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Family Policy Matters

Web Resources

  1. Ira Sharenow and Cigarette Smoke, Wisconsin. Ira Sharenow received the Mother Jones’ Hellraiser award for his work on banning indoor cigarette smoke in restaurants in his hometown and eventually across the state. This article written in 1996 describes his activism. [Resource] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/1996/09/mojos-september-hellraiser
  2. Barbara Johns and the Civil Rights Movement, Virginia. At age 16, Barbara Rose Johns Powell became a civil rights activist. In response to her dissatisfaction with conditions at the Prince Edward County school, a teacher advised that she do something about it. So she did. Read more in her biography from the Robert Russa Moton Museum. [Resource] http://www.motonmuseum.org/biography-barbara-rose-johns-powell/
  3. Building Skills to Get Involved in Family Policy. For examples of how to get involved and the skills needed to be successful, see the Skill Building section of the Family Impact Institute website. [Resource] www.familyimpactseminars.org
  4. Six Disruptive Demographic Trends: What Census 2010 Will Reveal. This article from January 2011 presents an overview of some of the major demographic changes that affect family life. [Resource] http://www.kenan-flagler.unc.edu/kenan-institute/publications/census-2010-trends
  5. Data and Reports on Families. For reports and resources that provide various types of child and family outcome data, see the Family Data section of the Family Impact Institute website. [Resource] www.familyimpactseminars.org
  6. Doing Better for Families. All 34 countries associated with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) want to give parents more choice in their work and family decisions. This 2011 book from the OECD, Doing Better for Families, looks at the different ways in which governments support families. It seeks to provide answers to questions such as: What is the trend in spending on family benefits and does it vary by the age of the child? Has the economic crisis affected public support for families? Do parental leave programs influence mothers’ labor force participation and children’s well-being? Is the cost of childcare an impediment to parental employment and would flexible workplace options help? What is the best time for mothers to go back to work after childbirth? What policies are most effective in reducing poverty among single mothers? [Resource] http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264098732-en
  7. Parent Views on Time Spent at Work and Home. Parents find their time spent with children more rewarding and also more tiring than time spent at work in this 2013 analysis from the Pew Research Center; the report examines gender differences in which types of activities parents engage in and what meaning they find in these activities. A press release of the report is at this link. [Resource] http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/10/08/parents-time-with-kids-more-rewarding-than-paid-work-and-more-exhausting/. The full report is at this link. [Resource]
    http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2013/10/parental-time-use_10-2013.pdf
  8. The Education of Sara McLanahan. This subsection of the longer article, “Dan Quayle Was Right” by Barbara DaFoe Whitehead, summarizes how Sara McLanahan became interested in studying the effects of single parents on children and why she was surprised by the results of her studies. [Resource] http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1993/04/dan-quayle-was-right/307015/
  9. Using Kids Count Data to Inform Family Policy Decisions. This video by Voices for Utah Children was created, in part, by students from the University of Utah in 2013, using information from Annie E. Casey’s KIDS COUNT project; it aims to bring KIDS COUNT data and statistics to life by showing what the state is doing right for kids and where improvements could be made. (3:38) [Video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKDbAoJHHfw
  10. The Rise and Fall of Poverty as a Policy Issue. This well-received presentation, given by UW-Madison Senior Scientist Tom Corbett at a fall 2013 event for the Institute for Research on Poverty, overviews the trajectory of poverty policy in the United States over the last century. This talk can be assigned as a class reading or incorporated into a mini lecture on the origins of poverty policy. [Resource] http://www.irp.wisc.edu/newsevents/workshops/teachingpoverty101/participants/Presentations/Corbett-Pov101-Talk.pdf
  11. Impact of Family Involvement on the Education of Children. This 2013 report from MDRC summarizes ten years of research on how families’ involvement in children’s learning and development through activities at home and at school affects the literacy, mathematics, and social-emotional skills of children ages three to eight. [Resource] http://www.mdrc.org/publication/impact-family-involvement-education-children-ages-3-8?utm_source=MDRC+Updates&utm_campaign=16569d481d-October_31_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_504d5ac165-16569d481d-34966201
  12. Assessing the Family Impact of Policies, Programs, and Practices. For resources on (a) assessing family impact, (b) guidelines for conducting family impact analysis, and (c) examples of family impact analyses on a range of policies and programs, see the Family Impact section of the Family Impact Institute website. [Resource] www.familyimpactseminars.org
  13. Survey Data on Marriage and Families by the Pew Research Center. This 2010 report, The Decline of Marriage and Rise of New Families, addresses such questions as whether marriage is becoming obsolete, how marriage is affected by money, whether love trumps money, and how the public defines family. [Resource] http://pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/11/pew-social-trends-2010-families.pdf
  14. Annual Kids Count Data by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. This annual report, the 2012 Kids Count Data Book: State Trends in Child Well-being, illustrates what a difference a state makes in child well-being with its state-by-state tracking of a number of child indicators. [Resource] http://www.aecf.org/~/media/Pubs/Initiatives/KIDS%20COUNT/123/2012KIDSCOUNTDataBook/KIDSCOUNT2012DataBookFullReport.pdf
  15. Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 1939 Annual State of the Union Address to Congress. The President argues that, “Our nation's program of social and economic reform is therefore a part of defense, as basic as armaments themselves.” This speech could be discussed in class to determine the themes that are similar to and different from a state of the union address by a current president. [Resource] http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=15684#axzz2iTwii6CY
  16. Julia Lathrop, Head of the 1912 Children’s Bureau in the Department of Commerce and Labor. Jane Addams and her network of supporters lobbied President William Howard Taft to appoint Julia Lathrop as head of the Bureau. Lathrop became the first woman in charge of a federal government agency. Her impressive career is detailed in this biography from the National Women’s History Museum. [Resource] http://www.nwhm.org/education-resources/biography/biographies/julia-lathrop/
  17. The Activism of Florence Kelley Before Women Had the Right to Vote. In 1899, Kelley became head of the National Consumer's League (NCL), a position she held for over 30 years. She also helped organize the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was a founder of the National Child Labor Committee, and contributed greatly to the creation of the U.S. Children's Bureau. Her activism is detailed in this biography from the Harvard University Open Collections Program. [Resource] http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/kelley.html
  18. The 1921 Sheppard-Towner Act. On November 23, 1921, President Warren Harding signed the Sheppard-Towner Maternity and Infancy Protection Act, which contributed matching federal funds to states to establish and run prenatal and child health care centers. The University of Virginia Miller Center provides historical background. [Resource] http://millercenter.org/president/events/11_23
  19. The Employment Act of 1946 that Established the Council of Economic Advisers. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan recommended that families are in need of a law such as the Employment Act. Students can read the Social Security Administration Bulletin account of the Employment Act and discuss the ways a similar act could be designed for families. [Resource] http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v9n3/v9n3p25.pdf
  20. Focusing on Families in Australian Policymaking. The Australian Institute of Family Studies is a research institute within the Australian government charged with providing an evidence base for developing policy and practice related to the well-being of families. Former director Harry McGurk, one of the pioneers of family impact analysis, promoted its use within the Institute; in this brief report from 1994, he discusses the ways in which family considerations are being raised on the public and political agenda. [Resource] http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/fm/fm39hm.pdf
  21. Is Partisanship and Polarization Increasing in the U.S.? Advancing the use of evidence in policymaking may be one way to build common ground amidst rising polarization and declining civility within U.S. politics; this webpage overviews the evidence of declining civility and increasing political polarization in recent years. [Resource] http://www.civilpolitics.org/content/has-civility-declined
  22. Federal Evidence-Based Social Policy Initiatives. This 2011 paper, written by Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution and Jon Baron of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy, outlines the Obama Administration’s plan to promote and strengthen the use of rigorous research in U.S. social policy decisions, by focusing on and funding evidence-based social policy initiatives. [Resource] http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/articles/2011/4/obama%20social%20policy%20haskins/04_obama_social_policy_haskins.pdf
  23. Family Impact Seminars. Researchers and policy experts have presented to state legislators on a range of family-relevant topics at Family Impact Seminars convened in states throughout the country; a variety of seminar topics, presentations slides, and seminar audio/video recordings can be viewed at the State Seminars section of the Family Impact Institute website. [Resource] http://familyimpactseminars.org/
  24. Tools for Teaching Family Policy. On the Family Impact Institute’s website, there are resources about the precepts and philosophies from which good courses and high teaching evaluations are made including undergraduate and graduate syllabi, definitions, activities, assignments, etc. [Resource] Check out the teaching family policy section of www.familyimpactseminars.org.
  25. Presenting Unbiased Information on Both Sides of an Issue. ProCon.org is nonprofit organization with the mission of providing resources for critical thinking and educating the public without bias; the goal of their website is to highlight a number of high-profile, controversial policy issues and present background information along with pro and con arguments on each side of the topic in a balanced, comprehensive, straightforward, and transparent way. [Resource] http://www.procon.org/