“Changing Counts, Counting Change: Americans’ Movement toward a More Inclusive Definition of Family”

Option B. Read Powel, Bolzendahl, Gist and Steelman’s “Changing Counts,
Counting Change: Americans’ Movement toward a More Inclusive Definition of
Family” and answer these questions:
1. Brian Powell and his colleagues conducted a study from which they drew
conclusions about American views toward families. How did they do their study?
When was their study done? What was the kind of information they gathered
and analyzed?
2. The authors point to many questions—like “do housemates count?” and
“does a couple have to be married to count as family?” What are the authors
asking readers to recognize by asking all those questions about families? In other
words, why are all these questions important, according to the authors?
3. What are inclusionists, exclusionists, and moderates? How do they talk about family
differently?
4. The authors found evidence of a change in attitudes. What kind of change did they
find? What predictions do they make about attitudes?
5. The data from this study is from 2003, 2006 and 2010. It is 2023—what do
you think they would find if they conducted their study today? Why?
6. Connect this reading to what you read in Chapter 6 in at least two ways.
Be sure to explicit, when possible, to your reading of the textbook, as well as explicitly
connecting to the reading. In other words, incorporate information from both this
reading (Option A or Option B) and Chapter 6 in your answers to these questions.
For example, “This is similar to what the textbook discusses on page 26….” or “As
Coontz 1 points out on page 36…”