Sociology 1201 Fall 2006 Instructor: Bruce Mork

Study Guide III

I. Concepts.

Fading fathers, stepfamilies as incomplete institutions,, Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, Power and Control Wheel, no-fault divorce, longitudinal study, sleeper effect, stepfamily, role overload, custodial and noncustodial parent, legal joint custody vs. physical joint custody, primary caretaker standard for awarding custody, stepfamily, remarriage chain, domestic violence, child abuse, battered women's movement, Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, power and control wheel, social structure

II. Videos:“Children of Divorce,” “Failure to Protect”

II. Essay questions. For those of you taking the regular multiple-choice test (like our previous tests), look at these questions as an important guide to issues that will be covered via multiple-choice questions. For those choosing the essay exam, I will choose 6 of these questions and ask you to write on 4 of them. Your answers will be evaluated based not on your specific arguments and conclusions but on your ability to use course materials to support your arguments.

1. How would you account for what Cherlin and Furstenberg call “fading fathers?” Draw both on their ideas and on the extensive treatment of post-divorce families in the Wallerstein text.

2. How might we analyze the marital separation and divorce process from the perspective of symbolic interactionism? How might this perspective help us account for the long-term anger in one or both of the ex-spouses, and how would it help us account for the ways in which the children are often injured?

3. What are the relative strengths and weakness of the research methods used by Cherlin and Furstenberg to study the effects of divorce on children versus the strengths and weaknesses of the approach taken by Wallerstein and her colleagues? In what ways do their results complement each other? Are there important areas of disagreement?

4. The central contention of Unexpected Legacy is expressed this way in the conclusion: “From the viewpoint of the children, and counter to what happens to their parents, divorce is a cumulative experience. Its impact increases over time and rises to a crescendo in adulthood.” How do the authors support this contention and how well do they make their case?

5. How has the family as an institution changed in the years since no-fault divorce became the law of the land? What has been gained and what has been lost as a result of those changes?

6. What does Wallerstein discover about the typical dynamics of post-divorce families (at least to the extent that the families she studied are typical)? Include both single parent families and step families; as well as the relationship of the child with the noncustodial parent.

7. Half the children whose parents divorce are less than six years old, and Wallerstein reports that all too many of these children are apt to say: “Suddenly there was no one there.” Or “the day my parents divorced my childhood ended.” Why does she think that many of these young children are so negatively affected, and how would you evaluate her arguments and evidence?

8. Wallerstein writes, “In looking over the records of these youngest children of divorce, I was mystified by the fact that good remarriages did not seem to help them overcome the trauma of divorce.” How did she eventually make sense of this discovery?

9. How could the negative effects of divorce for at least some children be mitigated (made better)? What could parents do, what could stepparents do, what could courts and governments do? Support your conclusions with course materials.

10. When and why did domestic violence emerge as an issue in American society, what do we know about the ways in which it is socially structured (see the Gelles article) and what are its effects on the victims of family violence, including children who see their mothers abused?