SOC 6310 Diversity in American Family Patterns

Examines the increasingly diverse patterns of family life in the United States. Both continuity and change of family forms are studied with special focus on how social class, race, ethnicity, and definitions of gender shape family experiences. Also studied is now cultural values, the economy, the political system, education, belief systems, and level of industrialization shape family structures and functions, and how families, in turn, influence social structures. The major forms of contemporary families such as cohabitation, marriage, separation and divorce, and remarriage are explored as well as single-parent families, two-income and two-career families, and single-person households. Course offered every fourth or fifth semester.
Credits: 3.0