Wikibooks: Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2019-20/Power in single-parent families

Single parents are a vulnerable group that exist at the intersection of three main issues affecting their wellbeing and that of their children socioeconomic resources psychology and education. By considering individual disciplines we discuss how power dynamics within and between Education Economics and Psychology influence them. = Background = It seems obvious that single parent families have existed for all of human history whether due to separation widowing or parents simply being single. However they were not studied until relatively recently some of the earliest work began around 1920 30 (and this was neither unbiased nor rigorous) McClure WE. Intelligence of Unmarried Mothers II. The Psychological Clinic 1931Oct 20(5) 154–7. Available from https //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5138330/?page=4. and until around the 1970s the subject was not widely studied. It may be argued that as single parents are overwhelmingly women the delay was because this gendered social issue did not garner interest from academics until more women were academics. Possibly for this reason relatively little research exists on single parent families. Power inequalities remain a factor within the study of single parents. Firstly a large majority of existing studies on single parent families were done in the “Global North” specifically the U.S. Although some academics in recent years have attempted to compare single parenthood between different countries Wong YI Garfinkel I McLanahan S. Single Mother Families in Eight Countries Economic Status and Social Policy. Social Service Review 1993 67(2) 177–97. Available from https //www.jstor.org/stable/30012196. more research is nonetheless necessary to understand the transferability of most studies. In a similar vein race is also being studied as a dimension of single parenthood findings indicate single parenthood may be viewed differently in different racial subcultures Gabriel A McAnarney ER. Parenthood in Two Subcultures White Middle Class Couples and Black Low Income ...