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Despite the widespread popularity of United States (US) weddings and the cultural significance assigned to modern brides, scant research has examined US bridal femininity—an important site of analysis for understanding contemporary norms and expectations of femininity, more generally. In response to this gap, drawing on constructivist grounded theory and poststructural feminism, the present study examined 18 heterosexual, predominantly White, middle-class, cisgender US brides' experiences of their weddings. Analyses revealed that brides navigated expectations of niceness, engaging in both Princess Bride-like and "Bridezilla"-like behaviors and emotions. Implications for idealized femininity within a neoliberal context are considered.

In this article, deploying Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique and the fictional American icon Betty Crocker within a poststructural feminist analysis, the author analyzes a social science data set investigating how 18 contemporary wives think about wifehood. Crocker and Friedan are emblematic of the cultural DNA that make up wifehood: The mythical Betty Crocker represents the happy, traditional housewife of the 1950s, and Betty Friedan offers a critique of the happy, traditional housewife figure. Thinking about historical trends, in the 1950s to 1960s, femininity and families were rigidly prescribed and, thus, largely unquestioned. In the 21st century, with the influx of postfeminism, prescriptions for femininity and families are thought to be less rigid—but are they? Contemporary wives' identity negotiations mapped onto both Betty Crocker and Betty Friedan but remained anchored in the Betty Crocker image.

AbstractQualitative Secondary Data Analysis remains severely underutilized in Human Development and Family Sciences (HDFS). In this paper, we revisit the topic of qualitative secondary data analysis, exploring complications and possibilities. Major barriers to qualitative secondary data analysis are archiving data, availability of datasets, and knowledge and explicit models of qualitative data reanalysis. Foregrounding the importance of multilogicality, qualitative secondary data analysis moves away from linear, unidimensional, and restricted analyses and understandings. With exceptions, little published discussion exists about philosophical considerations and analytical tools that could be used for qualitative secondary data analysis within HDFS. In response to this deficit, we offer ideas and examples of qualitative secondary data analyses from our datasets. By reopening this can of words, we hope to (re) generate more discussion and encourage a greater number of HDFS scholars to archive their qualitative datasets and reuse existing qualitative datasets.

Teaching qualitative research methods (QRM), particularly early on in one's academic career, can be challenging. This paper describes shared peer journaling as one way in which to cope with challenges such as complex debates in the field and student resistance to interpretive paradigms. Literature on teaching QRM and the pedagogical value of journaling for metacognition are reviewed. The two authors describe key points about their teaching contexts and then demonstrate with journal excerpts how they developed (a) clarity, (b) confidence, and (c) connection through two years of co-creating their journal. The article concludes with recommendations for shared journal writing as well as ways to extend it.

Despite growing numbers of singles, the idealization of marriage and child rearing remains strong, pervasive, and largely unquestioned. Guided by life course perspective, the purpose of this article was to examine familial and societal messages women receive when not married by their late 20s to mid-30s. Using descriptive phenomenological method, the authors conducted 32 interviews with 10 middle-class, ever-single women. Respondents' social environments were characterized by pressure to confirm to the conventional life pathway. Pressure was manifested in women feeling both highly visible and invisible. Specifically, women's social worlds included (a) awareness of the changing reality as they became older (e.g., changing pool of eligible men, pregnancy risks), (b) reminders that they were on a different life path (i.e., visibility ) through others' inquires and "triggers" (e.g., weddings), and (c) displacement in their families of origin (i.e., invisibility). The authors discuss the visible/invisible paradox, which appeared to be pronounced at their life stage.

Introduction & background of the project -- Inherent challenges of transdisciplinary collaborations -- Data troubles : containment and unruliness -- Toward a methodology of discomfort -- Crises of legitimation magnified -- Audience data collection -- Curriculum -- Roads ahead : choosing pathways of discomfort and humility.

We continue the dialogue within Family Science about the pedagogical culture of qualitative research methods. Despite the rapidly growing enterprise of qualitative research, there has been minimal discussion in Family Science literature of content and teaching practices used in Family Science qualitative research methods courses. In response, we collected data primarily from graduate students enrolled in qualitative research methods courses and Family Science qualitative methods instructors. Using these data, we analyzed experiences and reflections of both groups. We offer recommendations for qualitative research methods in Family Science.

Using our dance/family studies transdisciplinary project as a site of analysis, we review the existing literature of arts/social science endeavors and share innovative methodological practices from our project. Unlike most arts/social science endeavors, our project is transdisciplinary and is based on a collaboration between a trained choreographer and dancer and a trained family scholar. The transdisciplinary nature of our project is highlighted in the choreographer's kinesthetic analysis of the family scholar's qualitative data, the use of a pilot study, duo‐memoing, and a strong commitment to sharing authorship of all our writing. Throughout the article, we highlight the benefits of our work for the field of family studies.

In this article we name "feelings of fraudulence," the experience of self‐awareness and self‐questioning that feminist family scholars often encounter in their work. We propose that such feelings arise from attempting to apply abstract feminist principles to specific research practices against the backdrop of social science's positivism, women's studies postmodernism(s), and an overlay of neoliberalism and postfeminism. These feelings of fraudulence should not be dismissed but should be embraced to promote what we theorize as feminist accountability. Using our research projects as sites of analysis, we share dilemmas of accountability in regard to feminist epistemology, agenda, and ethics within the contemporary context. We continue the conversation about feminist‐informed methodological practices and hope to offer other feminist family scholars comfort in responding to the uncertainty they encounter in their own feminist research journeys.