Minneapolis, MN – The National Council on Family Relations’ (NCFR) Feminism and Family Studies Section has conferred its two prestigious Jessie Bernard awards in feminist research to Lori Kinkler and Hyun-Kyung You. Both awards are presented in memory of Jessie Bernard, former NCFR President and pioneer in the field of Feminist Family Studies.

Lori Kinkler is winner of the Jessie Bernard Award for Outstanding Research Proposal from a Feminist Perspective for "Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Single Adoptive Parents by Choice: Perceived Stigma, Challenges, and Support." Ms. Kinkler is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Clark University. She is interested in how social categories such as gender, sexual orientation, and race contribute to one’s experiences, challenges, and sometimes, stigma. She has a strong desire to examine the ways in which an essentialist approach to the study of gender issues serves to support certain political agendas which ultimately harm and marginalize groups identified as “different.” Because of this, she is committed to investigating gender, sexual orientation, and race categories using qualitative methods to give a voice to marginal groups and counteract distorted conclusions typically emphasized in more traditional research.

Hyun-Kyung You, Assistant Professor in Human Development and Family Studies at Central Michigan University, is the winner of the Outstanding Contribution to Feminist Scholarship Paper Award for "The Intersection of Motherhood and Disability: Being a 'Good' Korean Mother to an 'Imperfect' Child." She received her doctoral degree from Oregon State University in 2009. She is interested in the study of the dialectic interaction between agency and sociocultural systems with the social constructionist and feminist perspectives. Dr. You’s research aims at better understanding motherhood in the context of child’s disability, specifically autism spectrum disorders. Her research interests also include cross-cultural understanding of motherhood, acculturation experiences of immigrant families with young children, and transnational families with young children.

The National Council on Family Relations is the nation’s premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of over 3600 family researchers, practitioners and educators.  For more information on the National Council on Family Relations or its scholarly publications, contact NCFR at 1-888-781-9331 or visit its website at www.ncfr.org.