A Review of Introductory Marriage and Family Texts: Standards for Evaluation

Greenwood, Nancy; Cassidy, Margaret L.

doi:10.2307/1318393

Cited by 5 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 8 publications

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“…Indeed, during a 13 year stretch, 42 articles were published in Teaching Sociology, employing the textbook as the unit of analysis. Many of these articles focus on textbooks within various specialty areas, including medical (Barnartt 1990(Barnartt , 1995, law (Berger 1989;Trevino 1998), marriage and the family (Greenwood andCassidy 1986, 1990;Mann et al 1997;Shaw Taylor and Benokraitis 1995;Stolley and Hill 1996;Zinn and Eitzen 1988), social theory (Lewis and Alshtawi 1992), human sexuality (Goettsch 1987;Hogben et al 1999), education (Mulkey 1990), race and ethnic relations (Niemonen 1993), research methods (Judkins 1994;Schutt 1987), statistics (Schacht 1990), social psychology (Schellenberg et al 1991), criminology (Wright 1987(Wright , 1990(Wright , 1994(Wright , 1995a(Wright , 1995bWright and Ducaji 1992), and social problems (Dolch 1990). Fifteen of these 42 articles are based on analyses of introductory sociology textbooks.…”

Section: The Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociological Core: Conceptual Patterns and Idiosyncrasies in the Structure and Content of Introductory Sociology Textbooks, 1940-2000

Keith¹,

Ender

2004

Teach Sociol

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Sociology is often portrayed as an errant discipline, driving forward without any apparent direction or purpose. We contend that these perceptions about the central tenets of our discipline derive from a lack of standardization of core material, which reduces the social value of sociology as a scientific field and erodes its credibility as a discipline. Insofar as common conceptual knowledge exists in the field of sociology, one ought to find evidence of it in the introductory textbook. To this end, our study examines 35 introductory sociology textbooks published in the 1940s (n=16) and the 1990s (n=19) in search of common concepts that represent cumulative core disciplinary knowledge. While our findings reveal uniformity in the structure of the textbooks' major chapter headings within their respective decades, our analysis of concepts—the language used to introduce disciplinary content—reveals that the vast majority are referenced by only one text, with fewer than three percent of all concepts shared in common. Moreover, neither the number of concepts introduced only once nor the variability in the total number of concepts referenced declined across the two decades. In sum, while introductory sociology textbooks are structured in similar ways, we find little commonality in the concepts used by texts' authors to frame the discipline, either within the two cross-sections or between them.

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Section: The Problemmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sociological Core: Conceptual Patterns and Idiosyncrasies in the Structure and Content of Introductory Sociology Textbooks, 1940-2000

Keith¹,

Ender

2004

Teach Sociol

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North Central Sociological Association 2020 John F. Schnabel Lecture Missed Opportunities: Developing Undergraduate Students Sociological Research Skills Throughout the Curriculum

Medley-Rath

2021

Sociological Focus

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Paradigm Shifts in Family Sociology? Evidence From Three Decades of Family Textbooks

Mann

Grimes

Kemp

et al. 1997

Journal of Family Issues

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This article explores paradigm shifts in family sociology from the 1960s to the 1990s using a thematic content analysis of 7 multiple-edition texts. Two competing views on theoretical developments are examined. David Cheal claims that challenges posed to structural functionalist hegemony resulted in theoretical pluralism and an end to this hegemony. Dorothy Smith argues that Parson's theoretical assumptions are so deeply embedded in the discourse of family sociology that they continue to govern major issues and debates. As late as the 1990s, we found that structural functionalism continued to frame many topics and debates in the majority of texts even when new concepts and more critical literature were added. Notable exceptions were textbook treatments of African American families and gender issues. This suggests that the relative success of social movements in institutionalizing their goals may be an important factor in determining paradigm shifts.

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A Review of Introductory Marriage and Family Texts: Standards for Evaluation

Cited by 5 publications

References 8 publications

The Sociological Core: Conceptual Patterns and Idiosyncrasies in the Structure and Content of Introductory Sociology Textbooks, 1940-2000

The Sociological Core: Conceptual Patterns and Idiosyncrasies in the Structure and Content of Introductory Sociology Textbooks, 1940-2000

North Central Sociological Association 2020 John F. Schnabel Lecture Missed Opportunities: Developing Undergraduate Students Sociological Research Skills Throughout the Curriculum

Paradigm Shifts in Family Sociology? Evidence From Three Decades of Family Textbooks

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