@article{thomeer_brantley_reczek_2024, title={Cumulative Disadvantage or Strained Advantage? Remote Schooling, Paid Work Status, and Parental Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic}, ISSN={["2150-6000"]}, DOI={10.1177/00221465241230505}, abstractNote={ During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents experienced difficulties around employment and children’s schooling, likely with detrimental mental health implications. We analyze National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 data (N = 2,829) to estimate depressive symptom changes from 2019 to 2021 by paid work status and children’s schooling modality, considering partnership status, gender, and race-ethnicity differences. We draw on cumulative disadvantage theory alongside strained advantage theory to test whether mental health declines were steeper for parents with more disadvantaged statuses or for parents with more advantaged statuses. Parents with work disruptions, without paid work, or with children in remote school experienced the greatest increases in depressive symptoms, with steepest increases among single parents without paid work and single parents with children in remote school (cumulative disadvantage), fathers without paid work (strained advantage), and White parents with remote school (strained advantage). We discuss the uneven impacts of the pandemic on mental health and implications for long-term health disparities. }, journal={JOURNAL OF HEALTH AND SOCIAL BEHAVIOR}, author={Thomeer, Mieke Beth and Brantley, Mia and Reczek, Rin}, year={2024}, month={Feb} } @article{thomeer_brantley_hernandez_2024, title={Using mixed methods approaches to study families and relationships}, ISSN={["1741-3737"]}, DOI={10.1111/jomf.12974}, abstractNote={AbstractMixed methods research—methodologies that synthesize qualitative and quantitative approaches in the design, collection, analysis, and dissemination of research related to a specific topic or aim—is increasingly common, offering innovative empirical insight into families and relationships. We first elaborate on our definition of mixed methods research, emphasizing that there is significant heterogeneity within mixed methods approaches to studying families and relationships. Second, we discuss benefits of mixed methods projects within family and relationship research, including theory building and innovation. Third, we provide practical suggestions for designing and implementing a mixed methods project, highlighting useful resources for researchers as they develop research questions, plan designs, collect and analyze data, and disseminate findings. We emphasize the unique opportunities from abductive analytic approaches for mixed methods researchers and point to the need for reflexivity. Fourth, we consider common obstacles associated with disseminating mixed methods research and explain why family researchers need “mixed methods literacy” regardless of their research paradigm. Finally, we identify key areas of future growth for mixed methods researchers. We advocate that understanding mixed methods research has practical benefits, even for researchers not using these approaches. To cohesively build—and critique—our knowledge of families and relationships, family and relationship researchers across paradigms should be familiar with the basic tenets, strengths, and limitations of qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research.}, journal={JOURNAL OF MARRIAGE AND FAMILY}, author={Thomeer, Mieke Beth and Brantley, Mia and Hernandez, Elaine M.}, year={2024}, month={Feb} } @article{brantley_2023, title={Can't Just Send Our Children Out: Intensive Motherwork and Experiences of Black Motherhood}, ISSN={["1533-8533"]}, DOI={10.1093/socpro/spad047}, abstractNote={AbstractRace and racism play an integral role in shaping mothering practices. Specifically, motherwork examines how Black mothers use strategies and practices to shield children from, as well as help them navigate through, experiences of racism. The necessity of these mothering practices may be fundamental in how motherhood is experienced for Black women. This study used qualitative in-depth semi-structured interviews with 35 predominantly middle-class Black mothers of children in adolescence and young/emerging adulthood. A grounded theoretical and Black feminist approach was taken to analyze data. Black mothers take on numerous laborious and exhaustive strategies to shield their children from racism through what I theorize as the concept of intensive motherwork. I define intensive motherwork as the exhaustive efforts and effects of Black mothers protecting and empowering their children and themselves in the face of anti-Black racism. Intensive motherwork can be seen in three broad themes: (1) protective mothering, (2) resistance mothering, and (3) encumbered mothering. This work expands current discourse on Black families by highlighting the overlap between the intensive nature of Black women’s mothering, the laborious practices that are deployed, and the role of race and racism on Black women’s mothering experience.}, journal={SOCIAL PROBLEMS}, author={Brantley, Mia}, year={2023}, month={Sep} }