Single Parents, 1st ed. 2021 Representations and Resistance in an International Context Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life Series

Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Berit Åström is Associate Professor of English Literature at Umeå University, Sweden. Her research focuses on the representation of mothers, motherhood and mothering in literature, film and television. Her recent publications include The Absent Mother in the Cultural Imagination (2017).

Disa Bergnehr is Professor of Education at Linnaeus University, Sweden. Her primary research areas are (nuclear, single and refugee) family life, home-school relations, schooling in disadvantaged areas, children’s socialization, and children’s and parents' wellbeing and agency.

Examines representations and self representations of single parenthood in different national contexts and in various media

Considers societal attitudes towards single parents against the background of the rise of nationalism and rapidly shifting political landscapes of the twenty-first century

Explores the intersectionality of solo mothering and fathering, social class, minority experience and cultural conceptions of parenthood against dominant national discourses about inclusion, immigration, welfare support/austerity policies (housing and food security), inequality and family policy