Father-Child Relations in Urban China

Authors

William R. Jankowiak, University of Nevada, Las VegasFollow

Document Type

Chapter

Publication Date

1992

Publication Title

Father-Child Relations: Cultural and Biosocial Contexts

Publisher

Transaction Publishers

Publisher Location

New York

First page number:

249

Last page number:

260

Abstract

Due to a greater involvement of American fathers in the direct care of their children in recent years, interest in the impact and nature of the father’s role in nurturing children has increased. While studies about fathers in the industrialized, literate West have proliferated, little is known about the role of fathers in the preliterate, non-Western world. This collection examines the diversity of paternal roles found in human cultures among various types of societies that are very peaceful and those that actively engage in warfare as a mode of existence.

Father-Child Relations recognizes the importance of understanding both biological and cultural aspects of the father’s role. Many of the contributors utilize evolutionary or biosocial models, including those of developmental psychology, to examine the father’s role, while others rely upon the symbolic analysis of cultural and social anthropology. One chapter is devoted to male-infant relationships in nonhuman primates, a further largely ignored comparative perspective.

The anthropologists who have contributed to this collection are field workers who have lived intimately over significant periods of time with the people about whom they are writing. These research reports from the field have been edited to make them wholly accessible to the non-specialist. The contributors of this volume recognize that biology and ideology are intertwined; both together influence the father’s behavior and the effects of his behavior.

Disciplines

Anthropology | Biological and Physical Anthropology | Folklore | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Social and Cultural Anthropology

Language

English

Permissions

Use Find in Your Library, contact the author, or use interlibrary loan to garner a copy of the article. Publisher copyright policy allows author to archive post-print (author’s final manuscript). When post-print is available or publisher policy changes, the article will be deposited

Repository Citation

Jankowiak, W. R. (1992). Father-Child Relations in Urban China. Father-Child Relations: Cultural and Biosocial Contexts 249-260. New York: Transaction Publishers.