• 244 (TC2B-1) A Bourdieuian Approach to Family and Community. Presented by:Todd L. Goodsell

• 244 (TC2B-2) Building Positive Cascades: A Conceptual Model. Presented by: Jennifer L. Doty and K. Laurel Davis

Abstracts

244 (TC2B-1) A Bourdieuian Approach to Family and Community. 

Presented by:Todd L. Goodsell

Bourdieu’s theory centers on the concepts of habitus, capital, and field. Agents struggle over the distribution of resources (capital) in order to acquire legitimacy within a given social context. Those with corresponding dispositions and adequate resources will be able to position themselves to acquire additional capital, and ultimately acquire symbolic capital, or legitimacy or respect, which guarantees future accumulation. Family is a realized category granted such legitimacy within contemporary American culture. The present paper argues that middle-class Americans use community capital as a resource in order to protect and expand family capital.

244 (TC2B-2) Building Positive Cascades: A Conceptual Model.

Presented by: Jennifer L. Doty and K. Laurel Davis

This paper proposes a conceptual model that links micro and macro patterns of change in family interventions to better understand positive developmental cascades. Effective parenting is conceptualized as a social resource.  Improvements in effective parenting build confidence and a belief in parenting abilities.   Resulting positive emotions are hypothesized to broaden coping and build long term resources.  Social resources may then have benefits that contribute to an upward spiral, benefitting both parents and children.  The building cascades model emphasizes the possibility of positive cascades between generations.  With better understanding of pathways, positive cascades could become a feasible goal of intervention research.