Marriages and Families Census Update: Changes, Choices, and Constraints

Marriages and Families, Census Update, 7e offers students a comprehensive introduction to many issues facing families in the twenty-first century.

The text’s major theme, “Changes, Choices, and Constraints,” explores: contemporary changes in families and their structure, impacts on the choices available to family members, and constraints that often limit our choices. Through this approach, students are better able to understand what the research and statistics mean for themselves. 

Marriages and Families, Census Update balances theoretical and empirical discussions with practical examples and applications. It highlights important contemporary changes in society and the family. This text is written from a sociological perspective and incorporates material from other disciplines: history, economics, social work, psychology, law, biology, medicine, family studies, women's studies, and anthropology.

The Census Update program incorporates 2010 Census data into a course—simply and easily. The components of the Census Update Program include an updated census edition with all charts and graphs—to reflect the results of the 2010 Census.

• Improve Critical Thinking — Feature questions encourage students to reflect on chapter studies and relate them to personal experience.
• Engage Students — Current research relates to the students’ own lives.
• Explore Theory — Written from a sociological perspective and incorporates material from other disciplines.

Nijole V. Benokraitis, professor emerita of sociology at the University of Baltimore, taught the marriage and family course for almost 25 years. It was her favorite class but her courses in racial and ethnic relations and gender roles ran a close second. Professor Benokraitis received a B.A. in sociology and English from Emmanuel College in Boston, an M.A. in sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin.

She was a strong proponent of applied sociology and required her students to enhance their knowledge through interviews, direct observation, and other hands-on learning methods. She also enlisted her students in community service activities such as tutoring and mentoring inner-city high school students, writing to government officials and other decision makers about specific social problems, and volunteering research services to nonprofit organizations.

Professor Benokraitis immigrated to the United States from Lithuania with her family after World War II as a political refugee when she was five years old. She is bilingual and bicultural and is very empathetic of students who must balance the demands of several cultural worlds.

She has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited ten books, including Seeing Ourselves: Classic, Contemporary, and Cross-Cultural Readings in Sociology, Contemporary Ethnic Families in the United States: Characteristics, Variations, and Dynamics; Feuds about Families: Conservative, Centrist, Liberal, and Feminist Perspectives; and Modern Sexism: and Blatant, Subtle, and Covert Discrimination. Dr. Benokraitis has published numerous articles and book chapters on topics such as institutional racism, discrimination against women in government and higher education, fathers in two-earner families, displaced homemakers, and family policy.

She has received grants and fellowships from many institutions, including the National Institute of Mental Health, the Ford Foundation, the American Educational Research Association, the Administration on Aging, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. She has also served as a consultant in the areas of sex and race discrimination to women’s commissions, business groups, colleges and universities, federal government programs, and the American Association of University Women’s International Fellowships Program.

Dr. Benokraitis has made several appearances on radio and television shows on gender communication differences and single-sex educational institutions. She currently serves on the editorial board of Women & Criminal Justice and reviews manuscripts for several academic journals.

Professor Benokraitis lives in Maryland with her husband, Dr. Vitalius Benokraitis, a vice president at a technology assessment company. They have two adult children, Gema and Andrius.

The author looks forward (and always responds) to comments on the 7th edition of Marriages and Families: Changes, Choices, and Constraints. She can be reached at nbenokraitis@ubalt.edu.