Questions to guide your reading for part one of a Not so Nuclear Families:

Class, Gender, and Networks of Care Part II

Chapter 6 Staging Networks: Inclusion and Exclusion

***1. Comment on the potential reasons for the following: "middle-class men and women tend to expect frends to be emotionally supportive and share leisure activities, whereas working-class men and women expect material interdependence as part of their friendship." (p. 131).

2. What makes a person "eligible" for inclusion in a network of care? Do these criteria seem to vary dependent on socio-economic class?

Chapter 7 The Tangle of Reciprocity

1. Where would you place each of these four networks on the continuum of reciprocity (p. 158). Why?

2. What is the difference between kin obligations and the norm of reciprocity?

3. How do we balance our network reciprocity?

Chapter 8 Men, Women and the Gender of Caregiving

1. In what ways do Hansen’s findings support or contradict the prevailing sociological research on the role that men play in networks of care and the division of labor in general?

***2. What do the men in this study contribute to their networks of care and what kind of impact has it had on their lives and the lives of their children? Has it all been positive?

3. For many men in this study, becoming a father gave them the opportunity to relate to their children differently than their own fathers related to them. Do you think they succeeded? Why or why not?