Book Review: Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life

chapter include personal stories, excerpts from published newspaper accounts, or personal memoirs reflecting an important family issue. In the chapter on singlehood and cohabitation a family researcher reflects on her own status as a single woman, and the chapter on parenting includes a newspaper article focusing on Japanese fathers. Like the other boxed inserts contained in the text, these often contain critical thinking questions that somewhat make up for the lack of review questions at the end of each chapter. A common problem in both books is their treatment of theory. Both texts include brief discussions of a variety of theories including the ecological, structural-functional, symbolic interactionist, exchange, family systems, developmental, and feminist theories. Lamanna and Riedmann also include a discussion of the biosocial perspective, while Seccombe and Warner add conflict theory to their list. Conflict theory is discussed only briefly in Lamanna and Riedmann, in their section on feminist theory. Given that conflict theory is often considered to be one of the three main theoretical paradigms in sociology (alongside structural-functionalism and symbolic interactionism), Lamanna and Riedmann’s secondary treatment of conflict theory is an additional weakness of their text. My main criticism, however, is that the theories presented in Chapter 2 of each book are too numerous and illdefined for students to truly grasp their significance. While I recognize that each of these theoretical perspectives has something to contribute to understanding families today, I find that the sheer number of theories initially highlighted in most texts often overwhelms students. Students may find it difficult to discern among the various theories and to recognize a particular theory’s relevance to the information presented in later chapters. Thus, I would like to see both texts reorganize their discussion of the various theories, perhaps highlighting only the three main sociological paradigms in their introductory discussion and incorporating other theoretical perspectives later in the text when they are relevant to the information presented. Other Sociology of Family texts do this successfully and as a result are much less likely to lose students in a theoretical quagmire (see, for example, Bidwell and Vander Mey 2000; Lauer and Lauer 2004; Schwartz and Scott 2003). As it stands, the theory chapter in each text seems to overwhelm and confuse, rather than to enlighten. Nevertheless, both texts attempt to strike a balance between an applied and theoretical focus and both are successful in this regard. If I were to adopt one of these texts I would have a difficult time choosing between them, as I believe they both do a fine job of accomplishing the goals they set out, while the core problem—the confusing introduction to the various theoretical perspectives—applies to both. However, each text also has key strengths that may offset this problem for many instructors. For instance, Seccombe and Warner are to be applauded for their extensive discussion of research methods, while the detailed treatment of competing definitions of family and the focus on informed choice in Lamanna and Riedmann’s text should both engage and enlighten students.