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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 offers a research-based overview of intimacy, family, and personal happiness that addresses the questions that matter most to today’s students. Utilizing an accessible writing style with plenty of examples, colorful facts, and apt quotes, authors Brian Williams, Stacey Sawyer, and Carl Wahlstrom show how to apply three important sociological perspectives – structural-functional, conflict, and symbolic interaction – to key topics such as gender, sexuality, marriage, parenting, and uncoupling. The 5th Edition includes fully updated research, as well as expanded coverage of gender identity and gender fluidity, to ensure an up-to-date learning experience.
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.
