Family Development

Catalog description

Family functions over the life course; family from a multidisciplinary perspective, emphasizing adaptation and change. HDFS 315Y Family Development (3) (US) This course offers an overview of families focusing primarily on contemporary American families. The primary thrust of this course is to step beyond our personal experiences with families and place them within a broader social, historical, cultural and economic context. This class will be multi-disciplinary in its approach to the study of American families. However, we will begin with the historical, demographic and social changes that American families have undergone and try to understand some of the causes and consequences of these changes for the developmental life courses of adults and children in families today. Throughout this course we will be particularly concerned with the diversity of American families stressing differences based on gender, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.