School of Family Life Program and Emphases
BS in Family Life: Home and Family Living Emphasis:
Home and family living fosters study of the home as a sacred center for everyday family life and as the basis for a vital community. Theory, research, and practice are used to: (1) illuminate the value of everyday home life; (2) foster wellness and provident living in meeting practical human needs such as feeding, housing, clothing, and financing the family; (3) value the potential that practical human needs present for the moral and temporal development of family members; (4) promote religious and community involvement that maintains and strengthens home and family as the fundamental unit of society; and (5) prepare individuals as professional and everyday home and family educators.
BS in Family Life: Human Development Emphasis:
The human development emphasis centers on theories, research, and practices related to optimal human development within the context of family life. Human development scholarship provides a life-span perspective for understanding human development within the family by helping students learn how children, youth, and adults develop, change, and face challenges throughout the life course (infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood). Our teaching strategy reflects a strong commitment to better critical thinking and problem solving skills as students become involved in mentored learning research, internships, and outreach experiences.
BS in Family Life: Marriage and Family Studies Emphasis:
Marriage and family studies designates a curriculum for those who wish to become skilled in a discipline of inquiry (theory, research, and practice) regarding both the interior quality of life in families and the central place of family in the fabric of communities and cultures. The emphasis requires grounding in the tools of social science (theory, research methods, statistics) and in the commitments, values, and beliefs associated with family interaction across cultures.
In addition to the School of Family Life core which gives a basic foundation in family sciences, the marriage and family studies emphasis requires advanced work in the theories, contexts, and processes used to understand the dynamics of marriage and family interaction.
Our rationale is to produce graduates who are apprentice social scientists and practitioners. Our goals are that they a) understand how to conduct and evaluate research efforts—reported both in journals and in the press, b) use interpretive frameworks to offer coherent renditions of the meaning of human experience, c) be immersed in various contexts of marriage and family interaction to draw meaningful conclusions about where quality relationships come from, and d) know how to apply family science knowledge to real-life issues that emerge in practice. This curriculum offers a foundational breadth and depth to understanding the conduct and value of human social science. It also offers the student a specific focus, an identity and expertise, and freedom to explore, with electives, additional content from the School of Family Life, or from other academic programs across campus.
BS in Family and Consumer Sciences Education:
Academic preparation in this interdisciplinary education program includes study in the areas of early childhood development, marriage and family relationships, parenting education, housing and interiors, clothing and textiles, and nutrition and wellness.
With the development of a knowledge base in these critical areas, graduates will be prepared to provide valuable content to secondary education students as they confront life's challenges. These students can become a resource to their own families empowering them to become healthy community contributors.
This program interfaces with the McKay School of Education and includes professional education courses.
MS & PhD. in Marriage and Family Therapy:
The MFT program at BYU began in 1967 and was among the first academic institutions in the United States to train marriage and family therapists. We are currently among the few universities offering both the masters and doctoral degrees in MFT. Utah passed legislation to license MFT’s in 1971, making it among the first states to do so. Thus, the program is rich in history and is located in a geographical and academic context of strong support for marriage and family studies. BYU MFT graduates are in clinical and academic positions throughout the United States, Canada and the world!
