March 10-14, 2010
at the University of Oklahoma

This class is now full. Please consider another class.

Everyone knows that marriage, parenting, and family life have changed immensely in the past 40 years. But there is a lot of confusion about why those changes occurred, what their consequences have been, and how these changes vary by race, class, gender, and sexuality. This class will explore what is actually new and what is not in marriage patterns, sexuality, the experience of growing up, and family formation. We will discuss the social origins of dilemmas that are often experienced as purely personal, exploring the historical roots and sociological determinants of contemporary marital and parenting dilemmas. Students will learn why assessing the societal consequences and personal implications of these changes is more complex than it may initially appear. Click here for syllabus

The Class Reading List (These books and articles supplied by OSLEP)

• Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865 by Mary Ryan
• Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage by Stephanie Coontz
• American Families: A Multicultural Reader by Coontz, Raley, and Parsons, eds
• From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in 20th Century America byBeth Bailey
• Reading packet/web readings

Stephanie Coontz teaches history and family studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is Director of Research and Public Education for the Council on Contemporary Families, which she chaired from 2001-04. She is the author of Marriage, A History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, The Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap, The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms with America's Changing Families, and The Social Origins of Private Life: A History of American Families. She also edited American Families: A Multicultural Reader. Her work has been translated into French, Spanish, German, Norwegian, and Japanese. .

Coontz has testified about her research before the House Select Committee on Children, Youth and Families in Washington, DC, and addressed audiences across America, Japan and Europe. She has appeared on the Today Show, Oprah Winfrey, Crossfire, NPR, CNN's Talk Back Live, CBS This Morning, Leeza, and MSNBC with Brian Williams, as well as in several prime-time television documentaries, including ones hosted by Walter Cronkite and Barbara Walters. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, The Observer/Guardian, The Times of London, Wall Street Journal, Salon, Washington Post, Newsweek, Harper's, Vogue, LIFE, Time-LIFE Books, and Mirabella, as well as in such academic and professional journals as Family Therapy Magazine, Chronicle of Higher Education, National Forum, and Journal of Marriage and Family.

A former Woodrow Wilson Fellow, Coontz has also taught at Kobe University in Japan and the University of Hawaii at Hilo. In 2004, she received the Council on Contemporary Families first-ever "Visionary Leadership" Award. In 1995 she received the Dale Richmond Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics for her "outstanding contributions to the field of child development." She also received the 2001-02 "Friend of the Family" award from the Illinois Council on Family Relations. She serves as a marriage consultant to The Ladies Home Journal.