| OVERVIEW
The lessons zero in on the underlying rules and practices particular to unique communication situations, and then suggest strategies for maximizing both verbal and non-verbal communication for more meaningful interpersonal exchange.
Topics addressed in the course include:
- Multigenerational communication
- The impact of ethnicity on communication patterns
- The roles reflected in everyday communication rituals
- Communication rules and stories that sustain families
- The development of intimacy between family members
- Family conflict strategies
- Decision-making and power
- Marital communication
- MChanges in family interaction at different developmental stages
Final course segments address communication in a variety of family forms and a range of ways of improving family communication. In short, this is a course about interaction patterns among family members in multiple types of families.
COURSE MATERIALS
Text: FAMILY COMMUNICATION: COHESION AND CHANGEby Galvin, Brommel, and Brommel, Fourth Edition, Harper/Collins, NY, 1996. (ISBN: 0-0673-99628-X)
Study Guide: FAMILY COMMUNICATION STUDY GUIDEby K. M. Galvin, First Edition, University Park, IL, Governors State University, 1998. (ISBN # 0-078-724572-0)
FACULTY GUIDE: FAMILY COMMUNICATION FACULTY GUIDE by K.M. Galvin, University Park, IL:Governor State University, 1998. (Includes an overview of the course, sample student examination questions, essay assignments, and discussion topics.)
COURSE LESSON DESCRIPTIONS
Class 1: Introduction: Communication Patterns and Families
Includes a description of the course’s philosophy and goals, and defines the basic assumptions challenged in this course.Together Dr. Galvin and the students create definitions for the terms "family" and "communication," and discuss the types of families that will be analyzed in the course.
Featured interview: Professor Dr. William Pinsof (Northwestern University), President and CEO of The Family Institute at Northwestern University
Class 2: Family Communication Framework, Part I
Reviews the powerful role of communication patterns in the family.Positive, negative, conscious, and unconscious patterns are discussed. The class also introduces the concept of “adaptability patterns” which provides a basis for understanding the level of emotional bonding and the degree of individual autonomy acceptable in a family.
Featured interviews: Professor Douglas Kelley (Arizona State University-West) and Dr. Charles Wilkinson, Marriage and Family Therapist
Class 3: Family Communication Framework, Part II
Reviews the supporting functions of a family system, including the creation of congruent images and central family themes.Students learn to discern family boundaries (i.e. rigid, flexible, non-existent), and to define meaningful biosocial issues, such as position, person, and gender orientation. The class also explores how the systemic nature of the family applies to family structure.
Featured interview: Dr. Charles Wilkinson, Marriage and Family Therapist
Class 4: The Family as a Communication System
Uses discussion of a hypothetical family in therapy to illustrate the interconnectedness/systemic nature of the family structure. Several key concepts in systems theory are described, including interdependence, patterns of self-regulation, interactive complexity/punctuation, and structural complexity. The class closes with a discussion on the limitations of a systems approach to analyzing family structures.
Class 5: Multi-Generational Influences: Family-of-Origin Patterns
Explores the basic dynamics of a multi-generational family.Dr. Galvin introduces genograms - a system of symbols that help students create a family tree for the purpose of recording information about family members, analyzing complex family interaction patterns, and looking at the influence of multiple generations on family relationships.
Featured interview: Dr. Charles Wilkinson, Marriage and Family Therapist
Class 6: Multi-Generational Influences: Cultural Patterns
Explores communication challenges in multi-generational families from a standpoint of ethnic and cultural influences.Class begins with a definition of “ethnicity” and then looks at various cultural conceptions of family, particularly those of African-American, Hispanic, Native-American and Italian cultures. Discussion examines the role of ethnicity and culture in creating family values, managing conflict and sharing affection.
Featured interviews: Professor Rhunette Diggs (University of Louisville) and students enrolled in Northwestern University’s Master of Science in Communication program
Class 7: Communication Rules and Family Secrets
Examines how family rules and secrets influence communication. Concepts explored in the class include how family rules are created and the purpose they serve, how families come to define such concepts as “outsiders” and “acceptable behavior”, and how family secrets can serve both a positive and negative function.
Featured interviews: Professor Anita Vangelisti (University of Texas - Austin) and Dr. Charles Wilkinson, Marriage and Family Therapist
Class 8: Family Stories: Messages and Meanings
Explains the four functions of family stories. Students learn how family stories provide moral lessons, help to connect generations, shape personal identity, and socialize new members into the family. Discussion topics also include the universal importance of family stories, the kinds of questions family stories tend to answer, and the genealogical function of family stories.
Featured interview: Professor Rives Collins (Northwestern University)
Class 9: Developing Intimate Family Relationships
Considers the impact of relational culture, dialectical tensions, and relational currencies (ways of sharing affection).Definitions for and examples of each are provided. A special emphasis is placed on shared meaning and congruence of currencies.
Featured interviews: Dr. Charles Wilkinson, Marriage and Family Therapist and Professor Julia Wood (University of North Carolina )
Class 10: Sustaining Family Relationships: Communication Rituals
Focuses on the importance role of rituals in creating, managing, and maintaining relationships.Discussion explores verbal and non-verbal marital communication rituals - particularly the day-to-day, often very intimate ones. Students learn to recognize and define the different ritual functions help create a culture of two.
Featured interview: Professor and researcher Carol Bruess (Hamline University)
Class 11: Sustaining Family Relationships: Talk and Self-Disclosure
Focuses on the role of everyday conversation in creating and maintaining a family relationship.The class explores the three faces of talk: informative talk, talk as a means of expression, and talk as a tool for re-establishing contact. Specific focus is given to general talk and its unique meanings. Two specific kinds of talk - debriefing conversations and self-disclosure - are also defined and discussed in detail.
Featured interview: Professor Anita Vangelisti (University of Texas - Austin) and Professor Julia Wood (University of North Carolina)
Class 12: Sexuality and Family Communication
Discusses the difficult but necessary function of talking about sexuality in the family.Students see how discussions about sex help children internalize facts, attitudes, and expectations that will have long-lasting impact on their lives. The class highlights communication between sex partners and discusses the affect of sexual communication on parent-child interactions. Definitions of what constitutes healthy or unhealthy sexuality in families are offered.
Featured interview: Maureen Sheehy, M.S.W., Family Life Educator (Evanston, Illinois)
Class 13: Constructing Family Roles through Communication
Focuses on how communication shapes family roles.A discussion about role expectations and role enactment sets the stage for this discussion on family roles. Special attention is given to the role of kinship maintenance and that of gender socialization. Students trace gender socialization from infancy and see how it affects adult behavior. Also included is a discussion on how changes in family structure affect family roles.
Featured interview: Dr. Charles Wilkinson, Marriage and Family Therapist and Professor Julia Wood (University of North Carolina)
Class 14: Communication and the Work/Family Juggling Act
Focuses on the challenges and dilemmas that families face when they attempt to balance work and family. The class explores the problem of “overload”, the clash between personal and social norms, the problems posed by identity issues, and the challenge to developing a social network. Discussion also touches on the dynamics frequently experienced by couples as they try to share life roles and areas of responsibility. Hochschild's three ideological marital models – traditional, transitional, and egalitarian – are explained. Real-life advice is given by a couple that is successfully managing work and family obligations.
Featured interview: Professor Julia Wood (University of North Carolina) and Brian Cooper and Sharon Holyfield Cooper, a dual-career couple
Class 15: Family and Marital Typologies and Communication
Describes the characteristics of various family and marital typologies. Lehr's family types - open, closed and random – are explained. Discussion explores three types of couple/partner relationships: traditional, independent, and separate. Topics also include the question of whether couple types shift over time and whether the same models can be applied to homosexual couples.
Featured interview: Professor Mary Anne Fitzpatrick (University of Wisconsin - Madison)
Class 16: Decision Making and Power in Families
Explores the dynamics of power and decision-making in families.The class includes discourse on the difficult decisions families face today, ranging from child rearing and caring for older family members, to relocation and monetary considerations. Various decision making models are introduced and described, including consensus, accommodation, and de factodecision-making. The concept of power is defined and factors that affect family power structure are discussed.
Featured interview: Professor Bernard Brommel (Northeastern Illinois University)
Class 17: Family Conflict Patterns
Reinforces the idea that marital and family conflict is a normal side of life that needs to be managed for healthy family communication. Conflict is defined, and several misconceptions about it are discussed. The class also explores the various ways in which patterns of conflict emerge in the family structure, and discussion addresses the predictable, habitual nature of conflict. The six stages of family conflict are described: prior conditions, frustration awareness, active conflict, solution/non-solution, follow-up, and resolution.
Featured interviews: Professor Douglas Kelley (Arizona State University - West) and Professor Michael Roloff (Northwestern University)
Class 18: Destructive/Constructive Family Conflict
Focuses on destructive and constructive family conflict patterns, and pays particular attention to verbal aggression as a destructive pattern.The class explores the implications to communication caused by verbal aggression, as well as the long-term damage caused by psychological abuse and parental hostility toward children. Students are walked through a variety of methods that help to hold abusive conflict at bay, including techniques for fighting fairly, criticizing behaviors instead of people, avoiding hot buttons, engaging in reflective listening, and scheduling communication “checkups”.
Featured interview: Professor Douglas Kelley (Arizona State University - West) and Professor Teresa Sabourin (University of Cincinnati)
Class 19: Studying Marital Interaction: John Gottman's Research Program
Looks into over two decades of research on marital interactions conducted by John Gottman and his associates. The class begins with an overview of Gottman’s major contributions to the literature on marital interactions, including such proprietary concepts as the three categories of marital styles, the “negativity-to-positivity ratio”, and “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse”. In a visit to Gottman’s research laboratory, students see this important multi-methodological research in action. The role of the psychological process in marital relations is also discussed.
Featured interview: Professor John Gottman (University of Washington - Seattle)
Class 20: Developmental Change: Life Cycle Communication Patterns
Focuses on the various developmental changes families face over time and the impact those changes have on family communication.The class delves into the changes that occur with in a traditional family cycle model. Also discussed: the transition to parenthood and the change it initiates in marital communication/role expectation, the re-establishment of a relationship when new roles are incorporated into the family, and the transmission of culture as an important parental function.
Featured interview: Professor Glen Stamp (Ball State University)
Class 21: Developmental Change: Communication Related Issues
Focuses on how transitional periods influence family communication.Discussion reveals how conflict patterns and marital satisfaction change over a relationship’s life cycle, what theories can help us examine how change impacts communication over an individual’s lifetime, and the elements of social, family, and historical time. Also included is discussion on how the role of ritual moves the family from one stage of communication to another.
Featured interview: Professor Michael Roloff (Northwestern University)
Class 22: Family Stress and Communication: The Divorce Process
This episode focuses on how family communication is affected by stresses that cannot be foreseen from either a developmental or a life course perspective. The Baines' model for determining how severe a stressor will be on a family is introduced and explained. Stressors resulting from divorce are discussed, with particular attention given to the changes in roles and responsibility in a post-divorce family.
Featured interview: Professor Marcia Dixson (Indiana-Purdue University)
Class 23: Communication in Single Parent and Other Family Forms
Presents an overview of the specific communication dimensions of single parent families, gay male and lesbian families, and adoptive families.Discussion provides a brief run-down of the ways in which single parent families are formed, and reviews the communication rules unique to single parent families. Issues related to male-headed, single-parent families are also discussed. Also explored are the unique communication structures in gay male and lesbian relationships and adoptive family structures.
Featured interview: Professor Marcia Dixson (Indiana-Purdue University)
Class 24: Communication Patterns in Stepfamilies
Examines the various ways stepfamilies are formed and their key characteristics.The class introduces the four stages of stepfamily development, and describes the communication challenges stepfamilies face with regard to history, labeling, and the ways in which stepfamilies and their members are viewed by society. Discussion offers insights into blended families that include research on the subject and a personal testimonial on becoming a step-mother.
Featured interview: Professor Pamela Cooper (Northwestern University)
Class 25: Improving Family Communication: Instruction and Therapy
Provides an introduction to the wide range of approaches used to improve family communication.The various theoretical approaches to these strategies are discussed as are the strengths and weakness of particular approaches, such as Marriage Encounter. Students review some of the common denominators that exist between disparate approaches. A discussion outlines the differences between therapy models that focus on the individual and those that involve the entire family as a system.
Featured interviews: Professor Mary Anne Fitzpatrick (University of Wisconsin - Madison) and Professor Dr. William Pinsof (Northwestern University), President and CEO of The Family Institute at Northwestern University
Class 26: Optimal Family Communication Patterns
Provides a course review that recaps the ways in which individuals, partners and family members communicate in order to enhance everyday interaction.Particularly optimal communication techniques such as emotion coaching, storytelling and reading, listening are reviewed and future trends in family communication are discussed. Students are coached through a summary of the key course concepts.
Featured interviews: Professor Rives Collins of (Northwestern University), Professor John Gottman (University of Washington), and Dr. Charles Wilkinson, Marriage and Family Therapist. |
