The Work-Family Interface: An Introduction - Paperback

by Stephen A. Sweet (Author)

The author is a proud sponsor of the 2020 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award--enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop.

This brief and accessible title integrates contemporary scholarly research with compelling vignettes to make it appealing to both instructors and undergraduate audiences. While focused on the United States in respect to its target audience and emphasis, it contains considerable international data that compares and contrasts social policies adopted in Europe and elsewhere. In so doing, it shows both the strengths and the limitations of the approaches used in the U.S. This title is the only single source that summarizes the origins of work-family concerns, the diversities of needs and experiences, the impact of tensions on the family front, the consequences of tensions for employers, and different types of policies that can make meaningful differences not only in the lives of employees, but also potentially in job quality and national productivity.

Author Biography

Stephen Sweet is an associate professor of sociology at Ithaca College and was formerly the associate director of the Cornell Work and Family Careers Institute. His books include Changing Contours of Work (2012, 2008), The Work and Family Handbook: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Methods and Approaches (2005), Teaching Work and Family: Strategies, Activities, and Syllabi (2006), College and Society: An Introduction to the Sociological Imagination (2001), and Data Analysis with SPSS: A First Course in Applied Statistics (2011, 2008, 2003, 1998). He served as co-editor of the Work-Family Encyclopedia (2007-2010) and his studies on work, family, community, and inequality appeared in a variety of publications, including Work and Occupations, Women′s Studies Quarterly, Generations, Research in the Sociology of Work, Sex Roles, Family Relations, New Directions in Life Course Research, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Innovative Higher Education, Journal of College Student Development, and Community, Work, and Family, Popular Music and Society, International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters. His articles on teaching and curriculum development have been published in Teaching Sociology, Critical Pedagogy in the Classroom, and Excellent Teaching in the Excellent University. In addition to his research and teaching responsibilities, he serves as the director of the Sloan Early Career Work and Family Scholars Program. His current research focuses on issues relating to implementation of flexible work arrangements and the factors that shape identification with work.