REVISED AND UPDATED THIRD EDITION! African American Relationships, Marriages, and Families: An Introduction, Third Edition, is a historically and culturally centered text designed for university and college courses, counselors and therapists working with Black couples, and for individuals and couples seeking self-help. It includes exercises at the end of each chapter to facilitate self-awareness and help couples get to know each other better. individuals and couples learn skills for effective communication and conflict resolution, and ultimately, how to develop and maintain healthy relationships, marriages, and families. This third edition includes updates and revisions to current chapters, chapter review questions, a new section in the introduction, and THREE NEW CHAPTERS!. For Copies for Courses and Book Stores, contact us at 404-849-0885. African American Relationships, Marriage, and Families is designed for dating, premarital, and married couples. It can be used for the following: A primary or supplementary text for university and college BLACK FAMILY COURSES - A primary text for African American RELATIONSHIP courses in Black/African American/Africana Studies programs and departments - A primary text for community and faith-based courses on relationships - Counseling and therapy for practitioners working with Black couples - Ministries counseling premarital and married couples - Premarital and married Black couples seeking to do self-help - Individuals seeking self-help I love the content primarily because of its "Afrocentric" approach. I have taught a course on the African American Family (AAF) for over thirty years and I taught several editions of the seminal textbooks on the topic, e.g., Harriette Pipes McAdoo's Black Families , Robert Staples' The Black Family: Essays and Studies , Donna Franklin's Ensuring Inequality: The Structural Transformation of the African-American Family , Sadye Logan's The Black Family: Strengths, Self-Help, and Positive Change , and Hattery and Smith's African American Families Today: Myths and Realities ... Additionally, in my teaching of the course, I have referenced almost every textbook written on the topic in the past three decades which includes but is not limited to Staples and Boulin Johnson's Black Families at the Crossroads: Challenges and Prospects ¸ Cheatham and Stewart's Black Families: Interdisciplinary Perspectives , and of course the classics: Frazier's The Negro Family in the United States and Moynihan's infamous The Negro Family: The Case for National Action . I mentioned these texts because they illustrate my familiarity with African American scholarship. So, when I say Dixon's Afrocentric approach is a plus...I am not offering a baseless superlative. The most useful and important aspect is its coverage of very salient topics. Not only is the coverage good, but the depth of the coverage is a plus as well. Here, I am referring to the author's ability exhaustively examine key scholarship on a particular topic. Simply put, her text gets it!...Students will not get what Dixon covers in one textbook anywhere else. Overall, Dixon's text "puts it where the goats can get it!" Ron Stewart, Ph.D. Chair & Professor of Sociology Buffalo State University Patricia Dixon's African American Relationships, Marriages, and Families is a highly distinguished work of scholarship, providing the best discussion of American relationships to date. I believe that Dixon's work will become a standard that will be read by all of those who sincerely want to understand the African American way of relationships, marriages, and families. Molefi Kete Asante, Ph.D. Professor, Temple University Author of Afrocentricity and the Afrocentric Idea Dr. Dixon's second edition is the state-of-the-art masterpiece on African American relationships, marriages, and families for teachers, researchers, and clinicians. Thoroughly researched, the author explains current phenomena through a historical/cultural lens. While the purpose of the book is to be used as a tool for pre-marriage education and counseling, it is a must-read for all who would understand African American relationships. David Knox, Ph.D. Co-author with Caroline Schacht of Choices in Relationships Professor, East Carolina University Patricia Dixon's masterful, comprehensive work should be read by all who work with African American couples. We intend to use it with our team of marriage educators who serve the African American community in the Archdiocese of Chicago. It will better equip us to take our ministry even deeper. Andrew Lyke Coordinator of Marriage Ministry Archdiocese of Chicago