Frank Furstenberg
Frank Folke Furstenberg Jr. is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology, emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on the family in the context of disadvantaged urban neighborhoods and adolescent sexual behavior. Furstenberg has written on social change, transition to adulthood, divorce, remarriage and intergenerational relations. Furstenberg is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Academy of Political and Social Science.
Early life and education
Frank Furstenberg was born in Baltimore, Maryland, into an established Jewish family. His father, Frank Furstenberg Sr., was a prominent physician and advocate for national health care and his mother, Edith Hollander Furstenberg was a social worker and family matriarch. His siblings include the late founding owner of Politics and Prose, Carla Furstenberg Cohen, the master baker, Mark Furstenberg, Michael Furstenberg, Anne Furstenberg and Ellen Furstenberg.Furstenberg received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Haverford College in 1961 and a Ph.D. degree in sociology from Columbia University in 1967. He joined the University of Pennsylvania sociology department as a professor in 1967. His honors include fellowships from John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, Russell Sage Foundation and Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
Academic contributions
Furstenberg spent his academic career in the Sociology Department at the University of Pennsylvania as the Zellerbach Family Professor, where he remained until he retired. He was a visiting fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Russell Sage Foundation, London School of Economics and Political Science, National University of Singapore, and Bocconi University.Publications
- Unplanned parenthood: The social consequences of teenage childbearing, 1976. The Free Press
- , edited with Richard Lincoln and Jane Menken, 1981. University of Pennsylvania Press
- Adolescent mothers in later life, with J. Brooks-Gunn and S. Philip Morgan. 1987. New York: Cambridge University Press
- Managing to make it: Urban families in high-risk neighborhoods, with Thomas Cook, Jacquelynne Eccles, Glen H. Elder Jr., and Arnold Sameroff. 1999. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
- On the frontiers of adulthood: Theory, research, and public policy, edited with Richard A. Settersten Jr. and Rubén G. Rumbaut. 2005. University of Chicago Press
- , 2007. Russell Sage Foundation
- The new American grandparent: A place in the family, a life apart, with Andrew J. Cherlin, 1986. Basic Books
- , with Andrew J. Cherlin, 1991. Harvard University Press.
- ''Behind the academic curtain: How to find success and happiness with a Ph.D.''