[Ebook PDF] Public and Private Families: An Introduction, 7th Edition

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[Ebook PDF] Public and Private Families: An Introduction, 7th Edition

ISBN-13: 978-0078026676
ISBN-10: 0078026679

Author: Andrew Cherlin (Author)

As the title suggests, Public and Private Families: An Introduction, seventh edition, discusses the family in two senses: the private family, in which we live most of our personal lives, and the public family, in which we, as adults, deal with broader societal issues such as the care of the frail elderly, the increase in divorce, and childbearing outside of marriage. The book examines intimate personal concerns, such as whether to marry, as well as societal concerns, such as governmental policies that affect families. Distinctive chapters examine contemporary issues such as income assistance to poor families, the effects of out-of-home childcare, and the costs of Social Security and Medicare programs.

A companion reader to this textbook, Public and Private Families: A Reader, seventh edition, with 14 same-named chapters, has 34 readings from both the popular press and academic journals.

PREFACE
The sociology of the family is deceptively hard to study. Unlike, say, physics, the topic is familiar (a word whose very root is Latin for “family”) because virtually everyone grows up in families. Therefore, it can seem “easy” to study the family because students can bring to bear their personal knowledge of the subject. Some textbooks play to this familiarity by mainly providing students with an opportunity to better understand their private lives. The authors never stray too far from the individual experiences of their readers, focusing on personal choices such as whether to marry and whether to have children. To be sure, giving students insight into the social forces that shape their personal decisions about family life is a worthwhile objective. Nevertheless, the challenge of writing about the sociology of the family is also to help students understand that the significance of families extends beyond personal experience. Today, as in the past, the family is the site of not only private decisions but also activities that matter to our society as a whole.
These activities center on taking care of people who are unable to fully care for themselves, most notably children and the elderly. Anyone who follows social issues knows of the often-expressed concern about whether, given developments such as the increases in divorce and childbearing outside of marriage, we are raising the next generation adequately. Anyone anxious about the well-being of the rapidly growing elderly population (as well as the escalating cost of providing financial and medical assistance to the elderly) knows the concern about whether family members will continue to provide adequate assistance to them. Indeed, rarely does a month pass without these issues appearing on the covers of magazines and the front pages of newspapers. In this textbook, consequently, I have written about the family in two senses:
the private family, in which we live most of our personal lives, and the public family, in which adults perform tasks that are important to society. My goal is to give students a thorough grounding in both aspects. It is true that the two are related—taking care of children adequately, for instance, requires the love and affection that family members express privately toward each other. But the public side of the family deserves equal time with the private side.
Organization
This book is divided into 6 parts and 14 chapters. Part One (“Introduction”) introduces the concepts of public and private families and examines how sociologists and other social scientists study them. It also provides an overview of the history of the family. Part Two (“Gender, Class, and Race-Ethnicity”) deals with the three key dimensions of social stratification in family life: gender, social class, and raceethnicity. In Part Three (“Sexuality, Partnership, and Marriage”), the focus shifts to the private family. The section examines the emergence of the modern concept of sexuality, the formation of partnerships, and the degree of persistence and change in the institution of marriage. Finally, it covers the complex connections between work and family.
Part Four (“Links across the Generations”) explores how well the public family is meeting its responsibilities for children and the elderly. Part Five (“Conflict, Disruption, and Reconstitution”) deals with the consequences of conflict and disruption in family life. It first studies violence against wives and children. Then divorce, remarriage, and stepfamilies are discussed. Finally, in Part Six (“Family and Society”)
social and political issues involving the family and the state are discussed.
Special Features
Public and Private Families is distinguishable from other textbooks in several important ways.
First and foremost, it explores both the public and the private family. The public/private distinction that underlies the book’s structure is intended to provide a more balanced portrait of contemporary life. Furthermore, the focus on the public family leads to a much greater emphasis on government policy toward the family than in most other textbooks. In fact, every chapter except the first and last includes a short, boxed essay under the general title, “Families and Public Policy,” to stimulate student interest and make the book relevant to current political debates.
In addition to this unique emphasis on both the Public and Private Families, the text:
• Highlights the connectedness of family lives across cultures. Although the emphasis in the book is on the contemporary United States, no text should ignore the important cross-national connections among families in our globalized economy. Consequently, this edition features expanded coverage of the effects of the globalization and automation of production on families in the developed and developing world.
• Includes distinctive chapters. The attention to the public family led me to write several chapters that are not included in some sociology of the family textbooks. These include Chapter 14, “The Family, the State, and Social Policy,” Chapter 9, “Children and Parents,” and Chapter 10, “Older People
and Their Families.” These chapters examine issues of great current interest, such as income assistance to poor families, the effects of out-of-home child care, the costs of the Social Security and Medicare programs, and the extension of marriage to same-sex couples. Throughout these and other chapters, variations by race, ethnicity, and gender are explored.
• Gives special attention to the research methods used by family sociologists. To give students an understanding of how sociologists study the family, I include a section in Chapter 1 titled, “How Do Family
Sociologists Know What They Know?” This material explains the ways that family sociologists go about their research. Then in other chapters, I include boxed essays under a similar title on subjects ranging from national surveys to feminist research methods.
• Includes essays on the effects of the Great Recession. I explore the effects on family life of the Great Recession that began in 2007. Seven boxed essays examine topics such as the effects of long-term unemployment on marriage, the postponement of the transition to adulthood, and how well the safety net of government assistance programs functioned.
Features “Families on the Internet” sections. Since I wrote the first edition of this textbook, the World Wide Web has changed from a pleasant diversion to an essential information-gathering tool. Almost every
chapter contains information that I gathered from the Web, including the most up-to-date demographic statistics from government statistical sites such as the Bureau of the Census Web pages. But the Internet is also a powerful instructional tool. Consequently, at the end of each chapter is a section titled “Families on the Internet,” in which I list Web sites that students may find useful.
Pedagogy
Each chapter begins in a way that engages the reader: the neither-men-nor-women two-spirit people of many Native American tribes; the courtship of Maud Rittenhouse in the 1880s; the case of Danny Henrikson, taken from a stepfather who raised him and awarded by a judge to a father he did not know; and so forth. And each of the six parts of the book is preceded by a brief introduction that sets the stage.
• I have added several Quick Review boxes in each chapter that include bulleted, one-sentence summaries of the key points of the preceding sections.
• Each chapter includes the following types of questions:
• Looking Forward —Questions that preview the chapter themes and topics.
• Ask Yourself—Two questions, which appear at the end of each of the three types of boxes.
• Looking Back—Looking Forward questions reiterated at the end of each chapter, around which the chapter summaries are organized.
• Thinking about Families—Two questions, which appear at the end of each chapter and are designed to encourage critical thinking about the “public” and the “private” family.