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Deadbeat Dads : Subjectivity and Social Construction / Deena Mandell.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2002]Copyright date: ©2002Description: 1 online resource (272 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780802083180
  • 9781442673731
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 306.89/0851 22
LOC classification:
  • HQ756 .M342 2002eb
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Summary: The "deadbeat dad" is a common figure in today's news media. As an experienced social worker, family therapist and mediator, Deena Mandell is intimate with legal and institutional discourses on the topic, but also with the lived reality of those involved in support conflict. In Deadbeat Dads, she addresses the question: "Why hasn't child support enforcement solved the problem of non-payment?"Non-payment of child support is all-too-easily categorized as an individual act of deviance or moral failing, or as having purely economic ill effects. One consequence of this is to actually reinforce resistance and disengagement on the part of fathers, by causing them to see themselves as victims, whose personal rights are under threat. Thus, in the author's words, "In the discursive struggle between the state's protection of its financial interests?and the fathers' focus on their personal rights, the needs of children literally disappear."Dr Mandell constructs a complex, nuanced argument around findings from interviews with a small sample of separated fathers, augmented with the perspectives of enforcement personnel such as judges, mediators and lawyers, and with firsthand observation of courtroom discussion. This is a qualitative study that lets informants speak for themselves, but subjects the resulting insights to critical analysis.
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Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781442673731

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http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

The "deadbeat dad" is a common figure in today's news media. As an experienced social worker, family therapist and mediator, Deena Mandell is intimate with legal and institutional discourses on the topic, but also with the lived reality of those involved in support conflict. In Deadbeat Dads, she addresses the question: "Why hasn't child support enforcement solved the problem of non-payment?"Non-payment of child support is all-too-easily categorized as an individual act of deviance or moral failing, or as having purely economic ill effects. One consequence of this is to actually reinforce resistance and disengagement on the part of fathers, by causing them to see themselves as victims, whose personal rights are under threat. Thus, in the author's words, "In the discursive struggle between the state's protection of its financial interests?and the fathers' focus on their personal rights, the needs of children literally disappear."Dr Mandell constructs a complex, nuanced argument around findings from interviews with a small sample of separated fathers, augmented with the perspectives of enforcement personnel such as judges, mediators and lawyers, and with firsthand observation of courtroom discussion. This is a qualitative study that lets informants speak for themselves, but subjects the resulting insights to critical analysis.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Nov 2023)