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Book part
Publication date: 25 September 2023

Susan Burgess

This piece argues that television families’ shift away from the traditional nuclear family form is crucial to understand the relatively rapid acceptance of same-sex marriage in…

Abstract

This piece argues that television families’ shift away from the traditional nuclear family form is crucial to understand the relatively rapid acceptance of same-sex marriage in mainstream politics. Released in the early 2010s, The Americans focusses on a KGB-created family composed of two Soviet spies, total strangers who ultimately have two children to further their cover as an innocent American family running a DuPont Circle travel agency and living in a Virginia suburb of Washington D.C. Rather than being idealised or sought after, The Americans reveals that the nuclear family is legally, socially, and politically constructed, and, in the end, doomed to failure. Sex and love and even children are instrumentally manipulated on a regular basis to further political goals, transforming basic assumptions about how marriage and family life really work beyond the façade of suburban America. This opens space for consideration and acceptance of alternative family forms, including same-sex marriage.

Article
Publication date: 30 March 2022

Christine D. Bataille and Emma Hyland

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how professional men in dual-career relationships craft and enact their fatherhood role ideologies during the transition to fatherhood…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how professional men in dual-career relationships craft and enact their fatherhood role ideologies during the transition to fatherhood. In particular, the authors focus on the impact that the development of a more involved approach to fatherhood has on the mother's ability to combine career and family.

Design/methodology/approach

This study utilizes a longitudinal, qualitative methodology. Pre- and post-natal interviews were conducted with 18 professional men in dual-career heterosexual relationships.

Findings

Although the traditional mode of fatherhood that is rooted in breadwinning continues to be the dominant approach among working fathers in the US, new modes of more involved fathering are emerging. The results of the study indicate that a general shift away from a strict, gendered division of household labor is taking place in today's dual career couples, and this is leading to an increase in men's involvement in childcare. Further, although much of the extant research conceptualizes fatherhood as a role typology, the results reveal that all fathers are involved in caring for their babies, though to varying degrees. Thus the authors propose a continuum of involvement. Finally, the authors discovered how men are finding creative ways to use official and unofficial workplace flexibility to be more involved at home.

Originality/value

The findings offer novel insights into the factors that encourage involved fathering. The authors encourage organizations to create more supportive environments that foster involved fathering by extending paid parental leave benefits to men and providing more access to flexibility.

Details

Personnel Review, vol. 52 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0048-3486

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 31 January 2023

Alexa M. Dare, Ruth Dittrich, Macey Schondel, Molly Lowney and Gregory Hill

This paper aims to understand why higher education institutions (HEIs) struggle to become sustainable institutions themselves despite providing relevant teaching and research on…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to understand why higher education institutions (HEIs) struggle to become sustainable institutions themselves despite providing relevant teaching and research on sustainability.

Design/methodology/approach

Using 17 open-ended, semistructured interviews to determine common themes (codes) regarding sustainability, the authors mapped those codes to the adaptive cycle from social innovation theory.

Findings

Using the adaptive cycle offered a framework for understanding sustainability at HEIs as a cyclical process where innovation occurs in ebbs and flows. Differing perceptions of power by students and faculty slow down the process, and cross-collaboration is the key to further sustainability.

Practical implications

Insights from the adaptive cycle can contribute to HEI assessment of its sustainability initiatives by identifying the stage of the adaptive cycle relevant to the institution’s present sustainability work.

Originality/value

Applying the adaptive cycle is an original way of understanding the process of anchoring sustainability at HEIs providing concrete insights into advancing this process.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 24 no. 6
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 September 2023

Claire Rasmussen

The narrative of The Americans weaves together a spy thriller and a family drama, though it drives home the inseparability of the political and the personal through the lives of…

Abstract

The narrative of The Americans weaves together a spy thriller and a family drama, though it drives home the inseparability of the political and the personal through the lives of the central characters, Philip and Elizabeth, a couple whose marriage is a cover for their work as Soviet spies. This chapter provides a queer reading of their marriage, drawing from the real history of the Cold War politics of sexuality that associated American values with the hetero- and gender normative, white, and middle-class nuclear family. In contrast, the Soviet Union was understood to have disrupted this natural order by installing the state as an overbearing patriarch. Philip and Elizabeth’s fictional cover as a nuclear family requires them to perform American marriage, family, and selfhood. In doing so, they reflect the centrality of the family in America’s Cold War self-image in which the family serves as the anchor of the American order, enabling economic and political self-sufficiency. Their performance of the family challenges our ability to differentiate between real, authentic family that can serve as the legitimate source of social reproduction and between the counterfeit, fake family that disrupts the social order. The queer family, refusing to be placed beyond realm of the political by the moral language of family values, subverts our ability to distinguish between genres since the family drama is already a political thriller.

Details

Law, Politics and Family in ‘The Americans’
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-995-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 25 March 2024

Sarah Williams

This chapter explores the extent to which female public relations (PR) practitioners perform professionalism in the workplace by interrogating and examining their professional…

Abstract

This chapter explores the extent to which female public relations (PR) practitioners perform professionalism in the workplace by interrogating and examining their professional behaviours. Using an ethnographic approach, where the researcher is immersed in the field, it uncovers the lived experiences and behavioural responses of women working in PR agency environments in the United Kingdom and enables a rich description of professional behaviours to emerge.

Fawkes argues that research into roles in PR ‘has tended to assess roles using management rather than sociological theory’ (2014, p. 2). That is not to say that all PR research adopts the same paradigmatic stance. Several scholars have encouraged the development of a research agenda rooted in social theory. Holtzhausen called for a move away from what she termed the ‘modernist approach to organizations’ (2002, p. 251), which focuses on management discourse, and encouraged instead a focus on the postmodern concept of discourse, where meaning is constructed and conveyed through social and institutional practices.

In seeking to discover the ‘lived experience’ of female practitioners, this chapter locates professionalism in the context of their behaviours and enables individuals to articulate their understandings of the relationship between performance and professionalism. Using Goffman's (1959) work on social encounters as performances in conjunction with Foucauldian discourse and Feminist theory, this chapter explores the three stages of performing professionalism – preparation, performance and reception – through the eyes of women working in PR agencies in the United Kingdom to explore their lived experience and determine how gender affects their performance of professional behaviour.

Details

Women’s Work in Public Relations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-539-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 10 October 2023

İlkay Baliç

This article tackles the intersection of mothering and labor through the author's own experience as a feminist mother/manager from Istanbul, Turkey. It aims to revisit the first…

Abstract

Purpose

This article tackles the intersection of mothering and labor through the author's own experience as a feminist mother/manager from Istanbul, Turkey. It aims to revisit the first years of motherhood, exploring the struggle to invent a peculiar maternal subjectivity in opposition and negotiation with the patriarchal institution of motherhood, the new definition of maternal labor in a highly digital, neoliberal context and the issue of marital fairness in a dual-income heterosexual marriage.

Design/methodology/approach

The article presents an autoethnographic, retrospective and introspective inquiry into the first seven years of the author's mothering experience in order to offer an in-depth exploration of the various aspects of contemporary maternal labor.

Findings

The article shows how maternal labor has shifted in nature and expanded in scope in a contemporary non-Western context. It investigates the dissolution of the spatial, temporal and sensorial boundaries between the managerial labor dedicated to the workplace, and to the family. Highlighting the similarities of the two forms of labor, the article manifests the materiality, tangibility and visibility of maternal labor.

Research limitations/implications

Further intersectional studies shall be beneficial to redefine maternal labor in different contexts.

Practical implications

Departing and diverting from the terms “invisible labor” and “mental load”, the article suggests a shift in terminology to stress the multifaceted medley of managerial tasks mothers undertake today.

Originality/value

The article provides an original take on maternal labor through the first-hand experience of a middle-class, professional mother from Istanbul, Turkey.

Details

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-7149

Keywords

Abstract

Details

Public Morality and the Culture Wars: The Triple Divide
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-722-8

Book part
Publication date: 31 July 2023

Larissa Marchiori Pacheco, Elizabeth M. Moore, Elizabeth Allen, Robin K. White and Luis Alfonso Dau

Sustainability and resilience challenges persist globally due to the lack of coordinated action among firms and community stakeholders. This is even more challenging for…

Abstract

Sustainability and resilience challenges persist globally due to the lack of coordinated action among firms and community stakeholders. This is even more challenging for multinational corporations (MNCs) interacting across multiple, and often diverse, institutional environments. To be effective, MNCs’ sustainability efforts must respond to interdependent functions and systems in communities and rely on adaptive governance frameworks targeting long-term initiatives. The authors highlight the importance of public–private interconnections to promote resilience and enable the achievement of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). The authors introduce a methodology to analyze community resilience and present an in-depth, single case study of New Orleans. Findings provide important insights for the international business (IB) literature, but also critical implications for policymakers and practitioners.

Article
Publication date: 6 January 2023

William Christopher Curran and Matthew C. Danbrook

In the early 1970s, clinical evidence emerged documenting causal links between prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) and children’s behaviors as observed by child welfare social workers…

Abstract

Purpose

In the early 1970s, clinical evidence emerged documenting causal links between prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) and children’s behaviors as observed by child welfare social workers (CWSWs). Unfortunately, fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) remain on the margins of public health priorities. The purpose of this study was to elicit the views of child welfare social workers when responding to case of or suspected FASD.

Design/methodology/approach

A sample (N = 18) of CWSWs, allied health professionals and foster parents were interviewed.

Findings

Findings indicate that social workers struggle with their statutory duty to plan safe care for children with or suspected of having FASD. Emergent themes include struggling with advocacy, professional devaluation and lack of procedural guidance.

Practical implications

Social workers need a clear pathway and FASD knowledge to guide their interventions and enhance their capacity to advocate for affected children.

Originality/value

An abundance of research documents the direct effect of PAE on physical, cognitive and behavioral outcomes. However, few studies focus on the critical interface of children with an FASD entering public care and the social workers responsible for planning their safe care. This study sought to document social workers’ response to this vulnerable cohort of children.

Details

Advances in Dual Diagnosis, vol. 16 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-0972

Keywords

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