About

Dr. Tamar Kremer-Sadlik is an Associate Adjunct Professor at UCLA in the Department of Anthropology. Her research focuses on family life, emphasizing socio-cultural ideologies and expectations that organize and give meaning to family relationships and everyday practices. She examines the relationships between local worldviews on family, work, childhood, parenting, and morality, and how these influence the everyday experiences of family members. Her work studies cultural norms and preferences embedded in institutional policies and public discourses, and how these shape practices such as childrearing, time and resource allocation, participation in social activities, and family decision-making. Additionally, her research explores the co-construction and negotiation of self, identity, and social roles as individuals navigate cultural, institutional, social, and personal demands and expectations. Dr. Kremer-Sadlik collaborates regularly with researchers in Italy and France, drawing on theories from linguistic and psychological anthropology, sociology, and psychology, and employs qualitative methods such as ethnography and semi-structured interviews, supplemented by surveys and questionnaires. She is also the Academic Director of the Master of Social Science (MaSS) program.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Social Science
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Art
• Economics
• Law
• Social psychology
• Gender studies
• Aesthetics
• Political economy
• Medicine
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• The reflective eater: Socializing French children to eating fruits and vegetables

  Appetite · 2022 · 11 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Psychology
  • Developmental psychology
  PublisherDOI

• Talk labour and doing ‘being neoliberal mother’

  Gender and Language · 2021 · 7 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Gender studies

  This essay considers the gendered work of childrearing through Harvey Sacks’ (1992) concept of doing ‘being ordinary’. While doing ‘being ordinary’ under-girds social order, what constitutes ‘ordinary’ changes over time. Neoliberalism ushered in middle-class childrearing ideologies that encourage parents to share ever more intensive responsibilities; yet, mothers ordinarily continue to assume the lion’s portion. Central to the intensive parenting practices primarily carried out by mothers is what we call ‘talk labour’, wherein dialoguing with children as conversational partners, beginning in infancy, is constant. The ubiquity of talk makes ordinary for young children a communicative style of heightened reflexivity about their own and others’ actions, ideas and sentiments – skills conducive to becoming a successful actor in the knowledge economy. This essay ties intensification of child-directed talk, critical to ‘doing being neoliberal mother’, to social transformations in family life rooted in modernity and the Industrial Revolution.

  PublisherDOI

• 12. The Good Enough Family

  2019-12-31 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2019-12-31

  book-chapterSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• 11. Time For Family

  2019-12-31 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Ordinary Ethics and Reflexivity in Mundane Family Interactions

  Ethos · 2019-06-01 · 18 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract This article examines morality as it is experienced in the quotidian running of family life through an analysis of video‐recorded spontaneous family interactions in Los Angeles, California. It argues that certain interactions afford the unfolding of morality experience through reflexive talk, in which speakers “bracket” the ongoing experience in order to critically reflect on it, thus making the ethical known. It demonstrates that often the underlying moral trouble is not immediately apparent and is not necessarily concerned with the momentary details. Instead, the interactional moment incites the speaker to shift to a reflexive stance and address a moral concern. The ubiquitous nature of this moral work exposes the contemporary pressures that parents experience as they negotiate the best ways to parent, raise moral children, and become virtuous families.

  PublisherDOI

• 7. Homework And Recreation

  2019-12-31 · 17 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Invited Forum: Bridging the “Language Gap”

  Journal of Linguistic Anthropology · 2015-05-01 · 224 citations

  articleCorresponding

  This Forum provides a range of voices on the Language Gap, as our aim is to shed light on the need for more critical dialogue to accompany the proliferation of political initiatives, policymaking, educational programs, and media coverage. We highlight some relevant background on the Language Gap and describe some of the research used to support the concept. The diverse slate of Forum contributions that we have assembled approach the Language Gap topic from a range of linguistic anthropological perspectives—theoretical, empirical, political, ethnographic, personal, and experiential. Based on an acknowledgment of the need to improve educational access for economically and culturally diverse students, the subsequent discussions provide a range of perspectives designed to move away from denouncing and altering home language skills as a panacea for academic woes and social inequity. Linguistic anthropology's focus on language learning ecologies, and the sophistication therein, provides a novel perspective on the Language Gap. The contributions included below problematize existing ideologies, demonstrate the wealth of resources within various communities, and propose new directions for school practices and policymaking in an effort to bridge the “language gap” toward a more inclusive and discerning view of linguistic practices across diverse groups. Video Abstract

  PublisherDOI

• Eating fruits and vegetables. An ethnographic study of American and French family dinners

  Appetite · 2015-01-20 · 32 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How Postindustrial Families Talk

  Annual Review of Anthropology · 2015-07-25 · 88 citations

  articleSenior author

  The nuclear family is both crucible and product of capitalism and modernity, carried forth and modified across generations through ordinary communicative and other social practices. Focusing on postindustrial middle-class families, this review analyzes key discursive practices that promote “the entrepreneurial child” who can display creative language and problem-solving skills requisite to enter the globalized knowledge class as adults. It also considers how the entrepreneurial thrust, including the democratization of the parent–child relationship and exercise of individual desire, complicates family cooperation. Family quality time, heightened child-centeredness, children's social involvement as parental endeavor, children's autonomy and freedom, and postindustrial intimacies organize how family members communicate from morning to night.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Elinor Ochs

  University of California, Los Angeles

  9 shared

• Marilena Fatigante

  Sapienza University of Rome

  4 shared

• Aliyah Morgenstern

  3 shared

• Carolina Izquierdo

  2 shared

• Camille Debras

  2 shared

• Kris D. Gutiérrez

  2 shared

• Stéphanie Caët

  Université de Lille

  2 shared

• Marine Le Mené

  2 shared