J Randles
Biographic Data
| ID | 51296 |
|---|---|
| NAME | J Randles |
| GIVEN NAMES | J |
| FAMILY NAME | Randles |
| SIGNATURE | RANDLES J |
| AFFILIATIONS | California State University, Fresno |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4845-5691 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 170 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 24 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Racial Disparities in Incidence of Diaper Dermatitis and Implications for Diaper Inequities
Objectives: To examine if the likelihood of infants and toddlers requiring medical care for diaper dermatitis, a condition linked to infrequent diaper changes and possible diaper need, is different across racial/ethnic groups. Materials/Methods: This is a population-based retrospective study. We collected data via public records requests from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information to determine the number of patients aged …
Essentially a Mother: A Feminist Approach to the Law of Pregnancy and Motherhood
Diaper Despair and Deflecting Inequalities
How class blindness undermines collective solutions to collective problems–and creates a situation that just plain stinks
Marginalize or Valorize: A Two-Case Study of Parental Essentialism and Fathers' Social Location
The idea that children need a mother and a father to thrive is a hegemonic ideology of parenting, yet research finds that children do equally well in families with two parents of any gender. Prior research has not addressed how social location shapes parents' engagement with gender essentialist ideologies of parenting. Filling this gap, we analyze ethnographic and interview data based on the experiences of poor fathers of color and mostly white, …
Addressing diaper need as racial stratification through intersectional family justice
Objective To use racial stratification and intersectional family justice frameworks to analyze experiences of and efforts to address diaper need. Background One in three American families with infants and toddlers struggles with insufficient access to diapers, which can have negative social, physical, and economic implications for family well‐being. Prior research has yet to examine diaper need as a form of racial stratification, despite existing…
Fixing a Leaky U.S. Social Safety Net: Diapers, Policy, and Low-Income Families
Changing work, family, and policy trends converged to increase diaper need in recent decades. Safety net programs do not cover diapers, and diaper policy proposals have met limited success. Based on interviews with seventy mothers who experienced diaper need, this article examines how diapers shape low-income parents’ caregiving and why income and public aid are not always enough to cover diapers. Mothers described stigma associated with lacking …
Still a Mother: Noncustodial Mothers, Gendered Institutions, and Social Change
Why Don't They Just Use Cloth?' Gender Policy Vacuums and the Inequalities of Diapering
Drawing on feminist theories of parenting and the welfare state, I analyze experiences of diaper need as a case of how gender, class, and race inequalities shape the social organization of caregiving and limited policy responses. Data from in-depth interviews with 70 mothers who experienced diaper need and 40 diaper bank staff revealed obstacles low-income mothers face in managing lack of access to children's basic needs and how gendered assumpti…
Willing to Do Anything for My Kids: Inventive Mothering, Diapers, and the Inequalities of Carework
Prior research highlights how mothers across social classes express similar beliefs that good parenting adheres to the tenets of intensive mothering by being child-centered, time-consuming, and self-sacrificing. Yet intensive mothering ideologies emphasize parenting tactics that assume children's basic needs are met, while ignoring how mothers in poverty devise distinctive childrearing strategies and logics to perform carework demanded by depriva…
Harder Being Without the Baby: Fathers' Coparenting Perspectives in Responsible Fatherhood Programming
ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to analyze how marginalized men's coparenting perspectives and experiences shaped their engagement with a responsible fatherhood program (RFP).BackgroundPrevious studies of fathers enrolled in RFPs found that their coparenting relationships have both positive and negative components and that program participation is associated with better coparenting communication. Yet men also report strained coparenting …
Pregnant Embodiment and Field Research
Feminist scholars have long argued for embodied reflexivity that involves accounting for how embodiment shapes qualitative field research as an intersubjective process. This chapter draws on ethnographic research with sixty-four low-income men of color who participated in a US government-funded fatherhood program conducted when the author was visibly pregnant with her first child. It analyzes pregnant embodiment as a strategy for facilitating rap…
Role Modeling Responsibility: The Essential Father Discourse in Responsible Fatherhood Programming and Policy
Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups with 64 poor men of color, this article analyzes how a U.S. federally funded “responsible fatherhood” program transmitted a discourse of paternal essentiality, claiming that fathers as masculine role models uniquely contribute to child development. It reveals how, despite lack of evidence that fathers make indispensable gendered contributions to parenting, the focus on male role modeling resonated f…
Manning Up” to be a Good Father: Hybrid Fatherhood, Masculinity, and U.S. Responsible Fatherhood Policy
Drawing on theories of masculinities, I analyze how a U.S. government funded “responsible fatherhood” program utilized a political discourse of hybrid masculinity to shape disadvantaged men’s ideas of successful fathering. Using data from three sources that uniquely traces how this discourse traveled from policy to program implementation—including analysis of the curriculum, in-depth interviews with 10 staff, and in-depth interviews and focus gro…
"Saving Marriage Culture "One Marriage at a Time: Relationship Education and the Reinstitutionalization of Marriage in an Era of Individualism
Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism
Learning to Labor, Love, and Live: Shaping the Good Neoliberal Citizen in State Work and Marriage Programs
Promoting work and marriage were primary aims of the 1996 welfare reform bill, yet implementation of these dual goals has not been analyzed comparatively. In analyzing our respective ethnographic data from government-funded work and marriage classes, we identified similarities in the programs' focus on teaching the cognitive and emotional skills presumed to comprise what we call the good neoliberal citizen. Drawing on the programs' curricula and …
Redefining the Marital Power Struggle through Relationship Skills: How U.S. Marriage Education Programs Challenge and Reproduce Gender Inequality
In 2002, the United States federal government created the Healthy Marriage Initiative, a policy that has distributed almost $1 billion in welfare money to marriage education programs. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in classes for a purposive sample of 20 government-approved marriage education programs and textual analysis of more than 3,000 pages of curricular materials, I analyze how U.S. healthy marriage policy addresses issues of gendered c…
Parenting, Family Policy, and Children's Well-Being in an Unequal Society: A New Culture War for Parents
Partnering and Parenting in Poverty: A Qualitative Analysis of a Relationship Skills Program for Low-Income, Unmarried Families
Since the mid‐1990s, the federal government has funded numerous relationship skills programs, including some specifically targeting low‐income, unmarried parents, in an effort to strengthen couples’ relationships and increase family stability. The previous research on the effectiveness of these interventions has revealed mixed results about whether such programs can improve the relationships of lower income couples who tend to experience lower re…
Teaching & Learning Guide for “Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality”
Repackaging the 'Package Deal: Promoting Marriage for Low-Income Families by Targeting Paternal Identity and Reframing Marital Masculinity
In the 1996 overhaul of federal welfare legislation, Congress included provisions to promote employment, marriage, and responsible fatherhood to prevent poverty among low-income families. Little previous research has focused on how marriage promotion policies construct paternal identity. Drawing on data from an 18-month study of a federally funded relationship skills program for low-income, unmarried parents, I analyze how responsible fatherhood …
Toward a Feminist Ethnography of Feminist Ethnography: A Response
The Feminist Ethnographer's Dilemma: Reconciling Progressive Research Agendas with Fieldwork Realities
In this article, we use three case studies of conservative field sites to consider the dilemma faced when feminist analytic perspectives clash with observations. We note that feminism can operate as a blinder, limiting our ability to see and interpret empirical realities that do not conform with feminist expectations. Using our research on orthodox Jewish women's practices of menstrual purity, evangelical ex-gay ministries, and state-sponsored ma…
Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality
In 1996, Congress overhauled welfare policy to promote marriage and work as ways to lift American families out of poverty. Almost all of the funding for governmental marriage promotion has been devoted to relationship skills programs intended to help couples strengthen their relationships, encourage them to marry, and thereby prevent poverty. Marriage promotion policy has sparked intense debate, especially over the connection between marriage and…
Willing to Do Anything for My Kids: Inventive Mothering, Diapers, and the Inequalities of Carework
Prior research highlights how mothers across social classes express similar beliefs that good parenting adheres to the tenets of intensive mothering by being child-centered, time-consuming, and self-sacrificing. Yet intensive mothering ideologies emphasize parenting tactics that assume children's basic needs are met, while ignoring how mothers in poverty devise distinctive childrearing strategies and logics to perform carework demanded by depriva…
Manning Up” to be a Good Father: Hybrid Fatherhood, Masculinity, and U.S. Responsible Fatherhood Policy
Drawing on theories of masculinities, I analyze how a U.S. government funded “responsible fatherhood” program utilized a political discourse of hybrid masculinity to shape disadvantaged men’s ideas of successful fathering. Using data from three sources that uniquely traces how this discourse traveled from policy to program implementation—including analysis of the curriculum, in-depth interviews with 10 staff, and in-depth interviews and focus gro…
The Feminist Ethnographer's Dilemma: Reconciling Progressive Research Agendas with Fieldwork Realities
In this article, we use three case studies of conservative field sites to consider the dilemma faced when feminist analytic perspectives clash with observations. We note that feminism can operate as a blinder, limiting our ability to see and interpret empirical realities that do not conform with feminist expectations. Using our research on orthodox Jewish women's practices of menstrual purity, evangelical ex-gay ministries, and state-sponsored ma…
Repackaging the 'Package Deal: Promoting Marriage for Low-Income Families by Targeting Paternal Identity and Reframing Marital Masculinity
In the 1996 overhaul of federal welfare legislation, Congress included provisions to promote employment, marriage, and responsible fatherhood to prevent poverty among low-income families. Little previous research has focused on how marriage promotion policies construct paternal identity. Drawing on data from an 18-month study of a federally funded relationship skills program for low-income, unmarried parents, I analyze how responsible fatherhood …
Learning to Labor, Love, and Live: Shaping the Good Neoliberal Citizen in State Work and Marriage Programs
Promoting work and marriage were primary aims of the 1996 welfare reform bill, yet implementation of these dual goals has not been analyzed comparatively. In analyzing our respective ethnographic data from government-funded work and marriage classes, we identified similarities in the programs' focus on teaching the cognitive and emotional skills presumed to comprise what we call the good neoliberal citizen. Drawing on the programs' curricula and …
Partnering and Parenting in Poverty: A Qualitative Analysis of a Relationship Skills Program for Low-Income, Unmarried Families
Since the mid‐1990s, the federal government has funded numerous relationship skills programs, including some specifically targeting low‐income, unmarried parents, in an effort to strengthen couples’ relationships and increase family stability. The previous research on the effectiveness of these interventions has revealed mixed results about whether such programs can improve the relationships of lower income couples who tend to experience lower re…
Parenting, Family Policy, and Children's Well-Being in an Unequal Society: A New Culture War for Parents
Fixing a Leaky U.S. Social Safety Net: Diapers, Policy, and Low-Income Families
Changing work, family, and policy trends converged to increase diaper need in recent decades. Safety net programs do not cover diapers, and diaper policy proposals have met limited success. Based on interviews with seventy mothers who experienced diaper need, this article examines how diapers shape low-income parents’ caregiving and why income and public aid are not always enough to cover diapers. Mothers described stigma associated with lacking …
Harder Being Without the Baby: Fathers' Coparenting Perspectives in Responsible Fatherhood Programming
ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to analyze how marginalized men's coparenting perspectives and experiences shaped their engagement with a responsible fatherhood program (RFP).BackgroundPrevious studies of fathers enrolled in RFPs found that their coparenting relationships have both positive and negative components and that program participation is associated with better coparenting communication. Yet men also report strained coparenting …
Redefining the Marital Power Struggle through Relationship Skills: How U.S. Marriage Education Programs Challenge and Reproduce Gender Inequality
In 2002, the United States federal government created the Healthy Marriage Initiative, a policy that has distributed almost $1 billion in welfare money to marriage education programs. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in classes for a purposive sample of 20 government-approved marriage education programs and textual analysis of more than 3,000 pages of curricular materials, I analyze how U.S. healthy marriage policy addresses issues of gendered c…
Why Don't They Just Use Cloth?' Gender Policy Vacuums and the Inequalities of Diapering
Drawing on feminist theories of parenting and the welfare state, I analyze experiences of diaper need as a case of how gender, class, and race inequalities shape the social organization of caregiving and limited policy responses. Data from in-depth interviews with 70 mothers who experienced diaper need and 40 diaper bank staff revealed obstacles low-income mothers face in managing lack of access to children's basic needs and how gendered assumpti…
Still a Mother: Noncustodial Mothers, Gendered Institutions, and Social Change
Role Modeling Responsibility: The Essential Father Discourse in Responsible Fatherhood Programming and Policy
Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups with 64 poor men of color, this article analyzes how a U.S. federally funded “responsible fatherhood” program transmitted a discourse of paternal essentiality, claiming that fathers as masculine role models uniquely contribute to child development. It reveals how, despite lack of evidence that fathers make indispensable gendered contributions to parenting, the focus on male role modeling resonated f…
"Saving Marriage Culture "One Marriage at a Time: Relationship Education and the Reinstitutionalization of Marriage in an Era of Individualism
Toward a Feminist Ethnography of Feminist Ethnography: A Response
Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality
In 1996, Congress overhauled welfare policy to promote marriage and work as ways to lift American families out of poverty. Almost all of the funding for governmental marriage promotion has been devoted to relationship skills programs intended to help couples strengthen their relationships, encourage them to marry, and thereby prevent poverty. Marriage promotion policy has sparked intense debate, especially over the connection between marriage and…
Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality
In 1996, Congress overhauled welfare policy to promote marriage and work as ways to lift American families out of poverty. Almost all of the funding for governmental marriage promotion has been devoted to relationship skills programs intended to help couples strengthen their relationships, encourage them to marry, and thereby prevent poverty. Marriage promotion policy has sparked intense debate, especially over the connection between marriage and…
Teaching & Learning Guide for “Marriage Promotion Policy and Family Inequality”
Repackaging the 'Package Deal: Promoting Marriage for Low-Income Families by Targeting Paternal Identity and Reframing Marital Masculinity
In the 1996 overhaul of federal welfare legislation, Congress included provisions to promote employment, marriage, and responsible fatherhood to prevent poverty among low-income families. Little previous research has focused on how marriage promotion policies construct paternal identity. Drawing on data from an 18-month study of a federally funded relationship skills program for low-income, unmarried parents, I analyze how responsible fatherhood …
Toward a Feminist Ethnography of Feminist Ethnography: A Response
The Feminist Ethnographer's Dilemma: Reconciling Progressive Research Agendas with Fieldwork Realities
In this article, we use three case studies of conservative field sites to consider the dilemma faced when feminist analytic perspectives clash with observations. We note that feminism can operate as a blinder, limiting our ability to see and interpret empirical realities that do not conform with feminist expectations. Using our research on orthodox Jewish women's practices of menstrual purity, evangelical ex-gay ministries, and state-sponsored ma…
Partnering and Parenting in Poverty: A Qualitative Analysis of a Relationship Skills Program for Low-Income, Unmarried Families
Since the mid‐1990s, the federal government has funded numerous relationship skills programs, including some specifically targeting low‐income, unmarried parents, in an effort to strengthen couples’ relationships and increase family stability. The previous research on the effectiveness of these interventions has revealed mixed results about whether such programs can improve the relationships of lower income couples who tend to experience lower re…
Parenting, Family Policy, and Children's Well-Being in an Unequal Society: A New Culture War for Parents
Redefining the Marital Power Struggle through Relationship Skills: How U.S. Marriage Education Programs Challenge and Reproduce Gender Inequality
In 2002, the United States federal government created the Healthy Marriage Initiative, a policy that has distributed almost $1 billion in welfare money to marriage education programs. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in classes for a purposive sample of 20 government-approved marriage education programs and textual analysis of more than 3,000 pages of curricular materials, I analyze how U.S. healthy marriage policy addresses issues of gendered c…
Manning Up” to be a Good Father: Hybrid Fatherhood, Masculinity, and U.S. Responsible Fatherhood Policy
Drawing on theories of masculinities, I analyze how a U.S. government funded “responsible fatherhood” program utilized a political discourse of hybrid masculinity to shape disadvantaged men’s ideas of successful fathering. Using data from three sources that uniquely traces how this discourse traveled from policy to program implementation—including analysis of the curriculum, in-depth interviews with 10 staff, and in-depth interviews and focus gro…
"Saving Marriage Culture "One Marriage at a Time: Relationship Education and the Reinstitutionalization of Marriage in an Era of Individualism
Family Values: Between Neoliberalism and the New Social Conservatism
Learning to Labor, Love, and Live: Shaping the Good Neoliberal Citizen in State Work and Marriage Programs
Promoting work and marriage were primary aims of the 1996 welfare reform bill, yet implementation of these dual goals has not been analyzed comparatively. In analyzing our respective ethnographic data from government-funded work and marriage classes, we identified similarities in the programs' focus on teaching the cognitive and emotional skills presumed to comprise what we call the good neoliberal citizen. Drawing on the programs' curricula and …
Pregnant Embodiment and Field Research
Feminist scholars have long argued for embodied reflexivity that involves accounting for how embodiment shapes qualitative field research as an intersubjective process. This chapter draws on ethnographic research with sixty-four low-income men of color who participated in a US government-funded fatherhood program conducted when the author was visibly pregnant with her first child. It analyzes pregnant embodiment as a strategy for facilitating rap…
Role Modeling Responsibility: The Essential Father Discourse in Responsible Fatherhood Programming and Policy
Drawing on in-depth interviews and focus groups with 64 poor men of color, this article analyzes how a U.S. federally funded “responsible fatherhood” program transmitted a discourse of paternal essentiality, claiming that fathers as masculine role models uniquely contribute to child development. It reveals how, despite lack of evidence that fathers make indispensable gendered contributions to parenting, the focus on male role modeling resonated f…
Harder Being Without the Baby: Fathers' Coparenting Perspectives in Responsible Fatherhood Programming
ObjectiveThe objective of this study was to analyze how marginalized men's coparenting perspectives and experiences shaped their engagement with a responsible fatherhood program (RFP).BackgroundPrevious studies of fathers enrolled in RFPs found that their coparenting relationships have both positive and negative components and that program participation is associated with better coparenting communication. Yet men also report strained coparenting …
Willing to Do Anything for My Kids: Inventive Mothering, Diapers, and the Inequalities of Carework
Prior research highlights how mothers across social classes express similar beliefs that good parenting adheres to the tenets of intensive mothering by being child-centered, time-consuming, and self-sacrificing. Yet intensive mothering ideologies emphasize parenting tactics that assume children's basic needs are met, while ignoring how mothers in poverty devise distinctive childrearing strategies and logics to perform carework demanded by depriva…
Addressing diaper need as racial stratification through intersectional family justice
Objective To use racial stratification and intersectional family justice frameworks to analyze experiences of and efforts to address diaper need. Background One in three American families with infants and toddlers struggles with insufficient access to diapers, which can have negative social, physical, and economic implications for family well‐being. Prior research has yet to examine diaper need as a form of racial stratification, despite existing…
Fixing a Leaky U.S. Social Safety Net: Diapers, Policy, and Low-Income Families
Changing work, family, and policy trends converged to increase diaper need in recent decades. Safety net programs do not cover diapers, and diaper policy proposals have met limited success. Based on interviews with seventy mothers who experienced diaper need, this article examines how diapers shape low-income parents’ caregiving and why income and public aid are not always enough to cover diapers. Mothers described stigma associated with lacking …
Still a Mother: Noncustodial Mothers, Gendered Institutions, and Social Change
Why Don't They Just Use Cloth?' Gender Policy Vacuums and the Inequalities of Diapering
Drawing on feminist theories of parenting and the welfare state, I analyze experiences of diaper need as a case of how gender, class, and race inequalities shape the social organization of caregiving and limited policy responses. Data from in-depth interviews with 70 mothers who experienced diaper need and 40 diaper bank staff revealed obstacles low-income mothers face in managing lack of access to children's basic needs and how gendered assumpti…
Diaper Despair and Deflecting Inequalities
How class blindness undermines collective solutions to collective problems–and creates a situation that just plain stinks
Marginalize or Valorize: A Two-Case Study of Parental Essentialism and Fathers' Social Location
The idea that children need a mother and a father to thrive is a hegemonic ideology of parenting, yet research finds that children do equally well in families with two parents of any gender. Prior research has not addressed how social location shapes parents' engagement with gender essentialist ideologies of parenting. Filling this gap, we analyze ethnographic and interview data based on the experiences of poor fathers of color and mostly white, …
Racial Disparities in Incidence of Diaper Dermatitis and Implications for Diaper Inequities
Objectives: To examine if the likelihood of infants and toddlers requiring medical care for diaper dermatitis, a condition linked to infrequent diaper changes and possible diaper need, is different across racial/ethnic groups. Materials/Methods: This is a population-based retrospective study. We collected data via public records requests from the California Department of Health Care Access and Information to determine the number of patients aged …
Essentially a Mother: A Feminist Approach to the Law of Pregnancy and Motherhood
Sociology (20 works) · Political science (17 works) · Gender Studies (13 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (11 works) · Psychology (11 works) · Family Dynamics and Relationships (9 works) · Law (9 works) · Politics (8 works) · Social science (8 works) · Work-Family Balance Challenges (8 works)