This introduction to marriages and families accentuates the positive aspects of relationships and focuses on enriching students’ knowledge and experience in building strong, successful couple and family relationships. The authors, seasoned family scholars and therapists, integrate research, theory, and practical application with an interdisciplinary perspective on marriage and family. The new edition includes a unique self-assessment program, AWARE (Awareness of Attitudes and Relationships Expectations) Online (2008), a computerized student assessment tool with pre-and post tests designed specifically to match the chapter content for the sixth edition of the text. More Reviews and Recommendations

Linda Skogrand is an assistant professor and family life extension specialist at Utah State University in Logan, Utah. She began her professional career as a social worker in the inner-city of St. Louis, Missouri, and throughout her career has enjoyed a balance between academic institutions and social service organizations. Her current position as an extension specialist allows her to take knowledge and research findings and make them available to people in communities in Utah and throughout the nation. Skogrand’s social service experience includes providing HIV/AIDS education programs for street kids, people in prison, and gang members, and overseeing the design of an AIDS house for the Latino population. She has also taught family courses at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, for 17 years and was adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota for several years. She has published articles focusing on values in parent education, the lives of families who have experienced Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, transcendence of traumatic childhoods, spirituality, strong Latino marriages, and debt and marriage. She has co-authored several books including Surviving and Transcending a Traumatic Childhood: The Dark Thread, Coping with Sudden Infant Death, and Sudden Infant Death: Enduring the Loss. . Her current research focuses on strong marriages in the Latino and American Indian cultures and she is currently conducting a national study of what makes “great” marriages with John DeFrain. Skogrand has been married to her high school sweetheart, Steven Gilbertson, for the past seven years and resides in Logan, Utah. She has three adult children, Aaron,Jennifer, and Sara. Her children’s multiracial heritage has taught her much about diversity.

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