Revised 8/2022
SOC 215 - Sociology of the Family (3 CR.)
Course Description
Introduces tools to study family life through the sociological lens. Explores a variety of topics including various familial forms, divorce, and domestic violence. Lecture 3 hour per week.
General Course Purpose
To provide students with an analysis of family systems as viewed by sociologists.
Course Prerequisites/Corequisites
None.
Course Objectives
Upon completing the course, the student will be able to:
- Summarize major historical phases in American family life.
- Explain how marriage and families change over time and vary by culture, including how they are influenced by broader social, political, and economic forces.
- Identify and describe socially-patterned practices of the life course, including childhood, dating, cohabitation, marriage, divorce, parenting, and caregiving.
- Evaluate social research on marriage and the family.
- Recognize the causes of social inequities in family experiences.
- Evaluate the strengths and challenges of single parent, same-sex, remarriage, and blended families.
- Compare and evaluate alternative patterns of marriage and family life.
- Describe how change within social institutions, structures, and societies produces change in intimate relationships relating to gender, love and intimacy, sex and sexualities, and/or communication, power, and conflict.
Major Topics to Be Included
- Historical overview of family systems
- Functions of family
- Sexuality
- Gender and Gender Roles
- Parenting
- Intimacy
- Communication
- Power and Conflict
- Alternative Family Forms
- Violence and Sexual Abuse
- Separation, Divorce and Remarriage
- Interracial/Ethnic Family and Marriage Patterns
- Cohabitation
Optional Topics
- Cross-cultural examination of Family Systems
- Aging
- Multigenerational Families
- Sexually Transmitted Diseases
- Contraception