Research-Oriented Teaching of the Course in the Family

COURSES in the sociological study of the family have been taught in American colleges and universities during the entire past portion of the twentieth century. The response of the students to the offering has grown since 1902, when it was rated seventeenth among the sociology courses. It was tenth in 1910, but had risen to third or second, depending on the region, by 1950. In southern schools it was found to be third by Robert Kutak in his study of the sociological curriculum in 1944.1 It has continued to grow since then in popularity among students and in acceptance by administrations. The present Committee of the Southern Sociological Society on the Teaching of Sociology has found it offered in some form throughout the South in slightly less than one-half of the schools. The techniques for teaching the course have also undergone considerable alteration. One major new approach was initiated by Ernest Groves, to name one of the fathers of the movement, in the late 1920's at Boston, and Columbia, and then permanently at North Carolina. As marriage and family life education, it sought to refine the enthusiasm of the proponents for sex education. This practical and functional approach to training for family living has caught on since 1930. Many of the departments of sociology have introduced a course in preparation for marriage. It is certainly not improbable that almost every school has studied the wave of interest and sought to do what it could to meet it. Some have met the wave by having two courses: the long-established sociology of the family taught on the upper level was continued, but sections in the field of marriage preparation were also set up, generally for lower level students. Wisconsin, Utah, and North Carolina come to mind as schools that chose this alternative. Others have entirely capitulated, particularly since World War II, and turned their attention to the institution of marriage. Small church-related colleges usually have done this, rationalizing their choice as making a greater contribution to the general education of their students. Still others strove to meet both objectives in one course. They presented a scientific analysis of the institution of the family as it has appeared in historic societies, and gave guidance in effective mate selection and parenthood. Such a course is called by its defenders a combination course in Marriage and Family. F. Bernadette Turner,2 in an unpublished doctoral dissertation at Washington University, recently had a less complimentary term for some such attempts: hodgepodge. Turner found, in a rather comprehensive study of the contents of the college course on the family, that 42 percent of the courses offered could be classified as aimed toward this double objective. 28 percent retained the traditional type geared solely to sociological theory; practical education for marriage and family living was the objective of 26 percent. Considering the problem involved, perhaps it is not surprising that 6 percent appeared to be lacking in direction. Various defenses have been offered for one or the other choice. Where it has been established, the functional course has needed little defense. Departments on large university campuses which could not or would not make double offerings have usually rationalized that they are not the ones to offer guidance in such moralizing enterprises as building for marriage. There have been some, however, who have contended that a combined course, beside being sociologically sound and administratively practical, is actually a better and more functional project than any simple attempt at popularizing a part of the curriculum. They believe that it is actually unscientific, ineffective, and futile to presume to help students to make successful marriages without helping the student to see such a relationship in its familial and social * Read before the fifteenth annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, Atlanta, Georgia, March 28, 1952. l Robert Kutak, "The Sociological Curriculum in the Southeastern States," Social Forces, 24 (October 1945), pp. 56-66. 2 F. Bernadette Turner,