Second Draft of Final Exam questions, updated May 29, 2018.

Sample questions for the in-class final exam. The final will consist of essay questions including some of the following. The final is a closed- book exam, no notes are allowed.

Essays should explain causes and effects, rather than simply providing a laundry list. A careful explanation with a few detailed and carefully considered examples is always better than a long list of examples without sufficient explanation.

* Describe the feminist critique of the traditional family (think Friedan, Ettelbrick, Stacey, and Hochschild), and of traditional family scholarship. How do proponents of the traditional heterosexual married nuclear family respond to the critique? [Used this on the midterm, so it won’t be on the final]

* What does social science have to say about children raised by same-sex couples, and how was the social science consensus reflected in the DeBoer v. Snyder trial (in Michigian in federal court, 2014)?

* What legal, constitutional, and social issues were at stake in the the Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court (2015) decision? How did Obergefell v. Hodges build on Lawrence v. Texas (US Supreme Court, 2003)?

* What is the logic of the slippery slope argument, how does it relate to same-sex marriage, who makes the slippery slope argument, and what kinds of responses do others have against the slippery slope?

* How is childhood character shaped by parents, how do we know what parents' effect on children is, and how and why has childhood changed over time in the US?

* How have US popular attitudes towards gay rights changed over time? What evidence do we have that attitudes have actually changed? What explains the change over time in attitudes?

* What is the history of mating rituals in the US, and how has technology and modernity affected how couples have met? How have the changing ways partners meet affected who partners with whom? Who is more likely to meet their partners online, and why? What is the long term trend in parental influence over their adult children’s choice of mate?

* Why does marriage matter to society, and how has marriage changed over American history? How does marriage increase couple longevity? What does the research show about the relative longevity of same-sex married couples and heterosexual married couples in the US?

* What are the racial differences in out of wedlock births, and what are the explanations for the differences? How has the rate of out-of-wedlock births changed since the Moynihan report? How has the Moynihan report been received by other scholars?

* In what way do different views about the history of the family inform our different views about the meaning of family or family change today?

* What is the Second Shift, why does it continue to exist, why is it important, and why is it difficult to study?

Identifications:

Family Government

The Independent Life Stage

Demographic Metabolism

The Defense of Marriage Act (US, 1996)

Griswold v. Connecticut (US Supreme Court 1965)

Loving v. Virginia (US Supreme Court 1967) [didn't discuss this in 2018, won't be on the final]

Bowers v. Hardwick (US Supreme Court 1986)

Lawrence v. Texas (US Supreme Court 2003)

Baehr v. Miike (Hawaii Circuit Court 1996) [didn't discuss this in 2018, won't be on the final]

Perez v. Sharp (California Supreme Court 1948) [didn't discuss this in 2018, won't be on the final]

In Re Marriage Cases (California Supreme Court 2008) [didn't discuss this in 2018, won't be on the final]

Roe v. Wade (US Supreme Court 1973)

In Re Gardiner (Kansas Supreme Court 2002)

Turner v. Safley (US Supreme Ct 1987)

DeBoer v. Snyder (US District Court, Michigan, 2014)

Obergefell v. Hodges (US Supreme Court, 2015)

Alfred Kinsey

Sigmund Freud

Stonewall

Seneca Falls, 1848

Functionalism

Incomplete Institutionalization of Step Parenthood

Original Intent

Matrifocal Family

Coverture