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Faculty

Lara Descartes

Lara Descartes

Assistant Professor

Department of Human Development & Family Studies
University of Connecticut
348 Mansfield Road, Unit 2058
Storrs, Connecticut 06269-2058

Phone: (860) 570-9221, West Hartford office
(860) 486-6263, Storrs office
E-Mail: lara.descartes@uconn.edu

Curriculum Vitae

Educational Background:

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, January, 2002
M.A., Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, April, 1995
M.S., Astronomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California, June, 1992
B.S., Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May, 1990

Professional Interests:

  • Support relationships among family members, particularly 1) between adult siblings and 2) between parents and their adult children
  • Work and family
  • Issues affecting family life related to identity: race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality
  • Issues affecting family life related to place: urban centers, suburbs, rural areas
  • Qualitative methods and mixed methods

Selected Publications:

  • Descartes, Lara and Conrad P. Kottak "Chauffeuring and Commuting: A Story of Work, Family, Class, and Community" Journal of Community, Work, and Family (In press, to be published in issue 10(3), August 2007)
  • Descartes, Lara, Conrad P. Kottak, and Autumn Kelly (2002) "Moms and Minivans: Maintaining a Middle Class Lifestyle in a Small Town" University of Michigan CEEL Working Paper 032-02
  • Descartes, Lara (2002) A Comparative Study Of Informal Support Networks in Culver City, California University of Michigan Dissertation #30012 (Ph.D.) University of Michigan
  • Descartes, Lara and Conrad P. Kottak (2001) "Media in the Middle: Work, Family, and Media Use in a Middle Class Midwestern Town" University of Michigan CEEL Working Paper 023-01
  • Descartes, Lara and Conrad P. Kottak (2000) "Media and the Work/Family Interface" University of Michigan CEEL Working Paper 007-00
  • Descartes, Lara "Surveying the Big City" (1999) Anthropology Newsletter 40(3):26

Selected Presentations:

  • "Creating and Maintaining Middle Class Family Life in a Small Town," at the November, 2005 annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.
  • "The Effect Upon Black Women's Support Networks of Family Transitions to the Middle Class," at the November, 2005 annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations.
  • "Ethnographic Observation in Family Research: Rewards, Challenges, and Issues of Identity," a roundtable at the November, 2004 annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations.
  • "Marriage and its Connection to Kin-Based Support Network Participation: A Cross-Racial Perspective," at the 2003 annual meeting of the National Council on Family Relations.
  • "The Impact of Middle Class Mores of Childhood Leisure on Maternal Work," at the 2002 conference "Gender, Leisure, and Identity," sponsored by the West of England and South Wales Women's History Network.

Teaching:

  • HDFS 201 Diversity Issues in Human Development and Family Studies
  • HDFS 270 Low Income Families
  • HDFS 277 Issues in Human Sexuality
  • HDFS 278 Family in Society
  • HDFS 304 Qualitative Research Methods
  • HDFS 377 Human Sexuality