My research explores the role of family rituals, routines, and narrative practices (e.g., bedtime routines, family dinners, play activities) in relation to family health and well-being. In particular, I'm interested in how cultural models of affect and intimacy are co-constituted and mentored amidst everyday family life, a thematic interest that I carry from my dissertation research to explore in a series of topically related CELF working papers. Employing discourse and narrative analysis, my research entertains questions regarding how, where, and when family members come together around shared experiences, activities, and emotions, examining family psycho-cultural processes in situ as they are lived and transacted in everyday family life, and investigating how family life contributes to children's acquisition, understandings, and participation in social practices related to health, illness, and disability.

Selected Publications and Working Papers:

Sirota, Karen Gainer 2006 Children's Bedtime Routines as Relational Work: Cultivating Habits of the Hearth. Text & Talk, 26(4): 491-512.

Sirota, Karen Gainer 2004 Positive Politeness as Discourse Process: Politeness Practices of High Functioning Children with Autism and Asperger Syndrome. Discourse Studies, 6(2): 229-241.

Ochs, Elinor, Tamar Kremer-Sadlik, Karen Gainer Sirota, and Olga Solomon 2004 Autism and the Social World: An Anthropological Perspective. Discourse Studies, 6(2): 147-183.

Sirota, Karen Gainer 2004 Habits of the Hearth: Children's Bedtime Routines as Relational Work. UCLA Sloan Center on Everyday Lives of Families Working Paper Series, #27.

Sirota, Karen Gainer 2003 Children in the Home, Toys in the Tub: Middle Class Contexts of Work and Play. UCLA Sloan Center on Everyday Lives of Families Working Paper Series, #23.

Sirota, Karen Gainer 2003 Doing Things with Play: The Play of Everyday Life. UCLA Sloan Center on Everyday Lives of Families Working Paper Series, #16.

Ochs, Elinor, Tamar Kremer-Sadlik, Olga Solomon, and Karen Gainer Sirota 2001 Inclusion as Social Practice: Views of Children with Autism. Social Development, 10(3): 399-419.