Read the Book(Uploaded) and write about the questions(each 1150~200 words)

other groups, but between social classes (Willie and Reddick 2003). Because African Americans who are members of the upper class follow the class interests reviewed in Chapter 7—preservation of privilege and family fortune—they are especially concerned about the family background of those whom their children marry (Gatewood 1990). To them, marriage is viewed as a merger of family lines. Children of this class marry later than children of other classes.

Middle-class African American families focus on achievement and respectability. Both husband and wife are likely to work outside the home. A central concern is that their children go to college, get good jobs, and marry well—that is, marry people like them- selves, respectable and hardworking, who want to get ahead in school and pursue a suc- cessful career.

African American families in poverty face all the problems that cluster around poverty (Wilson 1987, 1996; Anderson 1990/2006; Venkatesh 2006). Because the men are likely to have few skills and to be unemployed, it is difficult for them to ful- fill the cultural roles of husband and father. Consequently, these families are likely to be headed by a woman and to have a high rate of births to single women. Divorce and desertion are also more common than among other classes. Sharing scarce resources and “stretching kinship” are primary survival mechanisms. People who have helped out in hard times are considered brothers, sisters, or cousins to whom one owes obli- gations as though they were blood relatives; and men who are not the biological fathers of their children are given fatherhood status (Stack 1974; Hall 2008). Sociologists use the term fictive kin to refer to this stretching of kinship.

From Figure 10.6 you can see that, compared with other groups, African American families are the least likely to be headed by married couples and the most likely to be headed by women. Because African American women tend to go farther in school than African American men, they are more likely than women in other racial–ethnic groups to marry men who are less educated than themselves (Eshleman 2000; Harford 2008).

Diversity in U.S. Families 315

Both parents

Mothers

Fathers

86%

11% 3%

77% 68%

5%

4%

28% 19%

61%

40% 29%

10%

54%

5%

African AmericansNative Americans

Whites LatinosAsian Americans

FIGURE 10.6 Family Structure: U.S. Families with Children Under Age 18 Headed by Mothers, Fathers, and Both Parents

Sources: By the author. For Native Americans,“American Community . . .” 2004. For other groups, Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011:Table 69.