how do sociologists know what they know? an examination of

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HOW DO SOCIOLOGISTS KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW? AN EXAMINATION OF

SOCIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS FOR EVIDENCE OF SOCIOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC

THINKING

Stephanie Medley-Rath*

Indiana University Kokomo

*Stephanie Medley-Rath, Department of Sociology, Indiana University Kokomo, 2300 S.

Washington Street, Kokomo, IN 46904, U.S.A. Email: [email protected].

I thank my undergraduate research assistants, Rebekah Morgan, who helped prepare the data and

do some preliminary coding, and Nicholas Novosel, who helped locate literature. I thank

Kathleen S. Lowney, Catherine White Berheide, Danielle MacCartney, and Luis Nuño for

providing feedback on this manuscript. An Indiana University Kokomo Grant in Aid funded this

research.

KEY WORDS: Textbooks, Research methods, Sociology curriculum, Scientific thinking,

Sociology literacy framework, Sociology of knowledge

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ABSTRACT

I use qualitative content analysis to uncover how textbooks illuminate the process by which

sociologists know what they know. I use the Sociology Literacy Framework (SLF) (Ferguson

and Carbonaro 2016) to guide analysis, looking at how textbooks report on the research process

and present research findings. Using a sample of 27 textbooks for introductory courses (N = 19)

and intermediate elective courses (N = 8) from 12 publishers (copyright dated: 2015-2020), I

found weak support for developing the research-focused SLF skills. Textbooks fail to explain

and describe how sociologists know what they know. Instead, texts use false equivalence

arguments and shortcuts to scientific credibility, among other means. Textbooks do an adequate

job describing society using basic descriptive statistical data from think tanks or government

sources but provide almost no instruction on how scholars gather or analyze data or draw

conclusions about their data.

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INTRODUCTION

Textbooks are a source of making the research process visible to students (see

Lewthwaite and Holmes 2018). There is broad agreement that sociology graduates should have

some research skills. To this end, scholars of teaching and learning in sociology argue that

research methods instruction should figure prominently throughout the sociology curriculum

(Berheide 2005; Greenwood 2013; Gunn 2017; Howery and Rodriguez 2006; Kain 1999; Markle

2017; Medley-Rath 2021; Medley-Rath and Morgan n.d.; Parker 2011; Pike et al. 2017; Weiss

1987; Wilder 2010; Williams et al. 2016; Williams and Sutton 2011). Overall, all undergraduate

sociology programs require a Research Methods course, and most (77.9 percent) require

Statistics (Sweet, McElrath, and Kain 2014). Required Research Methods and Statistics courses,

however, may leave instructors (wrongly) assuming that students receive sufficient

methodological instruction in these courses (see Sweet et al. 2014).

One of the most important things students in introductory sociology should know is “the

scientific nature of sociology” (Persell, Pfeiffer, and Syed 2007:305). Moreover, Greenwood

(2013:233) argues introductory sociology courses “may be the first time students learn about

using science to study social behavior and how to apply it to their own lives.” Her premise

suggests that learning about research methods should occur during that first course and not wait

until Research Methods.

Further, developing sociology students’ research skills allows students to consume

research (Beuving and de Vries 2020; Burgess 1990; Small 2018). Beuving and de Vries (2020)

argue that the Western cultural context calls for improved instruction regarding qualitative

research (see also Small 2018). They point out the supremacy of big data, the publicness of

academic discussions (e.g., Twitter, Ted Talks), and the public’s declining trust in science more

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broadly as justification for developing students’ qualitative and quantitative research skills. The

importance of consuming research in everyday life has been made more evident by the number

of Americans using dubious sources to support their Covid-19 vaccine-refusal.

A strength of sociology is its range of methodological tools used to study the social

world, but this range of tools challenges instructors in developing a coherent set of skills among

students. The Sociology Literacy Framework (SLF) (Ferguson 2016a; Ferguson and Carbonaro

2016) provides a structure for instructors regarding students’ knowledge and development of

competencies in sociology courses, including research skills (see also Pike et al. 2017). I use the

SLF research-focused competencies and sociology of knowledge framework to identify how

textbooks explain how sociologists know what they know. I use qualitative content analysis of

27 sociology textbooks (19 books for introductory courses and eight books for intermediate

elective courses). I focus my analysis on those instances where textbooks present data, report

scholarship, and make claims about social phenomena.

THE SOCIOLOGY OF SOCIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS

Textbooks matter. Textbooks “communicate the vocabulary and syntax of a

contemporary scientific language” (Kuhn [1962] 1970:136). According to Fleck, “textbook

science [is] for initiation into the esoteric circle [specialized experts]” (Fleck [1935] 1981:161).

Sociology textbooks “are intrinsically important to the constitution and maintenance of the

discipline” (Lynch and Bogen 1997:482; see also Dunham, Cannon, and Dietz 2004; Fitzgerald

2012; Perrucci 1980; Tischler 1988). Therefore, sociology textbooks should reflect the

discipline (Tischler 1988). The literature on sociology textbooks, however, finds that they do not

reflect the discipline. For example, scholars report finding a gap between the sociology found in

Introductory Sociology textbooks and that found in journals and monographs (Hamilton and

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Form 2003). Textbooks include dated terms (Best and Schweingruber 2003; Dong 2008),

debunked ideas (Nolan 2003), myths (Schweingruber and Wohlstein 2005), and incorrect

definitions (Puffer 2009). When new topics are incorporated, textbooks rely on journalistic

accounts rather than sociological research for these topics (Carroll 2017; see also Babchuk and

Keith 1995).

A topic’s inclusion often is a marketing strategy, not a reflection of current thinking on a

topic, a topic’s use by scholars, or a topic’s usefulness to help students learn more complex

material (see also Greenwood 2013). How and why topics are left out is due to both “too much”

information available (see Abrutyn 2013), and sociology’s long-standing sexism (McDonald

2019), racism (Morris 2015; Wright 2012), ethnocentrism, homophobia, and ableism. Textbooks

and textbook sociology emerge from several competing interests, including authors, publishers,

and potential adopters. Further, textbooks have many “cooks in the kitchen” – the author, editor,

copyeditor, graphic designer, and so on – influencing the final product.

Overall, we know little about how sociology instructors use textbooks (Schweingruber

2005). Researchers suggest that instructional content likely reflects textbook content (Dennick-

Brecht 1993; Graham 1988), with some variation based on institution-type (Friedman 1991) or

course level. In contrast, research on syllabi for Introductory Sociology and Social Problems

courses finds that topic coverage does not reflect what the pedagogical literature recommends or

textbook content (Lowney, Price, and Gonzalez Guittar 2017).

The scholarship on textbook sociology overwhelmingly focuses on textbooks for a

specific course (e.g., Introductory Sociology). Few studies focus on how introductory and

elective course texts cover the same topic (e.g., Pearce and Lee 2021). Most textbook studies

focus on topic coverage (e.g., race). There are numerous studies of textbooks for Introductory

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Sociology, none on texts for Social Problems, and few studies of books for elective courses in

sociology (see Tables 1 and 2).

[INSERT TABLE 1 ABOUT HERE]


HOW SOCIOLOGISTS KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW

Scholars have studied the presentation of sociology as a science in textbooks. Keith and

Ender (2004) report that the authors of sociology textbooks understand sociology to be scientific,

though they do not consistently or coherently reflect this view in the texts they write (see also

Lynch and Bogen 1997). In criminology, Rhineberger (2006) finds that textbooks report different

data (i.e., government statistics like those from the Uniform Crime Report) compared to the data

criminologists collect that informs a lot of what they know about crime. The literature suggests

that textbooks are not adequately demonstrating how sociological (or criminological) knowledge

is known.

Understanding how sociological knowledge is known is reflected in the Sociology

Literacy Framework (SLF). The SLF was defined by Ferguson and Carbonaro (2016) and

endorsed by the American Sociological Association (Pike et al. 2017). The SLF outlines

fundamental concepts and competencies that students should have upon degree completion.

These concepts are the sociological eye, social structure, socialization, stratification, social

change, and social reproduction. The competencies are: (1) “apply sociological theories to

understand social phenomena,” (2) “critically evaluate explanations of human behavior and

social phenomena,” (3) “apply scientific principles to understand the social world” (i.e.,

application), (4) “evaluate the quality of social scientific methods and data” (i.e., evaluation), (5)

“rigorously analyze social scientific data” (i.e., analysis), and (6) “use sociological knowledge to

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inform policy debates and promote public understanding” (Ferguson and Carbonaro 2016:154).

My study focuses on competencies three, four, and five, which most closely align with

illuminating how sociologists know what they know and center developing research skills among

students.

My research contributes to several gaps in the literature. First, my sample includes

textbooks across the undergraduate sociology curriculum by including texts for several distinct

sociology courses. Second, I focus on the overall narrative to uncover how textbooks show

students how sociological knowledge is known rather than quantitative measures of topic

coverage (e.g., section headers). Third, I draw on a sociology of knowledge theoretical

framework with the SLF to provide a framework for analysis. This is the first study to evaluate

evidence of the SLF in sociology textbooks.

METHODS

Sample

I used purposive convenience sampling to select textbooks (see Appendix) for

Introduction to Sociology, Social Problems, Race, Class, Gender, and Family courses. I chose

textbooks for intermediate-level elective courses on inequality (i.e., Race, Class, or Gender) and

Family to have textbooks covering similar topics as usually found in Introduction to Sociology

and Social Problems textbooks.

I selected 27 books for the sample (19 for introductory courses and eight for intermediate

elective courses). My inclusion criteria are in the Appendix. There were 64 textbooks for

Introduction to Sociology, of which 14 met inclusion criteria (see Table 3). There were 20

textbooks for Social Problems courses, of which five met inclusion criteria (see Table 4). There

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were 47 textbooks for courses on Race, Class, Gender, or Family, of which eight texts met

inclusion criteria (see Table 5).

I analyzed three chapters for each text: (1) the introduction, (2) marriage and family, and

(3) an area of inequality (race, class, or gender, randomly selected) (see Tables 3-5). For family

texts, I analyzed two areas of inequality in addition to the introductory chapter. My analysis aims

to understand how textbooks embed methods instruction throughout the book; therefore, I did not

analyze standalone methods chapters. Social Problems textbooks, however, tend to cover

research methods in the first chapter.




Research Questions and Analysis

I report the results for these guiding questions: (1) Does the author refer to how a study

was done, or were only results reported? (2) When study results are shared, are quantitative (i.e.,

statistics), qualitative data (i.e., interview snippets), or both reported? (3) Are there other

noteworthy things that emerge about doing research/teaching students how to do research? (4)

Are research methods infused throughout the text? I looked for descriptions of methodological

approaches, research design, sampling procedures, measurement of variables, data collection

methods, research questions, and hypotheses. I analyzed how textbooks talked about these ideas

in the context of sharing sociological research.

I used qualitative content analysis (Schreier 2012). I focus on the emergent manifest and

latent themes about research rather than how frequently textbooks discuss research methods or

report results. By closely reading each chapter and using qualitative content analysis, this

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research can uncover latent content missed by studies focusing on counting content described in

chapter headings or the index (Shin 2014). I coded each text, focusing on those chunks of text

where they discussed research methods or findings. I prepared a research memo on each chapter

in the sample. These memos included quoted material and initial thoughts on what was occurring

in the data and connecting the data to the research-focused competencies in the SLF.

A chunk of text about research may report and contextualize data. For example:

Children of working parents spend most of the day at school. But after school, about 4.5

million youngsters (11 percent of five- to fourteen-year-olds) are latchkey kids who must

fend for themselves (U.S. Census Bureau, 2013). Traditionalists in the ‘family values’

debate charge that many mothers work at the expense of their children, who receive less

parenting. Progressives reply that such criticism unfairly blames women for wanting the

same opportunities men have long enjoyed. (Macionis [2012] 2019:418)

I coded this paragraph with these codes: misleading (most “latchkey” kids skew older) (Laughlin

2013), false equivalence (traditionalists and progressive), sexist (never mentions fathers), dated

(single source from 2013 and the term “latchkey”), quantitative (numerical data), missing

sources (no references cited beyond the source for the numerical data), and official or

government source (citation to the U.S. Census Bureau).

Next, I evaluated my codes to see how they reflect the research-focused competencies in

the SLF. In the previous example, readers can check the reported data. The U.S. Census report

shows that most children in self-care were middle-school-aged. Moreover, the report does not

use the term “latchkey” but instead uses “self-care” (Laughlin 2013). This example does not

model scientific thinking because it uses misleading statistics, dated and value-laden terms, and

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fails to incorporate sociological research on how mother’s or father’s time spent with children

matters (e.g., Milkie, Nomaguchi, and Denny 2015).

In contrast, DeFronzo and Gill (2020:19) write:

Mitchell Duneier’s (2000) Sidewalk is an important participant observer study. In this

five-year effort the author observed, interviewed, and worked as an assistant for poor

sidewalk book and other merchandise vendors, many of them homeless persons, and sold

magazines himself on three New York City blocks. Duneier’s research revealed the

struggles and strategies of these individuals trying to earn a living in their typically illegal

businesses.

DeFronzo and Gill (2020) describe the method (participant observation), study length (five

years), and the setting (merchandise vendor in New York City). However, the snippet falls short

in that only vague findings are shared (struggles and strategies) and overly emphasizes the

illegality of sidewalk vendors. This example is closer to modeling an application of scientific

principles but does not provide enough detail for students to know how Duneier did his research

or understand his findings.

RESULTS

Because textbooks are the product of multiple interests, I give agency to textbooks in this

manuscript. That is, I report what textbooks say rather than what authors write. This stylistic

choice recognizes that authors, publishers, graphic designers, copyeditors, and adopters influence

the textbook content. For specific examples, I refer to the textbook by its authors. Readers should

not classify a textbook as good or bad based on a single illustration from this manuscript because

many of the textbooks have strengths and weaknesses.

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It is beyond the scope of this manuscript to focus on all aspects of the SLF in the data, as

my objective is to understand the story told in textbooks about how sociologists know what they

know. My plan was to connect the themes in my results to the research-focused SLF

competencies. However, there was only modest evidence of application of scientific principles.

The second two skills (i.e., evaluation and analysis) were largely absent. Therefore, results are

organized by emergent themes rather than by the research-focused SLF skills. While the SLF

proposes that students will be able to apply scientific principles, evaluate sociological research,

and analyze data, my approach is whether the textbooks provide enough details for students to

learn to do these things. Overall, textbooks model unscientific and asociological thinking, failing

to apply, evaluate, or analyze.

Textbooks more often place extensive research details in insets (i.e., outlined boxes) and

end-of-chapter activities rather than the main body. For instance, Shepard (2018:206) includes a

detailed example explaining Donna Eder’s 1995 research on middle schoolers as an inset.

Shepard identifies what Eder observed (i.e., rituals and daily speech routines of 12- to 14-year-

olds), how she collected data (i.e., observations during lunch and extracurricular activities and

informal interviews), and her findings. Shepard provides ethical details (i.e., informed consent)

and practical details (i.e., audio-recording of the interviews). Shepard delivers a lot of

information that helps students see how sociologists use scientific principles but did not explain

how data were analyzed or how theory was used. To provide this much detail for every reported

study is likely unrealistic, but textbooks should be able to do this some of the time and should do

this in the main body of the text to demonstrate its importance.

Overall, textbooks lack detail about how sociologists do research for students to

understand how sociologists know what they know. Textbooks share study results – whatever

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might fit into one or two sentences and mostly leave out an explanation of the data used, how

data were collected or analyzed, information about the sample or research site, or limitations of

the data. One exception to this is that textbooks do use examples of conceptualizing variables.

Textbooks use shortcuts to establish scientific credibility, including reporting sample sizes and

study length, author credentials, and by using adjectives to describe research. I broaden Ferguson

and Carbonaro’s (2016b) meaning of the “apply scientific principles” competency to include

evaluating the quality of sources of sociological claims. Textbooks made claims without sources,

making it difficult for students to learn from where findings come and they use sources from a

range of claims makers (e.g., peer-reviewed research to anecdotes from the author’s classroom),

treating them all as equally credible.

False Equivalence Arguments

Textbooks use false equivalence arguments to present disagreement among scholars or

perspectives. Books use peer-reviewed sources for one side and no citations, dated peer-reviewed

sources, or non-peer-reviewed sources for the other side (and there are never more than two

sides). Instead of showing how sociologists use peer-reviewed research to understand social

phenomena, textbooks treat all sources of information as equally valid. For example, Kendall

(2017:313) suggests disagreement among scholars:

Why does gender inequality increase in agrarian societies? Scholars cannot agree on an

answer; some suggest that it results from private ownership of property.…However,

some scholars argue that male dominance existed before the private ownership of

property. (Firestone, 1970; Lerner, 1986)

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This example illustrates how textbooks fail to use sources and rely on dated sources to present

disagreement. Textbooks sometimes cited reprinted dates without the original publication date,

making the debate appear ongoing (e.g., Thompson, Hickey, and Thompson 2019).

Textbooks present debates as occurring between sociologists and others (e.g., social

conservatives). For instance, Griffiths, Keirns, Strayer, Vyain, and Bry (2017:309) write: “The

question of what constitutes a family is a … debate in family sociology, … in politics and

religion. Social conservatives tend to define the family … Sociologists, … define family… .”

The text provides no citations for this debate. Moreover, the text treats sociological research as

equivalent to the opinions of unidentified social conservatives and suggests agreement among

sociologists.

Textbooks also compare things that, while having the appearance of being similar, are

not. For example, Macionis (2019:322–24) includes separate sections on violence against women

and violence against men. This organizational choice appears to be balanced because he

addresses men and women. However, violence against women and violence against men are

qualitatively different experiences, and the examples he uses are categorically different forms of

violence. Macionis addresses relationship violence (e.g., rape) and structural violence (e.g.,

female genital mutilation) for women. For men, he covers murder and suicide. He begins the

section on violence against men with: “If our way of life encourages violence against women, it

may encourage even more violence against men” (Macionis 2019:323). The only sources used in

the section on men were for murder and suicide statistics. Macionis could talk about categories

of violence (i.e., relationship, structural) and still talk about how men and women are affected by

both rather than attempting to make the case that men have it worse.

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Reinforcement of Commonsense Explanations

Many textbooks start with the premise that sociology is different from common sense and

debunks commonsense beliefs about social phenomena. Texts, however, reinforce commonsense

understanding. Multiple textbooks, for instance, construct single parenthood, divorce, and

cohabitation as responsible for adverse childhood outcomes (e.g., Barian 2019; Macionis 2019;

Olson, DeFrain, and Skogrand 2019; Ritzer and Murphy 2019; Shepard 2018). Authors blame

divorce, single parenthood (often single mothers or “out-of-wedlock births” [Desmond and

Emirbayer 2016:371]), or both, for childhood poverty.

These claims ignore research demonstrating that single parenthood is not correlated with

poverty in Western Europe to the degree it is in the United States (see Brady, Finnigan, and

Hübgen 2017; Schaefer, Matteingly, and Johnson 2016). Occasionally textbooks point out that

“[i]ncome inequality accounts for a large part of the adverse effects of single parenting on …

children (Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan 2002)” (Shepard 2018:325). Shepard spends

comparably more space (i.e., three paragraphs) and support (i.e., nine citations from 1977 to

2010) about the harmful effects of single parenthood on children. Books also repeat

commonsense explanations without any sources: “Women are left alone to raise children as the

men leave because they cannot support them or because the mothers are more likely to qualify

for welfare if the father is absent” (Ritzer and Murphy 2019:276). Leon-Guerrero (2019) covers

both teen pregnancy and infant abandonment under the same section header suggesting the two

are linked yet provides no evidence the two are related. Textbooks produce a logic that promotes

causal claims where correlations (at best) exist, reinforcing commonsense explanations rather

than sociological explanations of social phenomena.

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Shortcuts to Scientific Credibility: Sample Sizes, Study Length, Credentials, and Adjectives

Textbooks establish the credibility of research by reporting sample sizes, study length,

the credentials of the scholars, and use adjectives to describe a study (e.g., “definitive study”).

However, none of these strategies establish the scientific credibility of the research or provide

students with sufficient information to evaluate the quality of the research.

Textbooks reported sample sizes and study length to provide quantitative evidence that

makes research more credible to an audience lacking research methods literacy. Sample sizes

were reported for both qualitative and quantitative studies but not always precisely. For example,

Ferris and Stein (2018) report Edin and Kefalas’ (Promises I Can Keep) sample size precisely:

162. In contrast, Desmond and Emirbayer (2016:375) report the sample size as “over 160.”

While true, the exact sample size is known. This lack of precision also appears when more recent

results are referenced but go unreported. Textbooks also report how long a researcher spent on

their study. Schaefer (2020), for instance, describes Elijah Anderson’s 1990 study of

Philadelphia as a 14-year fieldwork study. Textbooks, however, never explain why research can

take a long time or why reporting the length of the study or sample size matters.

Both sample sizes and study length are quantitative measures that do not determine study

quality. Textbooks report these kinds of quantitative measures to promote the trustworthiness of

the results, especially for qualitative studies. Students come away with the notion that

sociologists talk to or survey many people over a long period, and the more people they talk to

and the longer they do it, the better. Further, textbooks do not show how to evaluate qualitative

research without resorting to quantitative measures.

Another shortcut to scientific credibility that textbooks use is reporting a scholar’s

discipline (e.g., sociologist, family researcher, social scientist, biologist), institution (e.g.,

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Stanford, University of Washington), or both. Textbooks contextualized studies by identifying

the discipline from which they came and then used institutional affiliations to strengthen the

credibility of the research, and often stood in for the names of scholars and in place of formal

citations. For example, “some anthropologists and psychologists believe the higher degree of

nurturance among women is innate, whereas others believe it is learned” (Stinnett et al.

2016:62).

Another strategy textbooks use to establish scientific credibility is using adjectives to

convince readers of the trustworthiness of their sources. For example, Kendall (2017) describes a

“definitive study” (p. 306) and a “comprehensive study” (p. 317). Textbooks use adjectives to

convince readers that the research is credible instead of providing sufficient details for readers to

draw their own conclusions.

Occasionally, textbooks used several of these strategies at once. A representative case

from Ferris and Stein (2018:370) uses study length, sample size, and adjectives: “Kathryn Edin

and Maria Kefalas (2005) spent five years [i.e., study length] doing in-depth research [i.e.,

adjectives] with 162 low-income single mothers [i.e., sample size] to understand their attitudes

about parenthood and marriage.” This example stresses less relevant details at the expense of

including more useful information. It remains unknown how Edin and Kefalas recruited research

participants, their data (e.g., interview transcripts), or how they analyzed their data. It is

impractical to share all relevant details of a study but using shortcuts to establish scientific

credibility does not reflect the standards used by sociologists and does not give students practice

in evaluating the quality of social scientific methods or data.

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Sources of Claims

Moving a step earlier than evaluating the quality of social scientific methods and data, I

evaluated the quality of sources of claims. Textbooks range in their ability to support this skill.

Texts draw on research and claims from other fields (e.g., biology, psychology, anthropology),

classroom and popular culture anecdotes, think tanks or government sources (e.g., the U.S.

Census Bureau, PEW), other textbooks, journalist accounts, peer-reviewed research, and critics.

Moreover, textbooks relied on dated sources, failed to include citations to support claims, and

used sources unclearly. It is beyond the scope of this study to analyze all sources used in

textbooks. However, a few patterns emerged.

Textbooks presented academic debates between sociology and other disciplines. An

illustrative case from Eitzen, Zinn, and Smith (2018:199) asked, “Is Gender Biological or

Social?” and concluded the first paragraph with “let us review the evidence for each position.”

The evidence for biology takes up twice as much space as the evidence for social. Both sections

include two sources each. Further, each position is about “gender roles,” not gender as used in

the introductory paragraph. The section concludes with “a sociological perspective” or the social

construction of gender, and the following sections support a sociological perspective. Henslin

(2017) does something similar with race. He cites an economist, a physical anthropologist, a

philosopher, a sociologist, and a journalist, to report on the human genome and the number of

races. He fails to address how sociologists construct race.

Textbooks include anecdotes from popular culture alongside official or government

sources and peer-reviewed sources. For instance, Thompson, et al. (2019) do not distinguish

between the credibility of sources. They write, “Men and women are different. This has been

confirmed in medical journals, self-help and dating guides, novels, movies and television shows

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ad nauseum” (Thompson et al. 2019:272). In contrast, Korgen (2019) shares statistics on

unemployment from the federal government, then shares results from a peer-reviewed study and

concludes the paragraph with a layperson’s experiment from a viral video. In this case, Korgen

(2019:190) labels the anecdote as a “layperson’s experiment,” setting it off from government

data and peer-reviewed research. Anecdotal evidence was not always marked as such. For

example, anecdotal evidence sometimes came from in-class activities with the author’s students

(e.g., Ferrante 2015; Ray and Sharkey 2019; Schwartz and Scott 2018).

Writing an initial textbook is a challenging task, and the frequency at which adopters

expect authors to update them is unsustainable, so we should expect some reliance on dated

sources. Further, some dated references may be considered classics and will have a long life in

textbooks (e.g., C. Wright Mills, W. E. B. Du Bois). However, often, it is unclear why books

continue to use some dated sources, such as Murdoch’s 1949 and 1957 studies on polygamy as if

no one else has studied the topic in the past 70 years.

Textbooks claim the relevancy of older sources, however, without using newer sources to

support those claims. For example, Conley (2019) cites a study from 1984 about media

stereotypes of Middle Easterners and Arabs. He continues, “Little has changed since this study

came out over 30 years ago, although after 9/11, the emphasis shifted away from stereotypes of

Arabs as extremely rich and toward one of Middle Easterners as terrorists” (Conley 2019:365).

The shift from a positive stereotype (i.e., rich) to a negative stereotype (i.e., terrorist) is a

significant shift that Conley dismisses. Further, he includes no citation for the post-9/11

stereotypes.

The placement of sources makes it hard to track which source (if any) supports a claim

made in a textbook. Textbooks place citations at the end of paragraphs instead of the sentence

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with the claim (e.g., Andersen 2020; Coates, Ferber, and Brunsma 2018). This practice leaves

readers (wrongly) assuming the citations support all claims made in the paragraph. Desmond and

Emirbayer (2016) and Khan, Sharkey, and Sharp (2019) use endnotes to cite their sources, which

further obscures the sources of their claims. Desmond and Emirbayer (2016:19), however,

include the name of the scholar and their discipline (and sometimes nation) (e.g., “[e]volutionary

biologist Joseph Graves, Jr.”) within the body of the text.

Textbooks also refer to research and trends without including sources. It is unknown if

books exclude references because some sociological claims are established, making citations

unnecessary, or something else is occurring. Missing citations can look like this case “both

married men and married women live longer, have fewer health problems, have more sex, save

more money, and have fewer psychological problems, such as depression, than do unmarried

men and women” (Ritzer and Murphy 2019:273). They include no sources supporting their five

claims about cisgender heterosexual married couples.

How or why a source fits a claim is sometimes uncertain. For example, Khan, et al.

(2019:3) write about how Mark Granovetter is a sociologist who has “studied a wide variety of

topics” and how “individual behavior can be influenced by the actions of those around us,” like a

riot. The textbook fails to clarify if Granovetter studied riots or if his other research helps

sociologists understand riots.

The lack of transparent citation practices in textbooks leads to other confusing

conclusions. For instance, Lamanna, Riedmann, and Stewart (2018:18) report “research shows

that when children and adolescents have deeper religious connections, they tend to have less

premarital sex and to be older when they have their first sexual experience and, as adults, more

willing to care for their aging parents (Eggebeen and Dew 2009; Gans, Silverstein, and

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Lowenstein 2009; but see Stark 2009; Wilderman and Percheski 2009).” It is unclear what

“deeper religious connections” means or how much older this group is compared with less

religious children and adolescents at first sexual experience (or what sexual experience means).

The authors identify two trends as being correlated with religion, first sexual experience and

caring for aging parents, which appear unrelated to each other. By placing citations at the end of

sentences with multiple claims, textbooks leave readers without a map of each claim’s origin.

Conceptualizing Variables

Textbooks have an opportunity to explain how to conceptualize variables and how

decisions about both affect results. Some books took small steps in this direction. For instance,

Croteau and Hoynes (2020:288) state: “Because precise definitions of asexuality vary, research

findings about the number of people who are asexual also vary considerably.” The textbook,

however, fails to define asexuality for readers and instead offers a list of possible definitions. In

contrast, Andersen (2020:83) explains that emotional labor is a term from Arlie Hochschild

(1983), “referring to the work people do to manage the emotions of others” in paid labor.

Andersen points out that housework is unpaid and therefore “does not fit the classic definition of

emotional labor.” Andersen appears to be speaking to how scholars and journalists (Beck 2018)

misuse Hochschild’s term but does not directly address this misuse. Instead, she gives it a chance

to continue by emphasizing that housework “technically” is not emotional labor, leaving an

opening that it might be emotional labor. Cohen (2018:129) reports the contrast between how

researchers define lower class compared with how research participants define it:

Only 7.9 percent of the population identifies as ‘lower class’ in the G.S.S. [General

Social Survey], but based on their economic conditions, most sociologists believe that

this group is larger. …the official poverty rate was 13.5 percent in 2015.

21

Overall, it is unusual for textbooks to devote much space to conceptualizing variables in the

context of presenting research results. However, the most consistent example of explaining

where a definition comes from was how textbooks define family (and households). Multiple

books report using the U.S. Census definition of family and often expand that to include

households. Some texts point out the limitations of the U.S. Census definition and discuss

religious and legal understandings of the term family (e.g., DeFronzo and Gill 2020).

Basic Descriptive and Inferential Statistics

Textbooks focus on certain kinds of data over other types of data. Texts provide

substantial amounts of basic descriptive statistical data, primarily from governments or think

tanks. Inferential statistical data and qualitative data, however, are nearly absent. Textbooks

report findings from qualitative studies but do not explain what these data looks like, how they

are analyzed, or what claims sociologists can make about them.

Students encounter a plethora of basic descriptive statistical data in sociology textbooks:

percentages, frequencies, rates, means, and medians. Few books explain these terms in the

sampled chapters (see exceptions, Desmond and Emirbayer 2016; Kennedy, Norwood, and

Jendian 2017; Lauer and Lauer 2019). There was only one instance of a textbook explaining a

frequency distribution (Lauer and Lauer 2019). Texts may explain these statistical terms in a

research methods chapter, which I did not analyze.

Rarely does a text share inferential statistics or attempt to discuss statistically significant

research findings. Lauer and Lauer (2019:26) are an exception and explain significance and test

of significance and that studies presented in their book have significant results. Stinnett and

colleagues (2016:22) refer to statistical significance in the context of reporting a study’s results,

but do not explain why that matters:

22

In fact, one of the strongest and most consistent predictors of the propensity to divorce is

the age at which persons marry. Virtually every study of marital dissolution undertaken

since the late 1960s has found both spouses’ age at marriage to be statistically significant

with respect to the probability of divorce. (South 1995)

Of note, elective course textbooks explained statistical terms better, possibly because they rarely

have a separate research methods chapter.

DISCUSSION

Textbooks claim to help students learn how to think sociologically. However, books from

across the undergraduate sociological curriculum do not consistently model sociological or even

a generous version of scientific thinking. Other scholars have found sociology textbooks lacking

in their use of a scientific framework and promotion of asociological thinking (Keith and Ender

2004; Lynch and Bogen 1997). Undergraduate sociology textbooks do not integrate the most

basic research skill in the SLF: applying scientific principles. Instead, students receive false

equivalence arguments, reinforcement of commonsense explanations, an emphasis on shortcuts

to scientific credibility, and sources of claims from unreliable sources. Textbooks are better at

describing how to conceptualize variables and provide multiple encounters with basic descriptive

statistical data.

For this study, I am using a generous and broad understanding of conceptualization of

variables. Most often, textbooks explain how they arrive at a definition for a key term (e.g.,

family) or to point out why our understanding of a topic is more limited (e.g., asexuality).

Textbooks do not speak of this as conceptualizing a variable, but it provides a rudimentary

process model. This area already has some existing groundwork that textbooks could develop.

23

The most common data shared in textbooks are basic descriptive statistical data. No

matter how interesting attitudinal data and demographic data are, they do not tell us why or how

something is. Students must also learn how to interpret this data and how to ask sociological

questions about them. Textbooks offer mixed results regarding teaching students how to interpret

this data and little to no instruction on using this information to ask sociological questions.

Sociology textbooks should demonstrate how sociologists know what they know.

Shedding light on this process serves as a means of cognitive socialization for students and

instructors (see Zerubavel 1997). At a minimum, textbook authors and publishers should revise

their texts to model sociological and scientific thinking. Textbooks should explain how

sociologists arrived at a particular finding—considering that Americans are choosing to take

medications intended for horses rather than get vaccinated to prevent Covid-19, understanding

the contours of how experts know what they know is critical and our responsibility. The most

basic means of doing this is by consistently using scientific principles as the basis of claims

made in texts.

To meet the sociological competency, “evaluate the quality of social scientific methods

and data,” textbooks should explain how data are analyzed, include research examples primarily

from sociology using qualitative and quantitative data, and eliminate shortcuts of establishing

scientific credibility. Authors owe it to readers to provide more explanation.

Textbooks offer an abundance of basic descriptive statistics from think tanks and

government sources, suggesting a missed opportunity for teaching students from where data

come. Many of the origins of basic descriptive statistics used by textbooks are accessible to

students (e.g., U.S. Census). We should teach students how to access this data, make sense of

them, and explain how sociologists use data from think tanks and government sources.

24

Other scholars have analyzed textbooks using section headers, the index, reference lists,

or a combination of the three. My analysis demonstrates that qualitative approaches to the body

of texts are necessary. For example, quantitative analyses of reference lists would miss the

positioning anecdotes from in-class activities as credible sources. Moreover, studies looking at

reference quality miss how textbooks use these sources in the body of the text. Using more peer-

reviewed sources over other kinds of sources makes a textbook appear more scholarly than may

be warranted.

For instructors looking to adopt a textbook, I recommend reading the chapter on family.

Pay attention to whether the author relies on stereotypes about families from the 1980s (i.e.,

overemphasis on divorce or teen pregnancy as social problems) without acknowledging that

these areas have improved. Further, the family chapter is excellent to identify if and how the

author promotes racist, sexist, and homophobic views. I observed textbooks associating social

problems with Black families over other types of families, positioning same-sex parents as

potentially inferior to heterosexual parents, and an association of family with women (e.g.,

working mothers, single mothers). Further, examine if the textbook covers polygamy and note

whether they cite any source for the topic from this century.

Strengths and Limitations

A strength of this study is that I include textbooks from across the undergraduate

sociology curriculum and my sampling procedure. This research is the first study (to my

knowledge) that incorporates Social Problems textbooks, textbooks from various elective

courses, along with books for Introduction to Sociology. I decreased the likelihood of publisher-

induced issues by sampling across publishers. Some problems may be linked to a publisher using

the same copyeditor rather than the author's intent. I also include one open education resource

25

from OpenStax, which to my knowledge, is the first time sociologists have used this text as data

despite its widespread use by instructors. My sampling procedure, however, has two limitations.

First, it is still a convenience sample. While I compiled a complete list of possible textbooks, I

could not access all books identified for inclusion. Second, by focusing on standard texts, many

textbooks for elective courses were excluded. It is unknown if nonstandard books are better at

modeling sociological and scientific thinking.

One may argue that these textbooks were developed before Ferguson and Carbonaro’s

(2016b) SLF was published. While this is correct, their framework did not emerge out of thin air

but reflects agreement among leading scholars of teaching and learning in sociology about what

students should be able to do after specific courses and the granting of their degrees. Further, the

SLF provides a framework to examine how textbooks explain how sociologists know what they

know, which texts should be doing regardless of the existence of the SLF.

Future Research

One question raised by this study is why some topics remain in sociology textbooks. We

are in an era of information overload, so everything included should help develop a sociological

perspective and scientific thinking. Analyzing textbooks for content to be removed may be

useful. Space devoted to one topic comes at the expense of other issues and at the cost of

providing more direct instruction on research skills.

Sociology textbooks also include coverage of research from other disciplines (e.g.,

psychology, anthropology, and biology). Is this necessary? What do sociologists have to say

about the topic being considered? For this area, scholars should examine introductory textbooks

across disciplines to identify overlap. Are other fields as generous with covering sociology as

26

sociology is with covering their domain? Researchers could examine chapters on socialization,

race, and gender across disciplines to explore this issue.

My sample only included print or PDF versions of sociology textbooks. I do not know

what publishers have in electronic interactive books, course cartridges for learning management

systems, or companion websites. As texts become available as digital-only products (e.g.,

Pearson’s catalog), it is more critical to understand what is in them. Further, instructors will

likely become more dependent on the whole package of learning activities and resources

provided by the publisher because digital products are harder to modify or edit (combined with

the increasing reliance on adjunct labor). Scholars should analyze the content of popular

supplementary materials like the Crash Course Sociology and Khan Academy videos.

Lastly, I am analyzing the data visualization using the sample in this study. My

undergraduate research team coded all the figures, charts, and tables to identify their frequency,

type of visualization, kinds of statistical data presented, overall complexity, and data sources

using. That analysis is ongoing but will shed light on another avenue for developing student

research skills.

CONCLUSION

Overall, sociology textbooks do not show how sociologists know what they know.

Instead, they model thinking that is asociological and reinforces unscientific thinking. Despite

the call for incorporating research methods instruction throughout the sociology curriculum since

the 1980s, textbooks have not responded. It is a big ask for textbooks to place greater emphasis

on research methods instruction if instructors are not asking for it.

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Appendix. Sampling Procedure

First, I found textbooks for inclusion in July 2019 by searching the following sociology

textbook publishers’ websites: Cengage, Kendall Hunt, McGraw-Hill, OpenStax, Oxford

University Press, Pearson, Roman & Littlefield, SAGE, Wessex, and WW Norton.1 I searched

each website first for Sociology, and then I narrowed the search for textbooks marketed for

specific courses (e.g., Social Problems, Gender, Race & Ethnicity). Eligible books had copyright

dates between 2015-2022, which captured the most recent edition for sale and were available on

the search day. I identified 131 textbooks for possible inclusion in this study.

Second, I used Amazon sales rank on July 22, 2019, to identify the top-selling sociology

textbooks. The Amazon sales ranking provides updated hourly sales rankings of products in

various categories. I used this strategy to get a general sense of each textbook’s popularity. This

tool is imperfect because students buy and rent books from multiple sources and buy texts for

other purposes (e.g., MCAT preparation). Other limitations of the Amazon sales ranking are that

open education resources and self-published textbooks will not appear. Popularity via sales may

skew the sample towards books adopted by larger universities (Mallory and Cormack 2018) and

does not indicate quality (Babchuk and Keith 1995).

Third, I asked textbook representatives for each publisher for their three most popular

textbooks to confirm the Amazon sales ranking. Textbook representatives did not consistently

provide helpful information. Some representatives thought I was looking to adopt one of these

texts even though I explicitly stated that this was for a research project. My experience with

1One publisher was identified in September, Wessex, Inc. Their Amazon sales ranking was searched on September 30, 2019. Only the top seller from Wessex was included because both of their top two sellers used to be published by Cengage. Flat World Knowledge was excluded because I could not obtain copies through interlibrary loan or digital copies with save or print functionality.

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getting helpful information from textbook representativeness on textbook popularity sheds some

doubt on the accuracy that other scholars have received about the popularity of a given text.

Fourth, to increase the breadth of voices, I included no more than two books from each

publisher per course, and each author was only represented once in the sample. Some authors

have popular textbooks for multiple courses, which meant that not all the textbooks in the sample

were ranked as the two most popular from the publisher. Given the larger number of Introductory

Sociology students, these texts were ranked higher than Social Problems texts by the same

authors. For instance, I used Pearson's fourth-ranked Social Problems textbook to avoid overlap

with authors of Introduction to Sociology textbooks. Further, I included the introductory

sociology textbook from OpenStax (i.e., an open education resource) and the self-published, A

Sociology Experiment.

Fifth, I excluded nonstandard textbooks: readers, workbooks, compilations of case

studies, annual editions, or taking sides-style texts. I reviewed books online using the publisher’s

website, Amazon, and Google Books to assess if I could make the text work for this study. Other

tests were excluded because their approach was too different (e.g., humanist), were for

anthropology or psychology courses rather than sociology courses, or they did not have the

desired chapters for this study to sample.

Lastly, I excluded three texts2 because I could not obtain a copy through a textbook

representative, interlibrary loan, or a colleague; or was only available electronically (with no

print or save functionality). I decided against purchasing textbooks or paying for electronic

access to include them in the study.

2 I could not obtain no-cost copies of Mooney, Knox, and Schact (2017) Understanding Social Problems (Cengage), Knox (2018) M&F, and Mendenhall, Plowman, and Trump (2016) Intimate Relationships: Where Have We Been? Where are We Going? (Kendall Hunt).

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Table 1. Previous Scholarship on the Content of Introduction to Sociology Textbooks Topic Nation Publication Affirmative action United States Beeman, Chowdhry, and Todd 2000 Atlanta Sociological University and W.E.B. DuBois

United States Wright 2012

Charles Horton Cooley United States Reitzes and Hall 1982 Disability United States Taub and Fanflik 2006 Durkheim Canada Mallory and Cormack 2018

Puffer 2009 Durkheim and the Hawthorne effect

United States Nolan 2003

The environment United States Lewis and Humphrey 2005 Liu and Szasz 2019

Gender United States Hall 1988 Manza and Van Schyndel 2000

Global multiculturalism United States Shin 2014 Glossaries United States Best and Schweingruber 2003 “Hispanic” women United States Marquez 1994 Human-animal relationship United States Alger and Alger 2003 Myths about crowds United States Schweingruber and Wohlstein 2005 Myths about slavery United States Pearce and Lee 2021 Overall content United States Friedman 1991 Overall content United States Lynch and Bogen 1997

Perrucci 1980 Overall content United Kingdom Platt 2008 Overall content Turkey Kaynak and Tacoğlu 2019 Overall content United Kingdom and

France Schrecker 2008

Parsons United Kingdom Mahlert 2021 Power United States Paap 1981 Race and ethnicity United States Dennick-Brecht 1993

Hamilton and Form 2003 Stone 1996

Race and Gender United States Ferree and Hall 1990 Clark and Nunes 2008 Hall 2000 Race, Class, and Gender United States Ferree and Hall 1996 Puentes and Gougherty 2011 References United States Babchuk and Keith 1995 Sociology of scientific knowledge

United States Kurtz and Maiolo 1968 Lynch and Bogen 1997

Sexuality or heterosexism United States Phillips 1991 Suarez and Balaji 2007

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Sidestepping of human nature

United Kingdom and Australia

Leahy 2012

Subject headers United States Keith and Ender 2004 Substructure-superstructure relations

United States Oyinlade, Christo, and Finch 2020

Symbolic interaction United States Carrothers and Benson 2003 Work Canada Dixon and Quirke 2014 World religions United States Carroll 2017

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Table 2. Previous Scholarship on the Content of Sociology Textbooks for Elective Courses Course Topic Nation Publication Criminology Research methods

and ethics United States Rhineberger 2006

Criminology Oppression of women

United States Wright 1995

Family Black families United States Bryant and Coleman 1988 Peters 1974

Family Families of color United States Dunham et al. 2004 Shaw-Taylor and Benokraitis 1995

Family Overall content United States Glenn 2009 Greenwood and Cassidy 1986, 1990 Spanier and Stump 1978

Race and Ethnicity White privilege United States Fitzgerald 2012 Research Methods Ethics Canada and

the United States

Dixon and Quirke 2018

Research Methods (Social Science)

Methods pedagogy

United States Lewthwaite and Holmes 2018

Sociology of Education

Symbolic interactionism

China Dong 2008

Theory Coverage of women

United States McDonald 2019

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Table 3. Introduction to Sociology Textbooks in the Sample (N = 14)

Author Copyright Textbook Title Publisher Chapters in Sample

Conley 2019

You May Ask Yourself: An Introduction to Thinking like a Sociologist (6th ed)

WW Norton

Ch. 1: The Sociological Imagination: An Introduction Ch. 9: Race Ch. 12: Family

Croteau and Hoynes 2020 Experience

Sociology (4th ed) McGraw-Hill

Ch. 1: Sociology in a Changing World Ch. 11: Gender and Sexuality Ch. 12: Family and Religion

Ferrante 2015 Sociology: A Global Perspective (9th ed)

Cengage

Ch. 1: The Sociological Imagination Ch. 9: Race Ch. 12: Family

Ferris and Stein 2018 The Real World

(6th ed) WW Norton

Ch. 1: Sociology and the Real World Ch. 7: Social Class: The Structure of Inequality Ch. 12: Life at Home: Families and Relationships

Griffiths, Keirns, Strayer, Vyain, and Bry

2017 Introduction to Sociology (2nd ed) OpenStax

Ch. 1: An Introduction to Sociology Ch. 9: Social Stratification in the United States Ch. 14: Marriage and Family

Henslin 2017

Essentials of Sociology: A Down to Earth Approach (13th ed)

Pearson

Ch. 1: The Sociological Perspective Ch. 12: Race and Ethnicity Ch. 16: Marriage and Family

Kendall 2017 Sociology in Our Times (11th ed) Cengage

Ch. 1: The Sociological Perspective Ch. 11: Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Ch. 15: Families and Intimate Relationships

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Khan, Sharkey, and Sharp (editors)

2019 A Sociology Experiment

Self-Published

Ch. 1: A Sociology Experiment (Khan, Sharkey, and Sharp) Ch. 7: Race and Ethnicity (Ray and Sharkey) Ch. 8: Sociology of Families (Barian)

Korgen and Atkinson (editors)

2019 Sociology in Action (1st ed) SAGE

Ch. 1: Training Your Sociological Eye (Korgen) Ch. 9: Recognizing the Importance of Race (Korgen) Ch. 10: Understanding Institutions: Family (Froyum)

Macionis 2019 Society: The Basics (15th ed) Pearson

Ch. 1: Sociology: Perspective, Theory, and Method Ch. 11: Gender Stratification Ch. 14: Family and Religion

Ritzer and Murphy 2019 Essentials of

Sociology (3rd ed) SAGE

Ch. 1: An Introduction to Sociology in the Global Age Ch. 7: Social Stratification in the United States and Globally Ch. 10: Families

Schaefer 2020 Sociology in Modules (5th ed)

McGraw-Hill

Ch. 1: Understanding Sociology Ch. 10: Racial and Ethnic Inequality Ch. 13: The Family and Household Diversity

Shepard 2018 Sociology (12th ed) Wessex Inc

Ch. 1: The Sociological Perspective Ch. 8: Social Stratification Ch. 11: Family

Thompson, Hickey, and Thompson

2019 Society in Focus: An Introduction to Sociology (9th ed)

Rowman & Littlefield

Ch. 1: Discovering Sociology Ch. 11: Sex and Gender Ch. 13: Families

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Table 4. Social Problems Textbooks in the Sample (N = 5)


DeFronzo and Gill 2020

Social Problems and Social Movements (1st edition)

Rowman & Littlefield

Ch. 1: The Sociology of Social Problems Ch. 4: Poverty Ch. 7: The Family

Eitzen, Zinn, and Smith 2018 Social Problems

(14th edition) Pearson

Ch. 1: The Sociological Approach to Social Problems Ch. 9: Gender Inequality Ch. 14: Families

Kennedy, Norwood, and Jendiana

2017

Think: Critical Thinking about Social Problems (1st edition)

Kendall Hunt

Ch. 1: Critical Thinking about Society Ch. 3: The Power of Culture

Lauer and Lauer 2019

Social Problems and the Quality of Life (14th edition)

McGraw Hill

Ch. 1: Understanding Social Problems Ch. 6: Poverty Ch. 12: Family Problems

Leon-Guerrero 2019

Social Problems: Community, Policy, and Social Action (6th edition)

SAGE

Ch. 1: Sociology and the Study of Social Problems Ch. 4: Gender Ch. 7: Families

aOnly two chapters in Kennedy, Norwood, and Jendian were included. There was not an appropriate third chapter to analyze.

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Table 5. Textbooks for Courses in Race, Class, Gender, Stratification, and Marriage and Family in the Sample (N =8)


Andersen 2020 Thinking About Women (11th edition)

Pearson

Ch. 1: Studying Women: Feminist Perspectives Ch. 5: Gender, Work, and the Economy Ch. 6: Gender and Families

Coates, Ferber, and Brunsma 2017

The Matrix of Race: Social Construction, Intersectionality, and Inequality (1st edition

SAGE

Ch. 1: Race and the Social Construction of Difference Ch. 3: The Social Construction and Regulation of Families Ch. 4: Work and Wealth Inequality

Cohen 2018

The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change (2nd edition)

WW Norton

Ch. 1: A Sociology of the Family Ch. 4: Families and Social Class Ch. 5: Gender

Desmond and Emirbayer 2016 Race in America

(1st edition) WW Norton

Ch. 1: Race in the Twenty-First Century Ch. 4: Economics Ch. 10: Intimate Life

Lamanna, Riedmann, and Stewart

2018

Marriages, Families, and Relationships: Making Choices in a Diverse Society (13th edition)

Cengage

Ch. 1: Making Family Choices in a Changing Society Ch. 3: Gender Identities and Families Ch. 9: Raising Children in a Diverse Society

Olson, DeFrain, Skogrand 2019

Marriages and Families: Intimacy, Diversity, and Strengths (9th edition)

McGraw Hill

Ch. 1: Perspectives on Intimate Relationships Ch. 7: Gender Roles and Power in the Family Ch. 8: Managing Economic Resources

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Schwartz and Scott 2018

Marriages and Families: Diversity and Change (8th edition)

Pearson

Ch. 1: Marriages and Families over Time Ch. 3: Understanding Gender: Its Influences in Intimate Relationships Ch. 10: Evolving Work and Family Structures

Stinnett, Stinnett, DeGenova, and Rice

2016

Intimate Relationships, Marriages, and Families (9th edition)

Oxford University Press

Ch. 1: Intimate Relationships, Marriages, and Families in the Twenty-first Century Ch. 2: Gender Ch. 8: Work, Family Roles, and Material Resources

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