Meg Wilkes

Noted for its interdisciplinary approach to family studies, Families with Futures provides an engaging, contemporary look at the discipline's theories, methods, essential topics, and career opportunities. Featuring strong coverage of theories and methods, readers explore family concepts and processes through a positive prism. Concepts are brought to life through striking examples from everyday family life and cutting-edge scholarship. Throughout, families are viewed as challenged but resilient. Each chapter opens with a preview of the chapter content and concludes with key terms and varied learning activities that promote critical thinking. The activities include provocative questions and exercises, projects, and interactive web activities. Boxes feature authentic voices from scholars and practitioners (including CFLEs) from a variety of disciplines including family studies, sociology, psychology, and more. These boxes provide a firsthand look at what it is like to work in the field. The book concludes with a glossary defining each chapter’s boldfaced key terms.Updated throughout, the new edition features new coverage of:


The latest family theories including feminist theory and postmodernism
Immigrant and transnational families in the 21st century
Physiology, psychology, and sociology of intimacy and sexuality
Effects of recent health and other policy decisions on families
Care giving in families, especially in later life
Family finances, with an emphasis on the recent economic downturns
Career opportunities in family studies.


The new Instructor’s Resource website features test questions, PowerPoint slides, chapter outlines, news bulletins of current events, hotlinks to helpful tools such as the NCFR’s Ethical Principles and Guidelines, and more.
This is an ideal text for upper-level undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses in family studies, family ecology, and family science offered in departments of family and consumer sciences, human development, psychology, and sociology.

Meg Wilkes Karraker is Professor of Sociology, Family Studies, and Women’s Studies at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. She received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Minnesota. In addition to co-authoring Families with Futures, Dr. Karraker is the author of the highly successful text Global Families (2008). A former Executive Officer of Sociologists for Women in Society, and a member of the American Sociological Association's Department Resources Group which consults with sociology faculty and programs around the country, in 2005 she was honored as the Aquinas Scholars Professor of the Year. Her research examines social networks among civic, religious, and other organizations serving migrant women, children, and their families. Dr. Karraker teaches undergraduate courses in families and family studies, sociological theory, gender, and adolescence.

Janet R. Grochowski is the Marie and Robert Jackson Endowed Professor and Chair of Education at the College of Saint Benedict - Saint John’s University in Minnesota. She received two doctoral degrees from the University of Minnesota, one in Family Social Science and Health Education Studies and the other in Social and Philosophical Foundations of Learning with an emphasis in resilience. Her research focuses on the family and health studies with special interest in youth and family resilience, global education, and determinants of family health.

Part 1. The Art and Science of Family Studies. 1. The Changing World of Families. 2. Family Scholarship in Action: Theories, Methods and Ethics. Part 2. From Risk to Resilience. 3. Risk and Resilience: Families at Their Best. 4. Family Health: Beyond Illness and Disease. 5. Sexual Intimacy: Biology and Pleasure. Part 3. Family Life Courses. 6. Early Trajectories: Being Single, Choosing Partners. 7. The New Conjugal: Marriage, but Also Civil Unions. 8. Kith and Kin: Creating Families in Communities. 9. Family Discord: Power, Conflict, and Violence. 10. Decoupled Families: Deserted, Separated, Divorced, and Widowed. 11. Money Matters: Economies and Family Lives. Part 4. Into the Future. 12. From Family Values to Valuing Families.