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Few early childhood teachers engage in critical and anti-racist forms of pedagogical practice, primarily on the basis of developmental and political concerns. With the exception of a few studies, little has been documented relative to early childhood teachers’ experiences while enacting this form of pedagogical practice. The purpose of this article is to examine my teaching experiences engaging in critical, anti-racist pedagogy through the development and implementation of a critical action research study/unit on African American history. Data from this study reveal four levels of challenges that emerged throughout the development and implementation phases of this study/unit. Finally, I discuss several implications of this study for early child-hood multicultural practice

Let us return to Nancy Cruzan's story. Hopeful that Nancy would eventually recover, her parents, Lester and Joyce Cruzan, agreed to have doctors insert a feeding tube to deliver artificial hydration and nutrition – a decision they would one day regret. Although the Cruzans visited frequently, Nancy was unable to respond to their attention. After four years had elapsed, the Cruzans concluded that Nancy would never regain consciousness and should be allowed to die.

Drawing on interviews with football wives from the Canadian Football League (CFL), this article examines how these women define their personal identity through their talk about being married to a pro football player. Using the concept of courtesy identity and Anderson and Snow’s (1987) conceptualization of identity talk, this chapter explains the processes in which these women claim a courtesy identity of a football wife. I identify two strategies these women use to construct their identity: distancing from stereotypes and envisioning self as his teammate. I argue that women performed this verbal identity work in pursuit of legitimizing their courtesy identity of a football wife. They accomplish this by distancing self from a stereotypical, anticipated social identity of the football wife as a “gold digger” or naïve woman and then working up another socially positive and normative one that they are supportive women who have worked alongside their husband and are part of their career. I conclude by summarizing the findings and argue that by constructing themselves as devoted football wives, they uphold these idealized images of traditional masculinity and femininity in professional sports.

Increasing numbers of grandparents are raising their grandchildren because of problems within the parental generation such as drug and alcohol addiction, AIDS, divorce, and unemployment. Yet little is known about how grandparents who “parent” or “co‐parent” then‐grandchildren differ from other grandparents, or the extent to which parenting or co‐parenting grandchildren affects grandparent's psychological, physical, or financial well‐being, or feelings of family solidarity. The purpose of this research is to: (1) compare the characteristics of grandparents who go on to parent or co‐parent their grandchildren to grandparents who do not, and (2) assess the effects of entering the two caregiving arrangements — parenting and co‐parenting — on changes in grandparent's psychological, physical, and financial well‐being, as well as their feelings of family solidarity. The data for this study came from 659 grandparents from the USC Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSG) who participated in at least two consecutive waves of data collection measured at three year intervals between 1985 to 1994: parenting grandparents (N = 12), co‐parenting grandparents (N = 27), and non‐parenting grandparents (N = 620). Analysis of the quantitative data reveals that grandparents who parent or co‐parent their grandchildren tend to be younger and less healthy than non‐parenting grandparents. Contrary to expectation, the data also indicate that there is no statistically significant decline in psychological, physical, or financial well‐being, nor in normative or marital solidarity after grandparents begin to caregive. Although the majority of grandparents show stability or improvement in overall psychological well‐being, some show decline. The qualitative data suggests that the extent to which grandparents can choose their level of involvement in caregiving influences and the age of the grandchild, whether they experience caregiving as positive or negative.

This paper briefly provides some thoughts on forward planning in end‐of‐life care, noting that there are good reasons for taking action with regard to our own demise. Provides an example of living will.

The research for this study engages and assesses the relationship of the media from the 20th to the 21st century, combining scholar activism and public leadership in the disability rights movement. Having chronicled the disability rights movement from its roots, this chapter presents the discourse of media and movement, sampling mainstream media along with the advocacy and alternative media in support of disability rights. A range of media forms are engaged from advocacy bulletins to mainstream news media to public broadcasts that represent the diversity and complexity of the movement as it continues into the 21st century, pressing for the universalism of human rights for all.

ALWAYS willing to consider suggestions from our readers, one such came our way the other day. It was that we ought (as has happened in ‘another house’, as the politicians say!) to change our name. Our reader, to whom we are indeed grateful, made a recommendation; he thought it would be more in line with modern thinking and more descriptive to change our title to Management Systems and Procedures.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to present data regarding the effects of unrealistic expectations and external constraints – such as work structure and socialization – on parents’ construction of work and family roles during their early years of parenting.

Design/methodology/approach – This study is based on Bowen's family systems theory and involves a two-stage panel study. Thirty-six expectant parents were surveyed and interviewed. Five years later, 28 of these parents were studied a second time.

Findings – This study reveals poignant areas where parents have unrealistic expectations that require reconstruction of their roles. These areas include work changes, domestic responsibilities, leisure time, and parental conflict. Parents who worked as a team, rather than in opposition, were most successful in rebalancing their separateness/belonging needs.

Research limitations/implications – The small, nonrandom sample suggests caution in generalizing the findings. The value of the sample lies in that the study reveals viewpoints that can go undetected and unreported in large, randomized samples.

Practical implications – Study results should help family members, and professionals who work with families, to better deal with the often competing challenges of employment and family demands and, in turn, improve well-being for children, parents, and families.

Social implications – This study's findings provide a basis for assessing, improving, and developing policies for parents.

Originality/value – Both data sets are original. The results from this study inform our understandings about expectations in the transition to parenthood.

This chapter examines disability rights movement's rejection of a right to physician-assisted suicide (PAS). Supporters of PAS frame the right to enlist a physician's help in determining the nature and timing of one's death as a fundamental liberty interest and as a right to privacy. The disability opposition counters this with disparate impact and slippery slope arguments and stories of disability pride as a rhetorical rejection of a right it deems dangerous and discriminatory. In examining this clash of rights talk, this chapter analyzes the legal and political consequences of anti-rights rhetoric by a movement that is grounded in notions of autonomy and self-determination.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to explore how highly educated women respond to career chance events in a Korean context where traditional cultural values and male-dominated organizational culture coexist.

The authors conducted 50 semi-structured interviews with highly educated women operationalized as women with doctoral degrees in and out of Korea. The authors used a collaborative research process with a team of ten Korean-born researchers who have built consensus on research themes through discussions on the collection and analysis of a large data set, thus reducing the researcher bias issue inherent in qualitative research.

In an analysis of the interview data collected, the authors report on three themes: before obtaining a doctoral degree, during and after their doctoral study and responses (coping strategies) to chance events in their careers. Highly educated women’s pursuing a doctoral degree was a way to maintain work–life balance in Korea where women are expected to take a primary caregiver role. After obtaining a doctoral degree, participants struggled with limited job opportunities in the male-dominated higher education. Women’s unplanned and unexpected chance events are intertwined with the male-dominated culture in Korea, and career interruptions as such a chance event, whether voluntary or involuntary, happened largely due to family reasons. In this context, highly educated women responded to chance events largely at individual and family levels and articulated the need for support at organizational and government levels.

The study findings confirm the literature that women’s careers are limited by traditional family roles in non-Western countries where strong patriarchal culture is prevalent. Particularly, women’s career interruptions surfaced as a critical chance event that either disrupts or delays their careers largely because of family issues. Future research is called for to identify both individual and contextual factors that influence women’s decisions on voluntary and involuntary career interruptions as their responses to chance events.

Based on highly educated women’s coping strategies largely at individual and family levels, we suggest national human resource development policies put in place not to lose out on the opportunity to develop highly educated women with doctoral degrees as a quality workforce for a nation’s sustainable economic growth. Additionally, organizations need to be aligned with the government policies and programs for the provision of developmental programs for women in the workplace, beginning with highly educated women’s career planning, while creating organizational culture to promote gender equality as a long-term goal.

The participants’ voluntary career breaks helped them care for their children, be involved in their children’s education, reflect on work–life balance after having long hours of work for many years and move forward with personal satisfaction. Voluntary career breaks can be understood as highly educated women’s unique way of responding to chance events.