The Standard North American Family

This article describes the “Standard North American Family” or SNAF as an ideological code. An ideological code is analogous to a genetic code, reproducing its characteristic forms and order in multiple and various discursive settings. Its operation in two settings is explored. The first is the writer's experience (shared with Alison Griffith) of designing and carrying out a study of the work that women do as mothers in relation to their children's schooling. Although the researchers were committed to feminist methods and to a critical perspective, SNAF reproduced itself in their conceptualization, their interview practices, and in how women responded to them. The second is William Julius Wilson's consideration of the Black family in his study The Truly Disadvantaged. An analysis of his text demonstrates its SNAF-governed order and how its representational credibility is sustained by the SNAF-generated statistics of government agencies such as the U.S. Bureau of Census. It is suggested that such ideological codes may have a significant political effect by importing representational order even into the texts of those who are overtly opposed to the representations they generate.