Ralph LaRossa developed a sociological interest in family structure and change when he discovered that, by studying people during their transition to parenthood, he could observe social processes that are generally beyond the researcher's v
iew. In one of his first projects, he located couples who were about to become parents and interviewed them during the 12th, 20th, 28th, and 36th weeks of their pregnancies. The results from the project led to the publication of Conflict and Power in
Marriage: Expecting the First Child (Sage, 1977). Several years later, Dr. LaRossa launched a follow-up study, this time focusing on couples during the third, sixth, and ninth months postpartum. This investigation was the basis for Transition to
Parenthood: How Infants Change Families (Sage, 1981), co-authored with Maureen Mulligan LaRossa.
In the late 1980s, Dr. LaRossa received a National Science Foundation grant to support a historical study of fatherhood during the Machine Age (1918-1941). Drawing on qualitative and quantitative analyses of early 20th century popular magazin
es, child rearing books, personal letters, and family cartoons, the project was designed to document how the social institution of fatherhood "modernized" in the 1920s and 1930s, and how this transformation left an indelible mark on America's consciousnes
s and conscience. The main findings from the project are reported in The Modernization of Fatherhood: A Social and Political History (University of Chicago Press, 1997).
Dr. LaRossa currently is a co-investigator on a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. The "Parenting Together Project," as it is called, employs a combined experimental/qualitative design to see whether a parent education program
can increase men's involvement with their children. The members of the team include William J. Doherty (principal investigator), Martha Farrell Erickson (co-investigator), Thomson F. Davis (co-investigator), and William D. Allen (consultant). The project
is housed in the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota.
Ralph LaRossa's recent research projects, in addition, include a content analysis of Father's Day and Mother's Day comic strips from 1945 to 1999; a qualitative study of corporal punishment in the 1920s and 1930s (based on advice-seeking lett
ers from the era); a cultural history of fatherhood in the fifties (1945-1960); and a theoretical analysis of the linkage between social cognition and parenthood.
Dr. LaRossa also has written on the history of family social science and is a co-editor (along with Pauline Boss, William J. Doherty, Walter R. Schumm, and Suzanne K. Steinmetz) of the Sourcebook of Family Theories and Methods: A Contextu
al Approach (Plenum, 1993). He is the founder of the Qualitative Family Research Network, sponsored by the National Council on Family Relations, served as the NCFR Program Vice President in 1997, and was the Chair of the NCFR Theory Construction and
Research Methodology Workshop in 1985.
Ralph LaRossa has taught courses in Family Sociology, Family Methods and Theories, Birth and Parenthood, Family Violence, Qualitative Methods, Cognitive Sociology, and Introductory Sociology. He is the Director of the Department's Family and
Life Course program. |
