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Families in Global and Multicultural Perspective
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Families in Global and Multicultural Perspective

Second Edition
Edited by:

September 2005 | 472 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

The Second Edition of Families in Global and Multicultural Perspective travels across geographic, cultural, and historical boundaries to explore the diversity of the world's families—in family structure, processes, history, and social and environmental contexts. Editors Bron B. Ingoldsby and Suzanna D. Smith examine a full range of topics including family origin and universality, family functions, marital structure, kinship rules, comparative research methods, family development, marriage adjustment, parenting, divorce, and aging. This comprehensive text increases students' recognition of and respect for cultural diversity as it influences family life; meets educators' needs for a comparative family text; and contributes to the development of new ways of thinking about families that highlights culture and context.  

"The editors, both qualified scholars with a comparative perspective, have been successful in finding well-known authors for the various chapters. Both theoretical and methodological issues are dealt with in a nuanced and qualified manner…. The book is to be highly recommended to students, faculty, and libraries."
—Jan Trost, Professor Emeritus, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden  

"The strength of this book is its comparative approach under several theoretic frameworks… This book appears to be the most comprehensive study of global families." —Heying Jenny Zhan, Georgia State University  

New to the Second Edition:

  • Includes new chapters focussing on the Middle East and Pacific regions to introduce students to the variations in family life across such diverse areas
  • Provides updated information about families around the world by expanding the contents to incorporate recent trends in family life
  • Discusses increasingly salient topics that are rarely found in comparative family texts, such as social inequality as manifested in gender stratification, oppression of certain ethnic and cultural groups, and poverty
  • Includes student exercises intended to increase student awareness and appreciation of diversity  

Families in Global and Multicultural Perspective is an excellent textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate students studying Sociology and Family Studies in courses such as Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Comparative Family Organization, Global and Diverse Families, World Families, and Families in Comparative Perspective.


 
Part I. Foundations of Comparative Family Studies
Suzanna Smith
1. Global Families
Gary Lee, Nancy Greenwood
2. Comparative Family Research Methodology
Bron Ingoldsby
3. The History of the Euro-Western Family
 
Part 1 Exercise: Comparative Family Research Study
 
Part II. Family Structure
Bron Ingoldsby
4. Family Origin and Universality
Max Stanton
5. Patterns of Kinship and Residence
Bron Ingoldsby
6. Marital Structure
Bron Ingoldsby
7. Religious Utopias and Family Structure
 
Part 2 Exercise: The Ethnic Genogram
 
Part III. Family Development
Bron Ingoldsby
8. Mate Selection and Marriage
Judith Myers-Walls, Karen Myers-Bowman, German Posada
9. Parenting Practices Worldwide
Patrick McKenry, Sharon Price
10. International Divorce
Richard Miller, William Meredith
11. Diversity in International Aging Families
 
Part 3 Exercise: Mate Selection
 
Part IV. International Family Variation
Walter Kawamoto, Rueben Anguiano
12. Asian and Latino Immigrant Families
Bahira Sherif-Trask
13. Families in the Islamic Middle East
Stephan Wilson, Lucy Ngige
14. Families in sub-Saharan Africa
Bron Ingoldsby
15. Families in Latin America
Colleen Murray, Naoko Kimura
16. Families in Japan
 
Part 4 Exercise: The Story of Jose and Lana
 
Part V. Social Inequality in the Contemporary World
Tamara Cheshire
17. Native American Families
Sandra Russo, Suzanna Smith
18. Women in the Two-Thirds World
Linda Haas
19. Household Division of Labor in Industrial Societies
Mark Rank, Gautam Yadama
20. Poverty and Family Policy in a Global Context
 
Part 5 Exercise: The Arias Family

The editors, both qualified scholars with a comparative perspective, have been successful in finding well-known authors for the various chapters. Both theoretical and methodological issues are dealt with in a nuanced and qualified manner. Comparative perspectives are on an historical as well as a global manner. The book is to be highly recommended to students, faculty and libraries.

Jan Trost
Professor Emeritus, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

"I like the organization of the chapters…The strength of this book is its comparative approach under several theoretic frameworks…I believe this book definitely has a market of its own. This book appears to be the most comprehensive study of global families."

Heying Jenny Zhan
Georgia State University

"This comprehensive text increases students' recognition of and respect for cultural diversity as it influences family life; meets educators' need for a comparative family text; and contributes to the development of new ways of thinking about families that highlights culture and context."

Family Therapy
Libra Publishers

The content/material of Families in Global and Multicultural Perspective supplements both of my courses main texts very well.

Mrs Marcia Cole
Nutrition and Hospitality Management, University of Mississippi
January 14, 2012
Key features
  • Examines a full range of topics identified as priorities in a survey of family studies educators, e.g., family origin and universality, family functions, marital structure, kinship rules, comparative research methods, family development, marriage adjustment, parenting, divorce, and aging.
  • Integrates examples from various regions into chapters, as well as devoting individual chapters to specific regions.
  • Includes topics rarely found in comparative family texts but that are increasingly salient:  social inequality as manifested in gender stratification, oppression of certain ethnic and cultural groups, and poverty.
  • Attempts to be as comprehensive as possible in addressing historical periods, world geographical regions, and major viewpoints that have shaped human families while still representing educators' main interests.
  • Includes student exercises intended to increase student awareness and appreciation of diversity; these exercises will develop students' awareness of their own perspectives and biases regarding the major topics included in the text, help students better understand the major concepts presented, and give students an opportunity to apply these concepts.
  • NEW TO THIS EDITION:  Chapters have been added on the Middle East and Pacific regions, which were noticeable gaps in the first edition.
  • NEW TO THIS EDITION:  Provides updated information about families around the world by expanding the contents to incorporate recent trends in family life and addressing information gaps that appeared in the earlier edition, thus buildling on traditions established in the early scholarship of comparative family studies and also incorporating new material on changes in the world's families that have occurred in the decade since the first edition was published.

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