The United States has defined itself as a `middle class` society, in contrast to much of the world where the majority of the population can in no way be characterized as middle class. Yet while some anthropologists have studied middle class working families, little attention has been focused on this subject as a core research topic for the discipline. The contributions to our understanding of how these families confront the challenges of contemporary life that derive from the in-depth, intensive, long-term ethnographic data that anthropology provides have not been explicitly examined. This project involves a conference of twelve anthropological researchers organized and administered by the American Anthropological Association, the major professional association for anthropologists in the US. The conference will occur on May 31-June 2, with an agenda to determine anthropology's current and future contributions to the academic research topic of middle class working families; publication in AY 1999 of commentaries by anthropologists on research issues involving middle class working families in the Anthropology Newsletter, the American Anthropological Association's main vehicle for communication among members; and the publication and dissemination of a research agenda to anthropologists to encourage research on the broad topic of middle class working families. The conference is supported by NSF funds, the other activities are supported by a grant from the Sloan foundation. This project is important because by defining areas of potential contributions, the conference and publications will stimulate new research.
