Single Parents

Berit Astroem is Associate Professor of English Literature at Umea 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.

1.Introduction.- 2. Representation of Single Mothers in Petra Soukupova's Contemporary Czech Prose: Guilty Mothers and Uninvolved Fathers.- 3. Young Single Motherhood in Contemporary German and Irish Films: Lucy, Jelly Baby and Heartbreak.- 4. Unwed and Unwanted: Sofia and the Taboo of Single Motherhood in Morocco.- 5. Advice Books for Single Mothers Raising Sons: Biology, Culture and Guilt.- 6. Single Dads in the Entertainment Arena: Hegemonic Hierarchies and Happy Endings.- 7. Single Fathers with Daughters in American Film.- 8. DILF or Ditched? Representations of the 'Single Father' in Swedish Internet-based Forum Discussions.- 9. On the Margins: The Experiences of Single Women who Conceive at Australian Fertility Clinics.- 10. Faire un bébé toute seule [A child on one's own]: Challenging France's Patriarchal Reproductive Laws in Single Mothers' Blogs and Discussion Forums.- 11. Reluctantly Solo? Representations of Single Mothers via Donor Procedure, Insemination and IVF in Swedish Newspapers.- 12. Plan B: Single Women, Romantic Love and the Making of Babies in The Back-Up Plan and The Switch.