Marriages, Families, and Intimate Relationships, 5th edition

Published by Pearson (October 3, 2019) © 2020

  • Brian K. Williams Genesee Community College
  • Stacey C. Sawyer Genesee Community College
  • Carl M. Wahlstrom Genesee Community College

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For courses in Marriage and the Family.

Explore how society impacts our personal connections in the modern world

Marriages, Families and Intimate Relationships: A Practical Introduction addresses the questions about intimacy, family and personal happiness that matter most to today's students. Utilizing an accessible writing style, authors Brian Williams, Stacey Sawyer and Carl Wahlstrom explore gender, marriage, parenting and more via 3 important sociological perspectives: structural-functional, conflict and symbolic interaction.

The 5th Edition offers expanded coverage of gender identity and gender fluidity as well as updated research to ensure an up-to-date learning experience.

Hallmark features of this title

  • Popular Culture, the Media and Technology chapter introductions help students separate fact from myth. These sections show examples of the often-misleading messages we receive about intimate relationships from TV, popular music, the Internet, advertising and the like.
  • Numbers That Matter boxes present statistics about marriages, families, and relationships which can spark class discussion.
  • Practical Action boxes offer concrete advice to students, for example “Before Moving in Together: Setting Ground Rules for Understanding.”
  • Example Of boxes use real-world situations to illustrate key points. Topics include “Example of an Expression of Romantic Love: The Kiss” and “Example of Being Childless in a Child-Oriented Society: A Woman's View, a Man's View.”

New and updated features of this title

  • UPDATED: The citations throughout the text have been updated to reflect recent research from the years 2016 to 2018. In addition, the authors make reference to many new studies.
  • UPDATED: The text offers expanded coverage of gender identity, gender fluidity and the concept of transgender in Chapters 3 and 9. This content shines a spotlight on these key topics of interest to contemporary students.
  • UPDATED: Up Close: 27 Cross-Cultural and Other Tales from Social Science illustrate the authors' belief that storytelling is one of the most powerful arts of instruction. For the 5th Edition, the authors have modified these 27 mini-cases, examples, and short reports so that they are now more prominent and pedagogically useful. Examples include:
    • The Fairy-Tale Wedding and the Wedding-Industrial Complex
    • Gender Roles: Who's in Charge of the Money?
    • Sexual Assault on Campus

Features of Revel for the 5th Edition

  • UPDATED: Current Event Bulletins bring currency into your classroom with author-written articles that connect key concepts with real-life current events. New articles include “Meeting and Mating in the Time of COVID-19” and “Black Lives Matter and the New Awareness.”
  • The Pearson Originals docuseries is a series of high-quality social impact videos that exemplify and humanize key sociological concepts. These videos help students connect with stories on a personal level, view people with greater empathy and contextualize core concepts.
  • Data-rich interactive maps, figures, and tables with Social Explorer technology let students interact with real data to explore key concepts.
  • Interactive Review the Chapter summaries utilize flashcards that feature key terms and definitions to allow students to review and reinforce the chapter's content.

1. Seeking. Finding Happiness in Relationships in a Complex World
2. Understanding. Learning about Intimate Behavior
3. Gender. The Meanings of Masculinity and Femininity
4. Involvement. Dating, Pairing, and Courtship
5. Love. The Many Faces
6. Communication. Realizing Effective Intimacy
7. Sexuality. Interpersonal Sexuality, Sexual Values, and Behavior
8. Marriage. The Ultimate Commitment?
9. Variations. Nontraditional Families and Households
10. Reproduction. Decisions about Having or Not Having Children
11. Parenting. Children, Families, and Generations
12. Work. Economics, Jobs, and Balancing Family Demands
13. Crises. Managing Stress, Disaster, Violence, and Abuse
14. Uncoupling. Separation and Divorce
15. Remarriage. Reinvented, Renewed, and Blended Families

About our authors

Brian K. Williams is married to Stacey Sawyer, and they live near Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and share an avid interest in seeing college students become well educated. Over the past 2 decades, they have individually or together authored more than 27 books (72, counting revisions) in such subjects as health, college success, information technology, management and business. Brian, for instance, has coauthored 3 introductory textbooks in health; several books in computing; and, with Carl Wahlstrom, 6 books in college success.

He has been Managing Editor for college textbook publisher Harper & Row/Canfield Press in San Francisco; Editor in Chief for trade book publisher J. P. Tarcher in Los Angeles; Publications and Communications Manager for the University of California, Systemwide Administration, in Berkeley; and an independent writer and book producer based in the San Francisco and Lake Tahoe areas. He has a B.A. in English and an M.A. in Communication from Stanford University.

Stacey C. Sawyer, formerly Director of Founder's Clinic, a women's reproductive health and family planning clinic in Columbus, Ohio, is an independent writer and book producer who has been based in the San Francisco and Lake Tahoe areas.

She has taught at Ohio State University and has been a manager for Brooks/Cole Publishing Company in Monterey, California. She has a B.A. from Ohio Wesleyan and the University of Freiburg, Germany, and an M.A. from Middlebury College and the University of Mainz, Germany.

Stacey is coauthor of Computers, Communications, and Information, a college textbook in print for 15 years. She and husband Brian Williams also cowrote Using Information Technology, now in its 11th edition.

Carl M. Wahlstrom is an Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Genesee Community, Batavia, New York. His teaching career began in 1975, and he retired from full-time teaching in 2012 after 37 years. In addition to teaching full-time at Genesee he served as a visiting lecturer at SUNY Geneseo, Geneseo, New York. From 2012 to 2015, he continued teaching as an adjunct faculty member at both Genesee Community College and SUNY Geneseo. He has taught courses in sociology, psychology, human relations, learning strategies and college success. In 2007, he was designated a State University of New York Distinguished Service Professor (the highest recognition SUNY can bestow on its faculty). He has also been the recipient of the SUNY Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creativity, the National Freshman Advocate Award, and several other teaching honors. Carl has a B.S in Sociology and an M.S. Ed. in Counselor Education from SUNY Brockport and an M.A in Sociology from the University of Bridgeport. Most recently he formed a consulting group with 3 colleagues to work with issues in higher education.

With Brian Williams he is coauthor of Learning Success, The Practical Student, The Urban Student, The Commuter Student, The Successful Distance Learning Student and College to Career. He lives with his wife, Nancy, an employee benefits consultant, in the Finger Lakes region of New York.

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