Dr. Greer Fox

Distinguished Service Professor

My interest in the family as an area of study developed late in my graduate student career in sociology and population studies at the University of Michigan. Reflecting my training, the theoretical orientation I bring to family studies emphasizes the family as one of many components of a larger, more complex social system. To understand the family’s inner workings, one must continually be cognizant of its interface with other system components as the family responds to and adapts to external social conditions. The intriguing aspect of this approach is to discover how the family in turn shapes its external environment. It is here that I think the peculiar asocial orientation of demography is helpful in tracking the societal impact of behaviors that occur at the level of the individual family – such as decisions to marry, to enter the labor force, to have children, to divorce, to move, and the like.

My early research concerned communication between parents and adolescent children about sexual values, information, and behavior. Adolescent sexuality is an example of the kind of issue that has been forced upon many families by social trends in the external environment. At the same time our very concern with this issue has been generated by the behaviors of individual adolescents, aggregated across the national population.

I continue to be interested in the ways external contextual forces shape family life. My current research projects on domestic violence and on fathering afford a chance to explore how two such external contextual factors – broader economic conditions and neighborhood disadvantage – come into play in these aspects of family life.

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Fox, G. L., Sayers, J., & Bruce, C. (in press). Beyond bravado: Fatherhood as a resource for rehabilitation of men who batter. Marriage and Family Review, 34, forthcoming.

Fox, G. L., and Bruce, C. (2001). Conditional fatherhood: Identity theory and parental investment theory as alternative sources of explanation of fathering. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 63, 394-403.

Fox, G. L. (2001). Living the literature: Keeping my family in family sociology. Marriage and Family Review, 30, 59-72.

Fox, G. L. & Benson, M. L., Eds. ( 2000). Families, crime, and criminal justice. Contemporary perspectives on family research, Vol. 2. New York: JAI/Elsevier.

Fox, G. L. (2000). No time for innocence, no place for innocents: Children and extreme violence. In G. L. Fox and M. L. Benson (Eds.) Families, crime, and criminal justice. Contemporary

Fox, G. L., & Murry, V. M. (2000). Feminist perspectives and family research: A decade review. Journal of Marriage and Family, 62, 1160-1172.

Fox, G. L., Bruce, C., & Combs-Orme, T. (2000). Parenting expectations and concerns of fathers and mothers of newborn infants. Family Relations, 49, 123-131.

Combs-Orme, T., Martin, L., Fox, G. L., & Faver, C. (2000). Risk for child maltreatment: New mothers’ concerns and screening test results. Children and Youth Services Review, 22, 517-537.

Fox, G. L. (1999). Families in the media: The public scrutiny of private behavior. Journal
of Marriage and the Family, 61, 821-830.

Contact Information

1215 W. Cumberland Ave
427 Jessie Harris Building
Knoxville, TN 37996-1912

Phone: 865-974-0748
Email: glfox@utk.edu

Contact CEHHS

335 Claxton Complex 1122 Volunteer Boulevard
Knoxville, Tennessee 37996

Phone: 865-974-2201
Fax: 865-974-8718