How to Read Profitably (PDF)
Required Books
Coontz, Stephanie. The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America’s Changing Families. Basic Books, 1997. ISBN: 9780465077878.
Hutter, Mark, ed. The Family Experience: A Reader in Cultural Diversity. 4th ed., Allyn & Bacon, 2003. ISBN: 9780205389209.
Skolnick, Arlene S. and Jerome H. Skolnick eds. Family in Transition. 12th ed., New York: Longman, 1996. ISBN: 9780673525123.
Stack, Carol. Call to Home: African Americans Reclaim the Rural South. New York: Basic Books, 1997. ISBN: 9780465008087.
Wolf, Marjorie. The House of Lim: A Study of a Chinese Farm Family. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1960. ISBN: 9780133949735.
| LEC # | TOPICS | READINGS | STUDY QUESTIONS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to Course | ||
| 2 | The Origin of the Family | Skolnick and Skolnick. "Introduction." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 1-14. Giddens. "The Global Revolution in Family and Personal Life." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 17-22. Coontz. "Introduction," and "Getting Past the Sound Bites: How History and Sociology Can Help Today's Families." in Coontz, pp. 1-32. | (PDF) |
| 3 | The Family in the Past I | Skolnick. "The Life Course Revolution." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 23-30. Demos. "The American Family in Past Time." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 59-77. Cott. "Divorce and the Changing Status of Women in Eighteenth-Century Massachusetts." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 347-363. Morgan. "The Puritans and Sex." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 311-320. | (PDF) |
| 4 | The Family in the Past II | Welter. "The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860."in Hutter, pp. 372-387. Hareven. "Continuity and Change in American Family Life." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 29-37. Gutman. "Persistent Myths about the Afro-American Family." in Hutter, pp. 459-479. Hutter. "Immigrant Families in the City." in Hutter. pp. 22-29. | (PDF) |
| 5 | Definition of the Family I | Giele. "Decline of the Family: Conservative, Liberal, and Feminist Views." in Skolnick and Skolnick. pp. 57-75. Coontz. "What We Really Miss about the 1950s." in Coontz, pp. 33-50. Wolf. The House of Lim: A Study of a Chinese Farm Family. pp. iv-xii; 1-22. | (PDF) |
| 6 | Definition of the Family II | Wolf. pp. 23-98. | |
| 7 | Definition of the Family III: Culture and Ideology | Wolf. pp. 99-148. | |
| 8 | Definition of the Family IV: Ethnic and Social Class Variability | Taylor. "Diversity within African American Families." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 365-388. Zinn, Baca, and Wells. "Diversity within Latino Families: New Lessons for Family Social Science." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 389-414. Sudarkasa. "Interpreting the African Heritage in Afro-American Family Organization." in Hutter, pp. 30-40. Sherif. "Islamic Family Ideals and Their Relevance to American Muslim Families." in Hutter, pp. 183-189. Pyke. "'The Normal American Family' as an Interpretive Structure of Family Life among Grown Children of Korean and Vietnamese Immigrants." in Skolnick and Skolnick. pp. 436-456 and in Hutter. pp. 300-318. | (PDF) |
| 9 | Definition of the Family V: Gay and Lesbian Families; Adoption | Benkov. "Reinventing the Family." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 415-435. Dalton, and Bielby. "'That's Our Kind of Constellation': Lesbian Mothers Negotiate Institutionalized Understandings of Gender." in Hutter, pp. 161-182. Shanley. "Transracial and Open Adoption: New Forms of Family Relationships." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 255-262. Coontz. "How Holding on to Tradition Sets Families Back." in Coontz, pp. 109-122. | |
| 10 | The Effects of Changing Gender Roles on the Family | Jackson. "Destined for Equality." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 95-102. Hays. "The Mommy Wars: Ambivalence, Ideological Work, and the Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 40-56. Gerson. "Children of the Gender Revolution: Some Theoretical Questions and Findings from the Field." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 103-114. di Leonardo. "The Female World of Cards and Holidays: Women, Families, and the Work of Kinship." in Hutter, pp. 63-71. Rossa, La, Jaret, Gadgil, and Wynn. "The Changing Culture of Fatherhood in Comic-Strip Families: A Six-Decade Analysis." in Hutter, pp. 275-289. | (PDF) |
| 11 | Sexuality: The Social Context I | Clark. "Dating on the Net: Teens and the Rise of "Pure" Relationships." in Hutter, pp. 115-131. Schalet. "Raging Hormones, Regulated Love: Adolescent Sexuality in the United States and the Netherlands." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 129-133. Berkowitz, and Padavic. "Getting a Man or Getting Ahead." in Hutter, pp. 132-146. D'Emilio, and Freedman. "The Sexualized Society." in Hutter, pp. 351-365. | (PDF) |
| 12 | Sexuality: The Social Context II | Cancian. "The Feminization of Love." in Hutter, pp. 151-160. Ericksen. "Premarital Sex before the 'Sexual Revolution'." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 134-142. Llaner, and Ventrone. "Dating Scripts Revisited." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 143-151. Lessinger. "Asian Indian Marriages - Arranged, Semi-Arranged, or Based on Love." in Hutter, pp. 147-150. | (PDF) |
| 13 | Marriage: Definitions, Functions, Variability | Kamen. "Modern Marriage: From Meal Ticket to Best Friend." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 152-160. Coontz. "The Future of Marriage." in Coontz, pp. 77-95. Furstenberg. "The Future of Marriage." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 171-177. Sanchez, Nock, Wright, and Gager. "Setting the Clock Forward or Back? Covenant Marriage and the 'Divorce Revolution'." in Hutter, pp. 41-62. | (PDF) |
| 14 | Parenting | Collins. "Shifting the Center: Race, Class, and Feminist Theorizing About Motherhood." in Hutter, pp. 244-257. Cowan, and Cowan. "Becoming a Parent." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 218-230. Mannis. "Single Mothers by Choice." in Hutter, pp. 231-243. Mason, Fine, and Carnochan. "Family Law in the New Millennium: For Whose Families?" in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 76-90 and in Hutter, pp. 433-447. | (PDF) |
| 15 | Parenting: Changes | Hertz. "A Typology of Approaches to Child Care." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 231-254. Hernandez. "Revolutions in Children's Lives." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 263-272. Galinsky. "What Children Think about Their Working Parents." Edited by Skolnick. pp. 273-283. Coltrane, and Adams. "Men's Family Work: Child-Centered Fathering and the Sharing of Domestic Labor." Edited by Skolnick. pp. 115-128. | (PDF) |
| 16 | Parenting: Problems | Luker. "Why Do they Do It?" in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 479-492. Kaplan. "Black Teenage Mothers and Their Mothers: The Impact of Adolescent Childbearing on Daughters' Relations with Mothers." in Hutter, pp. 258-274. Arditti. "Rethinking Relationships Between Divorced Mothers and Their Children: Capitalizing on Family Strengths." in Hutter, pp. 368-387. | |
| 17 | Divorce I | Coontz. "Putting Divorce in Perspective." in Coontz, pp. 97-108. Hackstaff. "Divorce Culture: A Quest for Relational Equality in Marriage." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 178-189. and in Hutter, pp. 356-367. Lawson, and Thompson. "Divorce and Fatherhood." inHutter, pp. 409-422. Mason, Harrison-Jay, Svare, and Wolfinger. "Stepparents: De Facto Parents or Legal Strangers." in Hutter, pp. 423-432. | |
| 18 | Divorce II | Arendell. "The Social Self as Gendered: A Masculinist Discourse of Divorce." in Hutter, pp. 388-408. Cherlin. "Going to Extremes: Family Structure, Children's Well-Being, and Social Science." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 284-298. Amato. "The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 190-214. | (PDF) |
| 19 | Violence in the Family | Goodrum, Umberson, and Anderson. "The Batterer's View of the Self and Others in Domestic Violence." in Hutter, pp. 325-340. Johnson, and Ferraro. "Research on Domestic Violence in the 1990s: Making Distinctions." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 493-517. Straus. "Ten Myths that Perpetuate Corporal Punishment." in Hutter,. pp. 341-350. | (PDF) |
| 20 | Economic Issues and Problems I: Work - at Home and in the Workplace | Coontz. "Why Working Mothers are Here to Stay." in Coontz, pp. 51-75. Fuchs Epstein, Seron, Oglensky, and Sauté. "The Family and Part-Time Work." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 335-348. Hochschild. "There's No Place Like Work." in Hutter, pp. 190-198. Gerson, and Jacobs. "Changing the Structure and Culture of Work: Work and Family Conflict, Work Flexibility, and Gender Equity in the Modern Workplace." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 349-364. | (PDF) |
| 21 | Economic Issues and Problems II: Economic Change | Coontz. "Looking for Someone to Blame: Families and Economic Change." in Coontz, pp. 123-140. Newman. "Family Values against the Odds." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 320-334. Rubin. "Families on the Fault Line." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 303-319. | (PDF) |
| 22 | Economic Issues and Problems III: Poverty, Genteel and Brutal | Edin. "Few Good Men: Why Poor Mothers Stay Single." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 161-170. Vanderstaay. "Karla and the Armstrongs: Two Oral Histories of Homeless American Families." in Hutter, pp. 351-355. Stack. Call to Home: African Americans Reclaim the Rural South. in Stack, pp. 1-44. | (PDF) |
| 23 | Economic Issues and Problems IV: Differential Rates of Poverty in Racial and Ethnic Groups | Stack. pp. 45-106. | (PDF) |
| 24 | conomic Issues and Problems V: Diversity in Families | Stack. pp. 107-152. | |
| 25 | The US and Sweden ("The Ultimate Welfare State") Compared | Stack. pp. 153-239. Pardo. "Mexican American Women Grassroots Community Activists: 'Mothers of East Los Angeles'." in Hutter, pp. 72-82. Toro-Morn. "Gender, Class, Family, and Migration: Puerto Rican Women in Chicago." in Hutter, pp. 199-211. Coontz. "How Ignoring Historical and Societal Change Puts Kids at Risk." in Coontz, pp. 141-156. ———. "Working with What We've Got: The Strengths and Vulnerabilities of Today's Families." in Coontz, pp. 157-177. | (PDF) |
| 26 | The Longer Life Span | Stack. pp. 170-193. Bengtson. "Beyond the Nuclear Family: The Increasing Importance of Multigenerational Bonds." in Skolnick and Skolnick, pp. 457-478. Hutter. "Intimate Strangers: The Elderly and Homecare Worker Relationships." in Hutter, pp. 290-300. | (PDF) |