As someone who is currently taking this class and has a more recent review than the past ones I have read, I would highly suggest against this class. As a woman, it is very frustrating to be sitting in this class. Wilcox is openly conservative, which I respect, but the approach he takes when discussing men vs. women is extremely outdated and somewhat offensive. For example, he spoke about how having more sexual partners only negatively impacts women and didn't even mention its impact on men. Specifically, my TA put a "fact" on the board during discussion that said that the more sexual partners a woman has before marriage, the less happy she is in her marriage. I was shocked when I read it. He also spoke about social media's impact on relationships only regarding women, meanwhile it affects everyone. He spoke about how hookup culture only impacts women in a negative way because women lose respect right after. Also the way in which he asks his polls is clearly yearning for a certain response and doesn't even offer all of the possible answers, or an "other" category. It just felt a lot like he cared more about influencing women to be virgins and get married rather than to objectively be teaching a class on marriage. Obviously that is a leap but like... not a big one.

Wilcox is an interesting professor, you don't necessarily need to come to class, but you learn a lot. He reads off of the powerpoint, but overall you can definitely get away with not going to class or doing the readings. The exams are easy, but they are essays which make it easier if you have a basic idea of the lectures. You have to go to discussion which is fine. Overall, the class is very interesting and eye opening. If you need an easy class to take, I recommend this one.

Really easy class, honestly. He puts stars in his lecture slides next to things you need to know for MC on exams. Your grade is one two pop quizzes, a midterm, debate (in discussion), an 8-page paper, and a final (plus participation grade), so a lot of areas to do well. The material is honestly interesting too. As long as you take some notes on the readings (enough to be able to site in the essay sections of the exams) and learn the stars in his lecture you're set. A lot of it is kind of common sense too, so its not hard to grasp the concepts.

Generally an OK course. Prof. Wilcox is a conservative guy on marriage and any stuff related to love and sex, so you may find some of the topics and ideas in the class to be quite unacceptable, but he is a really good lecturer, and the some of the materials like the effects of cohabitation are very interesting. The only bad thing about this class is I have to get up early to take it, which is really a pain. I usually just spent about 4 hours a week on the readings. Not a very difficult course for a non-sociology major. Talking about grades, I got an A for this course. The following are my tips on how to ace this class: 1. How are the grades composed: Discussion participation: 20% Debate: 10% Mid-term: 20% Eight page paper: 25% 2 Pop Quizzes 5% Final exam: 20% 2. For discussion participation, just participate by asking and answering some questions the TA raised. 3. For Debate, very easy, do some research and get some numbers and arguments so you and your teammate can talk about 10 minutes before class. 4. For the mid-term, there are 10 multiple-choice questions, and 3 short-essay questions and you need to answer 2 of them, and one long-essay question. Timed under 50 minutes in class. Most people finished between 35-45 minutes, so it is completely doable. I will elaborate more on how to prepare at tip 8. 5. For the eight-page paper, start early and show your draft to your TA as it is the TA who will grade it. 6. For the 2 pop quizzes, they were asked about things very dull in this class like "what kind of job did the guest speaker who came last week have". I think the pop quizzes are just designed to help him see whether you came to the lectures or not. 7. For the final exam, 30 MCs, 3 out of 5 short-essay questions, and 1 long-essay question. It is pretty much the same thing as the mid-term. Timed under 3 hours. Most people finished between 1 and 2 hours. 8. Talking about preparing for the exams, you need to do at least one reading for each topic discussed in class and take notes on numbers and arguments of the readings, so you have things to cite for the free-response questions in the exams. For the multiple-choice questions, they are tested on the statistical number in his lecture slides, so after each class, write down the numbers he showed in slides and memorize them. If you have some quotes in mind and know all of the statistical numbers he showed in the slides, you will probably get a 94-100 for the exams.

Oh boy. This class. While I don't agree with some of the posts calling Wilcox "racist" or "homophobic" I would say that he does just simply disregard the existence of gay people. We have one class on African American home life and it is entirely about how they are poor, less hard-working, and overall worse and less beneficial to the society than the white picket fence family. Wilcox literally beats information into your head such as "don't marry your soulmate" and "Don't cohabit before marriage or you will divorce." Wilcox also puts forth a trigger warning at the beginning of the semester but really does go too far. *Trigger Warning* He compares marrying your soulmate to Aly and Jackson's relationship in a Star is Born, and if you don't know how that ends go take two hours to watch that film. He also talked about a wife's essential roles in a marriage and stated that women need to be "open to physical intimacy" with their husbands. He also said a mother's main role is breastfeeding. Cringing. The worst part of his class is that the data he uses is VERY biased. It is all from 1999-to 2010 and is done by institutions such as BYU. I did manage to get an A in this class, despite not believing 90%of his arguments. If you do brave this class, please do not take this man seriously. Moving backward in society will only hurt minorities and those with non-hetero relationships.

You learn so much from this class. It was fun actually having it in person. Brad Wilcox is a big name in the sociology world, especially one researching family values. I see many reviews call him biased and "traditionalist". He does start the class saying his class promotes marriage and more classic family values, but a lot of the stuff he covers combines elements of different views of the family. Plus, he welcomes viewpoints different to his – he explicitly states this. The work devoted to it was a little overwhelming. There is quite a bit of reading for each class, something like 2-3 chapters per class. There's often a lot of data and information points mentioned. You need to know the general points. And although you don't need to read for lecture, you need to for your discussion section. I would suggest taking some quick notes for each reading. It'll help so much for the exams. There is a midterm and a final. We had to cite from readings and lecture so those notes will be crucial in saving you time! There's a debate you need to do in discussion. It wasn't graded harshly. The prep (research and practice) was stressful and time consuming. You need to look at a lot of research and text. The final paper was worse: 8 pages double-spaced using readings from classes and outside. Try to start that early. I would recommend this class if you're interested in learning about marriage, divorce, cohabitation, hooking up, having kids, and the work-life balance. You learn what the data determines as the paths of happiness in each of these areas. This class is one of the more fascinating at UVA. #tCFspring2021

Ok here's the deal, readings = super interesting, lectures = not so much. Grades consist of 1 debate (easy), midterm, final, and one 8 page paper. The paper can be on anything so start it early there is no need to wait until he mentions it. I thought the material was pretty interesting, wilcox is a little dry but so it goes. But yea, go into this class knowing you DO need to do the reading.

This class was AMAZING! Brad (Professor Wilcox), provided a wonderful overview of the many concepts surrounding the idea of family. This included courtship, marriage, adoption, etc, and provided a very thorough approach to this broad topic. Discussions were well structured and interesting, and his tests were fair. The paper can sound daunting, but if you start it well enough in advance, you can easily find all the resources you need to formulate a good argument. Overall, I would definitely suggest taking this class!

This was a very easy and interesting class. About two to three readings are assigned per class, but they all include really straightforward information (as long as you have even the slightest understanding of different viewpoints on sociology topics), so they shouldn't take up too much of your time. The discussions, debates, and final paper are graded very easily and the midterm and final exams were relatively easy as well. One thing, though, is that I took the class during COVID times, so the midterm and final exams were open notes, which definitely made them much easier than they may have been otherwise.

This class is not super hard, and it's very cool to get exposure to a conservative academic like Prof. Wilcox who in no way forces his opinions down and actually tries to represent multiple perspectives with some cool guest lectures. None of the class material and statistics on marriage/single parents/etc is super mind-blowing if you have common sense, but you have to memorize some statistics from lecture for the tests. I took it during COVID so we had open note exams, but I believe they are usually closed notes. The readings are really long but he does test you on some material from them. The key to the exams is the short answer section-- those questions draw from overall course themes so it's important to do the readings. Overall, not the most fascinating or engrossing course in the world, but one that's not too hard and exposes you to a really brilliant mind from the right side of the political aisle. Great for people really interested in overlap of politics/policy and culture. #tCF2020