Families in the Urban Environment: Understanding Resilience introduces students to some of the challenges that children and families face in urban environments. The text also highlights resilience as a process and discusses the family as a social unit. 

The book is divided into five parts: Theories of Resilience, Family in the United States, Marriage and Partnership, Family and Work Life, and Urban Factors. Specific topics explored throughout the text include social capital and health; resilience to discrimination stress across ethnic identity stages of development; familial dynamics in immigrant families; and resilience as it relates to the survivors of partner and martial violence. The books also explores familial budgets; the feminist reorganization of family; child well-being in middle-class environments; educating the homeless and other highly mobile students; protective factors for low-income youth; and more. 

Families in the Urban Environment presents students with a comprehensive look into the myriad challenges that urban families face today. The book is ideal for undergraduate courses in family systems, social work, or child development.

Jason Anthony Plummer earned his B.A. in psychology from Baruch College and master’s degrees in social work and urban planning from the University of Michigan. He is a lecturer in the Rongxiang Xu College of Health and Human Services at California State University, Los Angeles. His research is grounded in critical consciousness development and draws from positive youth development, psychological empowerment, social identity development, and social justice theories to understand sociopolitical development among youth of various ethnic groups.