African American Families

by Angela J. Hattery, Earl Smith

"Bravo to the authors! They have done an excellent job addressing the issues that are critical to community members, policy makers and interventionists concerned with Black families in the context of our nation."
―Michael C. Lambert, University of Missouri , Colombia "African American Families is a timely work. The strength of this text lies in the depth of coverage, clarity, and the ability to combine secondary sources, statistics and qualitative data to reveal the plight of African Americans in society."
―Edward Opoku-Dapaah, Winston-Salem State University
―Lateef O. Badru, University of Louisville African American Families provides a systematic sociological study of contemporary life for families of African descent living in the United States. Analyzing both quantitative and qualitative data, authors Angela J. Hattery and Earl Smith identify the structural barriers that African Americans face in their attempts to raise their children and create loving, healthy, and raise the children of the next generation. Key Intended This is an ideal textbook for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses such as African American Families, Sociology of the Family, Contemporary Families, and Race and Ethnicity in the departments of Human Development and Family Studies, Sociology, African American Studies, and Black Studies.

408 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2007

About the author

Angela Hattery studies sociology and anthropology at Carleton College (BA 1988) before earning her master's and PHD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1996). She has held positions at Ball State University (1996-1998), Wake Forest University (1998-2011) and is currently professor and director of the women and gender studies program at George Mason University. She is the author of 11 books, most recently Policing Black Bodies: How Black Lives are Surveilled and How to Work for Change. When not teaching and writing, she enjoys volunteering in her community, she works out daily, and she enjoys reading. She has 2 children, Travis who lives in San Francisco and Emma who lives in Denver. She is originally from Rochester, Minnesota.

Reviews

[Em]

Read this book for an African Families in Transition class. VERY well-rounded and covers everything you could think of in fully comprehensible words. One thing I really enjoyed was that the authors not only thoroughly explained the problems and stresses African American families face, but at the end of every chapter, there was a list of possible solutions. Also, they made sure to fully examine everything through the RCG Paradigm (Race, Class, Gender) to make sure that the differences of intersections were fully discussed as well. Loved it! Didn't feel like a textbook at all, honestly.