Routledge Families in Context

Families in Context is a distinctive text for students with the premise that families are best understood in their social, historical, economic, religious, and educational contexts. This sociological approach explores various kinds of families and societies through the lens of social science theories and methods. Readers will learn to integrate their personal family experiences and expectations into a broader social world. Families in Context includes extensive coverage of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation, but is diverse in other ways as well. Several theoretical perspectives are explained, applied, and critiqued. Relevant materials from anthropology, psychology, and other fields supplement the sociological core. Macro, meso, and micro level analyses assist students in developing their sociological imagination.The second edition of Families in Context includes updated data and research. American families, still the primary focus, are contrasted in broader global context. More sociological content replaces some of the more psychological material but the new edition continues the balanced theoretical approach that made the first edition unique.Compared to other families texts, this book transcends polemics, providing a cogent introduction to the best research findings on families and their relevance for students' lives. Gene H. Starbuck, Professor of Sociology at Mesa State College, has devoted his career to undergraduate teaching. The breadth of knowledge required to teach a number of subjects in a small sociology department has informed his topical coverage of marriages and families. He has also published and presented papers in gender, crime, human sexuality, and domestic violence. Review Praise for the First Edition "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 "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 "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 "I think this book will be one of the best, if not the very best, sociology of the family books available." --Norval Glenn, The University of Texas at Austin About the Author Gene H. Starbuck, Professor of Sociology at Mesa State College, has devoted his career to undergraduate teaching. The breadth of knowledge required to teach a number of subjects in a small sociology department has informed his topical coverage of marriages and families. He has also published and presented papers in gender, crime, human sexuality, and domestic violence.