Alice Fothergill

Lori Peek

Winner, Betty and Alfred McClung Lee Book Award, Association for Humanist Sociology, 2016 Outstanding Scholarly Contribution Award of the Section on Children and Youth, American Sociological Association, 2016 Honorable Mention, Leo Goodman Award, Methodology Section, American Sociological Association, 2016 When children experience upheaval and trauma, adults often view them as either vulnerable and helpless or as resilient and able to easily “bounce back.” But the reality is far more complex for the children and youth whose lives are suddenly upended by disaster. How are children actually affected by catastrophic events and how do they cope with the damage and disruption? Children of Katrina offers one of the only long-term, multiyear studies of young people following disaster. Sociologists Alice Fothergill and Lori Peek spent seven years after Hurricane Katrina interviewing and observing several hundred children and their family members, friends, neighbors, teachers, and other caregivers. In this book, they focus intimately on seven children between the ages of three and eighteen, selected because they exemplify the varied experiences of the larger group. They find that children followed three different post-disaster trajectories—declining, finding equilibrium, and fluctuating—as they tried to regain stability. The children’s moving stories illuminate how a devastating disaster affects individual health and well-being, family situations, housing and neighborhood contexts, schooling, peer relationships, and extracurricular activities. This work also demonstrates how outcomes were often worse for children who were vulnerable and living in crisis before the storm. Fothergill and Peek clarify what kinds of assistance children need during emergency response and recovery periods, as well as the individual, familial, social, and structural factors that aid or hinder children in getting that support.

Children of Katrina

Deborah S.K. Thomas

Brenda D. Phillips

Lynn Blinn-Pike

In recent years, the world has watched in horror as tsunamis, earthquakes, and hurricanes have wrought havoc across countries and continents. While these events have different circumstances, they share a common factor: the overwhelming majority of victims are women, children, elderly, disadvantaged, or disabled. Evidence gathered from these events

Social Vulnerability to Disasters

William E. Lovekamp

The 2010 Haiti and Chili earthquakes, the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the 2011 Fukushima earthquake and tsunami in Japan are but a few examples of recent catastrophic events that continue to reveal how social structure and roles produce extensive human suffering and differential impacts on individuals and communities. These events

An in-depth exploration of women's lives after a natural disaster.

Gender, Class, and Family in the Grand Forks Flood

Heads above Water

When children experience upheaval and trauma, adults often view them as either vulnerable and helpless or as resilient and able to easily “bounce back.” But the reality is far more complex for the children and youth whose lives are suddenly upended by disaster. How are children actually affected by catastrophic events and how do they cope with the damage and disruption? Children of Katrina offers one of the only long-term, multiyear studies of young people following disaster. Sociologists Alice Fothergill and Lori Peek spent seven years after Hurricane Katrina interviewing and observing several hundred children and their family members, friends, neighbors, teachers, and other caregivers. In this book, they focus intimately on seven children between the ages of three and eighteen, selected because they exemplify the varied experiences of the larger group. They find that children followed three different post-disaster trajectories—declining, finding equilibrium, and fluctuating—as they tried to regain stability. The children’s moving stories illuminate how a devastating disaster affects individual health and well-being, family situations, housing and neighborhood contexts, schooling, peer relationships, and extracurricular activities. This work also demonstrates how outcomes were often worse for children who were vulnerable and living in crisis before the storm. Fothergill and Peek clarify what kinds of assistance children need during emergency response and recovery periods, as well as the individual, familial, social, and structural factors that aid or hinder children in getting that support.

Alice Fothergill

Books

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