LECTURE TO DELVE INTO UNMARRIED MOTHERS' VIEWS

Kathryn Edin

Few demographic trends have sparked more controversy than the decades-long rise in nonmarital births among low-income women. Scholars, policymakers and pundits have all weighed in on the issue — but what do these women themselves have to say about marriage and motherhood? On Monday, Nov. 21, sociologists Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas will offer some answers to that question in a lecture sponsored by the Center for Communities, Ethnicities and Social Policy and the Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research. The talk, free and open to the public, will take place at the GSSWSR's Katherine Lower Lounge at 4:30 p.m.

Maria Kefalas

Edin, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, and Kefalas, an assistant professor of sociology and a fellow of the Institute for Violence Research and Prevention at St. Joseph's University, are the co-authors of the recently published Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage, which has been hailed as "the most important study ever written on motherhood and marriage among low-income urban women" by Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson.

Promises I Can Keep is based on extensive interviews with 162 low-income, single mothers in Philadelphia and Camden, N.J. Described by Ms. reviewer Celeste Fremon as "a revelation," the book offers an intimate look at what marriage and motherhood mean to these women and provides an extensive on-the-ground study of why they put children before marriage despite the daunting challenges they know lie ahead.

<<Back to Bryn Mawr Now 11/17/2005

Next story>>