Teresa Swartz
Assitant Professor
Ph.D. 2001 University of California San Diego
Room 933 Social Sciences
tel.: 612-626-1862
email: tswartz@umn.edu
Interest Areas
Families; Race, Class and Gender; Asian American Studies; Foster Care and Child Welfare; Transitions to Adulthood; and Care Work.
Current Research
Growing Up But Not Apart: Intergenerational Relationships During the Transition to Adulthood. Drawing on interviews with 450 young adults from 5 U.S. cities, this book examines intergenerational support and relationships between parents and young adult children. Specific comparisons are made between Asian American, Latino, African American and white young adults and families. Attention is paid to differences across class, gender, immigration status and region of the country. This project is a part of the Research Network on Transitions to Adulthood funded by the Macarthur Foundation.
“Growing Up Hmong in St. Paul, MN: Acculturation, Mobility, and Cultural Preservation in Intergenerational Perspective,” with Douglas Hartmann and Pao Lee. This project explores how young adult Hmong children of immigrants have understood and experienced their ethnic identities and cultural heritage over the course of growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota during the past decade. Attention is focused on how ethnic identity formation is mediated through intergenerational family relationships, aspirations for social mobility, and experiences with racial discrimination.
Recent Publications
“Intergenerational Relationships in the United States.” 2008. The Annual Review of Sociology, Karen Cook and Douglas Massey, eds. Volume 34.
“Family Capital and the Invisible Transfer of Privilege: Intergenerational Support and Social Class during the Transition to Adulthood.” 2008. In New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development: Special Issue on Social Class, Jeylan Mortimer, ed.
“The New Adulthood? The Transition to Adulthood from the Perspective of Transitioning Young Adults,” with Douglas Hartmann. 2007. In Constructing Adulthood: Agency and Subjectivity in the Life Course. Advances in Life Course Research, Vol. 10, Ross Macmillan, ed. Elsevier/JAI Press.
Parenting for the State: An Ethnographic Analysis of Non-Profit Foster Care. 2005. New York: Routledge.
“Mothering for the State: Foster Parenting and the Challenges of Government-Contracted Care Work.” 2004. Gender and Society. 18(5):567-587.