Diversity and the Common Good: Civil Society, Religion, and Catholic Sisters in a Small City examines how Catholic Sisters and their congregations have been critical nodes in religious and civil networks, investing their social capital to address one of the most pressing issues facing American communities today: diversity. "Bluffton," situated in America's heartland, is revealed as a community that has confronted racism of the ugliest kind and chosen to work toward a good society for its citizens, driven by the concerted efforts of its Catholic Sisters and highly committed civic and religious actors. Blending quantitative and qualitative data collected over three years and scholarship on civil society, Meg Wilkes Karraker's narrative style engages scholars from sociology, political science, public administration, and religious, but also speaks to community leaders and citizens seeking to understand how they can act on behalf of the common good in their own communities. Notably, Diversity and the Common Good tells the story of a community that "works!" Given recent criticisms of American Sisters by the Vatican, this story of the great good done by Sisters must be told now.

Noted for its interdisciplinary approach to family studies, Families with Futures provides an engaging, contemporary look at the discipline's theories, methods, essential topics, and career opportunities. Featuring strong coverage of theories and methods, readers explore family concepts and processes through a positive prism. Concepts are brought to life through striking examples from everyday family life and cutting-edge scholarship. Throughout, families are viewed as challenged but resilient.
Each chapter opens with a preview of the chapter content and concludes with key terms and varied learning activities that promote critical thinking. The activities include provocative questions and exercises, projects, and interactive web activities. Boxes feature authentic voices from scholars and practitioners (including CFLEs) from a variety of disciplines including family studies, sociology, psychology, and more. These boxes provide a firsthand look at what it is like to work in the field. The book concludes with a glossary defining each chapter s boldfaced key terms.
Updated throughout, the new edition features new coverage of:

• The latest family theories including feminist theory and postmodernism
• Immigrant and transnational families in the 21st century
• Physiology, psychology, and sociology of intimacy and sexuality
• Effects of recent health and other policy decisions on families
• Care giving in families, especially in later life
• Family finances, with an emphasis on the recent economic downturns
• Career opportunities in family studies.

The new Instructor s Resource website features test questions, PowerPoint slides, chapter outlines, news bulletins of current events, hotlinks to helpful tools such as the NCFR s Ethical Principles and Guidelines, and more.

This is an ideal text for upper-level undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses in family studies, family ecology, and family science offered in departments of family and consumer sciences, human development, psychology, and sociology.

Noted for its interdisciplinary approach to family studies, Families with Futures provides an engaging, contemporary look at the discipline's theories, methods, essential topics, and career opportunities. Featuring strong coverage of theories and methods, readers explore family concepts and processes through a positive prism. Concepts are brought to life through striking examples from everyday family life and cutting-edge scholarship. Throughout, families are viewed as challenged but resilient.
Each chapter opens with a preview of the chapter content and concludes with key terms and varied learning activities that promote critical thinking. The activities include provocative questions and exercises, projects, and interactive web activities. Boxes feature authentic voices from scholars and practitioners (including CFLEs) from a variety of disciplines including family studies, sociology, psychology, and more. These boxes provide a firsthand look at what it is like to work in the field. The book concludes with a glossary defining each chapter s boldfaced key terms.
Updated throughout, the new edition features new coverage of:

• The latest family theories including feminist theory and postmodernism
• Immigrant and transnational families in the 21st century
• Physiology, psychology, and sociology of intimacy and sexuality
• Effects of recent health and other policy decisions on families
• Care giving in families, especially in later life
• Family finances, with an emphasis on the recent economic downturns
• Career opportunities in family studies.

The new Instructor s Resource website features test questions, PowerPoint slides, chapter outlines, news bulletins of current events, hotlinks to helpful tools such as the NCFR s Ethical Principles and Guidelines, and more.

This is an ideal text for upper-level undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses in family studies, family ecology, and family science offered in departments of family and consumer sciences, human development, psychology, and sociology.

This first-ever interdisciplinary study of woman as prophet shows that, in these troubling times, ordinary women-especially Christian women-need to function as prophets by proclaiming, in word and deed, the indispensability of lovingly seeking the welfare of others. More specifically, social science shows that the person-centered love prophesied by women prophets is able to meet interpersonal challenges within the home and world, while philosophy and theology establish that women are able to excel as prophets due to the virtuous dispositions inculcated by femininity, the choice to be caring, a God-centered spirituality, and a pro-life humanitarian/personalist feminism that welcomes male collaborators. Facilitating the ability of Christian women to prophesy love are Baptismal graces, Thomistic virtues, and a much needed prophetic Marian ecclesiology based on what John Paul II calls the "prophetism of femininity." These interdisciplinary findings provide an essential resource for educators and students of humanity, the theology of women, and evangelization. These findings emerge, first, from an investigation into the cognitive and ontological underpinnings of what John Paul II called the "feminine genius." A second set of findings emerges from exploring the prophetic dimensions of the feminine genius, secular feminism's need to adopt the insights of Christianity, and the ability of femininity's prophetism to recast both femininity and feminism as Marian prophecies. A third set of findings arises from analyzing the spirituality of women prophets within the Christian tradition by considering the conditions necessary for prophesying, explicating requisite Thomistic virtues, and delving into the spirituality of Hildegard, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, and Teresa of Avila. A fourth set of findings arises from innovative studies of polarization, secularization, lust, romantic love, the conditions whereby mothers with careers can flourish, and the ability of nuns to combat racism in a small Midwestern town. Overall, these interdisciplinary investigations explicate the theology of women and show that women who prophesy love, either in the order of grace or nature, can help heal lives, families, and culture.