3rd Edition

Families in Context Sociological Perspectives

    The most thoroughly updated edition yet, this book offers students perspectives of changes in marriage and family over time, including the impact of the Great Recession and of new media technologies. A hallmark of Families in Context remains the well-researched, data-driven quality of the text. Beyond presenting thoroughly updated statistics and literature, each chapter examines new trends and assesses their implications for students' lives. The underlying presentation remains balanced, theoretically grounded, and accessible to a wide variety of classes, allowing students of all ages and family backgrounds to draw their own conclusions about controversial topics. Features of the new edition include coverage of the Affordable Care Act; new social media and families; the latest trends in poverty, education, social mobility, gender, identities and healthcare; updated 'In the News' features and author-created PowerPoint slides.

    Chapter 1: Defining Family Variation Chapter 2: Studying the Family Chapter 3: Families in Preindustrial Context Chapter 4: Industrialization and Families Chapter 5: Gender, Work, and Postindustrial Families Chapter 6: Social Class and Families Chapter 7: Race/Ethnicity and Families Chapter 8: Forming Intimate Relationships Chapter 9: Mate Selection Chapter 10: Varieties of Sexual Scripts Chapter 11: Population and Family Planning Chapter 12: Negotiating Marriages Chapter 13: Parents and Children Chapter 14: Crisis and Violence in Families Chapter 15: Divorce and Rescripted Families Chapter 16: Family Perspectives, Policy, and the Future

    Biography

    Gene H. Starbuck, Karen Saucier Lundy

    Praise for previous editions:

    "The author has crafted a clear, concise, and meaningfully themed book that provides accurate and up-to-date scholarly family research and also engages the reader."
    —Henry Borne, Holy Cross College

    "One of the best, if not the very best, sociology of the family books available."
    —Norval Glenn, The University of Texas at Austin

    "Families in Context does a masterful job of locating the family within large-scale socioeconomic developments. ...The focus is substantively unique."
    —Jon P. Bloch, Southern Connecticut State University

    "This is the best presentation of the process of industrialization and its effects on the family I have seen in an undergraduate text."
    —Theodore N. Greenstein, North Carolina State University