Questions to guide your reading for part one of a Not so Nuclear Families: Class, Gender, and Networks of Care

Chapter 1 Networks of Interdependence in an Age of Independence

1. What does Hansen mean when she says "the ideology of family independence versus the practice of interdependence."?

2. On page 8 Hansen states, "the workplace assumes workers are independent wage earners who can entirely devote themselves to the job at hand, and who have families at home to take care of them." Have we heard this before? What can we (as a society) do about it?

3. Be prepared to explain Hansen's study: her variables (what is she studying), her method (how she is studying it), and her sample (who she is studying).

Chapters 2 - 5: Descriptions of the Families

For each chapter answer the following:

1. What are the primary resources that each family calls on from their network?

2. How stable is each network?

***3. What values about family are likely being passed to each of the children?

4. Identify what you see as the similarities and differences between these networks.