和更广泛的美国社会关注的中心问题。 拟议的研究将通过详细评估妇女在家庭中的信念和行为以及它们在城市和农村社区是否存在差异，直接解决这些问题。这项研究还将通过比较白色、非洲裔美国人和拉丁裔母亲及其家庭的生活，阐明这些相似性和差异是否延伸到种族问题上。鉴于美国社会的日益多样化，这项研究有望为不同群体相对于家庭结构的背景和文化行为提供有价值的见解。研究结果将有助于对一个相当令人关注的国家问题的一般性和理论性知识。 该项目还为本科生、研究生和博士后提供培训，指导他们如何对当代美国家庭生活进行严格、详细的科学调查。

SES-1061591Linda BurtonDuke UniversityIn the context of America's current changing urban and rural communities, the research team will study the social norms, behavioral expectations, and social experiences that are shaping contemporary U.S. family life. The study will examine the types of social norms, expectations, and experiences that are contributing to the development of sustained families and why they prevail for some in certain urban and rural contexts and not others. The investigators will pay special attention to whether contemporary beliefs and behaviors about marriage lead to establishing long-term committed unions or alternative transient family structures with children. The study will complete a secondary analysis of comprehensive longitudinal team ethnographies of urban and rural families. Data will be analyzed using life history methods with special attention given to how urban and rural cultures influence family structures and behaviors.Given recent dramatic changes in patterns of marriage, cohabitation, and non-marital childbearing in the U.S., numerous questions about the social norms, expectations, and experiences that shape the lives of contemporary families have become a central concern of social scientists as well as the broader American society. The proposed research will directly address these concerns by conducting a detailed assessment of women's beliefs and behaviors around family and whether they differ in urban and rural communities. The study will also shed light on whether those similarities and differences extend to issues of race by comparing the lives of White, African American, and Latino mothers and their families. Given the growing diversity of U.S. society, this study promises to provide valuable insights on the contextual and cultural behaviors of different groups relative to family structures. Research findings will contribute to both general and theoretically-based knowledge about a topic of considerable national concern. The project also provides trains undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctorates how to conduct rigorous, detailed scientific investigations of contemporary American family life.