Course syllabus

 

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Summary of Course Description:              

This course examines the relationship between contemporary families, gender and the late modern state. It does so, first, through reading and discussing theoretical literature on the family-gender-state nexus. The introduction to this more abstract literature sets the stage for an examination of the family-gender-state nexus through a focus on various aspects of contemporary family life that are shaped by social policies, national laws and state institutions. The aspects of contemporary family life that form the focus of our readings and discussions are likely to change from year to year but may include the state’s reliance on women’s unpaid care work; state control of motherhood and interests in mothering and how this varies by race/ethnicity and class; parental leave policies and involved fatherhood; state support for integrating work and family (e.g. flexible work entitlements, provisioning public child care), laws and policies related to the ‘post-separation family’, and family violence laws, policies and interventions. While the predominant focus of the course is on the heterosexual family, I welcome students who are interested in same-sex families and/or queer families and want to pursue research in relation to these families. 

 Course outcomes:

• Be able to critically discuss the contemporary state treatment of families from a feminist perspective, paying attention to gender differences and inequalities as well as how these intersect with other social structures of inequality, for example, ethnicity/race and sexuality;
• Be able to theorise the way gendered and other axes of inequality are articulated in state policies, programmes and laws and the implications of these articulations for different kinds of families, different family members and everyday family life;
• Be able to analyse and interrogate the influence of state policies and laws on your own family;
• Be able to draw on appropriate academic literature to develop and execute a research agenda;
• Be able to write well-researched, scholarly papers about various issues to do with familial life and the way they are treated in policy, programmes or law;
• Be able to present this research in written and oral formats.

Course delivery format:

This course is taught through weekly three-hour sessions that include discussion of assigned readings and other activities, for example, individual writing and reflection, small group exercises. Weekly attendance at the seminars is essential and you will need to come having read and prepared to discuss the assigned readings for the week.

There is no textbook for this course; all mandatory readings will be available via the library if in journal format or via Canvas if chapters in a print book. You are encouraged to search out additional readings to contribute to your own thinking and to class discussions and to draw class attention to news stories and other items of interest.

Indicative Weekly Topics

Week 1: Thinking about family/whanau

Week 2: Care, gender & families

Week 3: Autoethnography, gender families and the state

Week 4: The state, gender & families

Week 5: Welfare regimes, family policy & gender

Week 6: Governance, gender & neoliberalism

Week 7: Fathers, parental leave and the redistribution of care

Week 8: Family and domestic violence in policy and law

Week 9: Custody law – governing parents who live apart i

Week 10: Student presentations

Week 11: Student presentations

Week 12: Student presentations and wrap up

 

Assessment

1. An autoethnography exploring the family-gender-state nexus  (up to 30 marks; due 1 September at 9 am)
2. Research abstract and bibliography (10 marks; due 11 September)
3. Presentation (up to 20 marks; variable dates in October as assigned)
4. Research essay (up to 40 marks; due 2 November at 9 am)

 

Deadlines are important! Deadlines sharpen our focus, help us become motivated, encourage us to use our time wisely and provide us with an incentive to complete a project. Put more bluntly: deadlines support our accomplishments. Deadlines can’t operate as support structures unless they’re lines in the sand – they need to be taken seriously.

I take deadlines seriously and I want you to do so too.

However, this doesn’t mean that I am not empathetic to difficulties you might face in meeting the deadlines for this course. If you’re facing impediments to the submission of your essays by the due dates please talk with me, preferably face-to-face rather than by email, prior to the deadline. I may ask you to provide supporting information, like a doctor's or counsellor's certificate. Please let a doctor, a therapist or me be the judge of whether the impediment is worthy of an extension or not. In other words, if in doubt talk with me.  

Without an extension, late essays can still be submitted but you will lose a grade per day (i.e., an A essay will drop to an A- if it is one day late, a B+ to a B and so on).

An essay submitted more than one week late will not be accepted unless there are due grounds for granting you a retrospective extension. Again, let me be the judge of whether you have due grounds, but do keep in mind I am likely to ask you to produce evidence like a medical certificate.

No further extensions will be granted if you fail to submit your essay by the revised deadline unless you have re-negotiated that deadline.

 

Conduct 

Act with integrity and don’t cheat or plagiarise: Remember to provide an attribution for the source of ideas, paraphrased comments and quotes bynaming the source and providing page numbers.

This is the University of Auckland’s policy on plagiarism:
"The University of Auckland will not tolerate cheating, or assisting others to cheat, and views cheating in coursework as a serious academic offence. The work that a student submits for grading must be the student's own work, reflecting their learning. Where work from other sources is used, it must be properly acknowledged and referenced. This requirement also applies to sources on the world-wide web. A student's assessed work may be reviewed against electronic source material using computerised detection mechanisms. Upon reasonable request, students may be required to provide an electronic version of their work for computerised review."