Changing Perceptions of the Value of Daughters and Girls’ Education among the Isoko of Nigeria

This paper examines the changes in parents’ perception on the value of daughters and their education. It utilizes information generated from Focus Group Discussions in two urban and four rural Isoko communities in DeltaState, southern Nigeria. Eight Focus Groups were constituted in each of the towns and villages (four for men and four for women). The groups were homogeneous in terms of sex, age and educational level. It is observed that parents’ perception on the value of daughters is changing because adult daughters have been found to be more caring and more supportive of aged parents than adult sons. Consequently, parents now consider the education of daughters as very rewarding since educated daughters become better equipped to provide support to their parents. The changing attitudinal disposition towards girls’ education has implication for the enhancement of women’s status and fertility declin

"Me and Mum" : New Zealand adolescent daughters' stories of their relationships with their mothers : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Education at Massey University

Adolescent daughters' perceptions of their relationship with their mothers were examined using a social constructionist approach, which identified two conflicting discourses regarding adolescence and the parent-adolescent relationship. The recent academic discourse emphasises the continuing importance of strong bonds between parents and adolescents, particularly between mothers and daughters. The popular culture discourse emphasises separation from and conflict with parents in adolescence, particularly between mothers and daughters. Ten adolescent girls aged between 15 and 17 were interviewed using the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI: George, Kaplan & Main, 1996) to investigate which of these discourses they subscribed to. A narrative approach was used to identify individual relationship themes and cross-narrative themes of agency and communion. These themes were very similar to those found in other comparable research, both national and international. New findings included the influence of the following contexts upon daughters' perceptions: their childhood relationship with their mother, significant events in their lives, their childhood and current relationship with their father, and cognitive maturation. Two groups of five were identified within the ten participants, distinguished by their ability to reflect on their relationship, their perception of their mother, and the amount of reciprocity in their relationship. Overall, the emphasis on mothers' continuing support and availability in daughters' narratives challenged popular culture's emphasis on separation and conflict in parent-adolescent relationships, particularly between mothers and daughters

Negotiating daughterhood and strangerhood: retrospective accounts of serial migration

Most considerations of daughtering and mothering take for granted that the subjectivities of mothers and daughters are negotiated in contexts of physical proximity throughout daughters’ childhoods. Yet many mothers and daughters spend periods separated from each other, sometimes across national borders. Globally, an increasing number of children experience life in transnational families. This paper examines the retrospective narratives of four women who were serial migrants as children (whose parents migrated before they did) . It focuses on their accounts of the reunion with their mothers and how these fit with the ways in which they construct their mother-daughter relationships. We take a psychosocial approach by using a psychoanalytically-informed reading of these narratives to acknowledge the complexities of the attachments produced in the context of migration and to attend to the multi-layered psychodynamics of the resulting relationships. The paper argues that serial migration positioned many of the daughters in a conflictual emotional landscape from which they had to negotiate ‘strangerhood’ in the context of sadness at leaving people to whom they were attached in order to join their mothers (or parents). As a result, many were resistant to being positioned as daughters, doing daughtering and being mothered in their new homes

Are Investments in Daughters Lower When Daughters Move Away?

In much of the developing world daughters receive lower education and other investments than do their brothers, and may even be so devalued as to suffer differential mortality. Daughter disadvantage may be due in part to social norms that prescribe that daughters move away from their natal family upon marriage, a practice known as virilocality. We evaluate the effects of virilocality on female disadvantage using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey. We find little support for the hypothesis. There is no evidence that the overall pattern of rough equality in the treatment of boys and girls in Indonesia masks differences according to post-marital residential practice. Virilocal groups do not have "missing daughters." Nor is there other evidence of son preference, such as in relatively low height for- age or education for girls and women in virilocal areas. Explanations of daughter disadvantage as due to virilocality should be subject to further scrutiny and contextualization.

Crossing Borders in Search of the Mother-Daughter Story: Interdependence Across Time and Distance

Although studies have identified the importance of the mother–daughter relationship and of familism in Mexican culture, there is little in the literature about the mother–daughter experience after daughters have migrated to the United States. This study explores relationships between three daughters in America and their mothers in Mexico, and describes ways in which interdependence between mothers and daughters can be maintained when they are separated by borders and distance. Data collection included prolonged engagement with participants, field notes, and tape-recorded interviews. Narrative analysis techniques were used. Findings suggest mother–daughter interdependence remains. Some aspects may change, but the mother–daughter connection continues to influence lives and provide emotional and, to a lesser extent, material support in their lives

Games Daughters and Parents Play: Teenage Childbearing, Parental Reputation, and Strategic Transfers

In this paper, we examine the empirical implications of reputation formation using a game-theoretic model of intra-familial interactions. We consider parental reputation in repeated two-stage games in which daughters' decision to have a child as a teenager and the willingness of parents to continue to house and support their daughters given their decisions. Drawing on the work of Milgrom and Roberts (1982) and Kreps and Wilson (1982) on reputation in repeated games, we show that parents have, under certain conditions, the incentive to penalize teenage (and typically out-of-wedlock) childbearing of older daughters, in order to get the younger daughters to avoid teenage childbearing. The two key empirical implications of this model is that the likelihood of teenage childbearing and parental transfers to a daughter who had a teen birth will decrease with the number of the daughter's sisters at risk. We test these two implications, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort (NLSY79), exploiting the availability of repeated observations on young women (daughters) and of observations on multiple daughters (sisters) available in this data. Controlling for daughter- and family-specific fixed effects, we find evidence of differential parental financial transfer responses to teenage childbearing by the number of the daughter's sisters and brothers at risk.

How accurately do adult sons and daughters report and perceive parental deaths from coronary disease?

<b>OBJECTIVES</b>: To describe how adult sons and daughters report and perceive parental deaths from heart disease <b>DESIGN</b>: Two generation family study. <b>SETTING</b>: West of Scotland. <b>SUBJECTS</b>: 1040 sons and 1298 daughters aged 30-59 from 1477 families, whose fathers and mothers were aged 45-64 in 1972-76 and have been followed up for mortality over 20 years. <b>OUTCOME</b> : Perception of a "family weakness" attributable to heart disease. RESULTS : 26% of sons and daughters had a parent who had died of coronary heart disease (CHD). The proportion was higher in older offspring (+18% per 10 year age difference) and in manual compared with non-manual groups (+37%). Eighty nine per cent of parental deaths from CHD were correctly reported by offspring. Only 23% of sons and 34% of daughters with at least one parent who had died of CHD considered that they had a family weakness attributable to heart disease. Perceptions of a family weakness were higher when one or both parents had died of CHD, when parental deaths occurred at a younger age, in daughters compared with sons and in offspring in non-manual compared with manual occupations. <b>CONCLUSIONS</b>: Only a minority of sons and daughters with experience of a parent having died from CHD perceive this in terms of a family weakness attributable to heart disease. Although men in manual occupations are most likely to develop CHD, they are least likely to interpret a parental death from CHD in terms of a family weakness. Health professionals giving advice to patients on their familial risks need to be aware of the difference between clinical definitions and lay perceptions of a family history of heart disease

Privileged daughters? Gendered mobility among highly educated Chinese female migrants in the UK

The one-child generation daughters born to middle-class Chinese parents enjoy the privilege of concentrated family resources and the opportunity for education overseas. We focus on the “privileged daughters” who have studied abroad and remained overseas as professionals. Using three cases of post-student female migrants who were of different ages and at different life stages, we situate their socioeconomic mobility in the context of intergenerational relationships and transnational social space. Drawing on further interview data from the same project we argue that, although the “privileged daughters” have achieved geographical mobility and upward social mobility, through education and a career in a Western country, their life choices remain heavily influenced by their parents in China. Such findings highlight the transnationally transferred gendered burden among the relatively “elite” cohort, thus revealing a more nuanced gendered interpretation of transnational socioeconomic mobility

To what extent does current policy and practice pay adequate attention to the needs of the sons and daughters of foster carers, particularly in the context of planned or unplanned placement endings?

"Overall aim: To undertake an initial scoping study of current knowledge, policy and practice (including aspects of relevance to integrated working) in relation to the impact of placement endings for sons and daughters of foster carers... the work of the team has highlighted the invisibility of sons and daughters in policy, research and practice in fostering services. The research project was designed to test this knowledge base more empirically." - pp. 7-8

Saints and pagans

In preparation for this project I have read material on Andean culture and assembled myths and legends indigenous to the region. This collection, along with research I will undertake in Quito, will eventually aid me in the presentations of my thesis. Pending financial considerations I plan to leave for Ecuador in the beginning of June and establish contacts in Quito with Ministerio de Asuntos Indigenas, sociologists, and photographers who advocate in interest in Indian culture, and Peace Corps volunteers working in the highland area. During my stay I intend to be frank and open about my objectives, offering to share the process of my work with individuals or institutions who might find it to work