Graduate Program
Clint Elison
Area of Interest
Dating/Courtship, Culture, Art, Family, Theory
Profile
Clint is a doctoral candidate (ABD) in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame working under the direction of David M. Klein. He is working to complete his dissertation, “Disharmony: Premarital Relationship Dissolution,” and graduate in May 2010. His primary area of research is marriage and family, with a focus on premarital relationship development and dissolution. He has also studied research methods and statistics, symbolic interaction, and culture.
His dissertation explores premarital relationship dissolution (or breakups) from three perspectives: the experience/process of breaking up, the differences between couples that break up and those that stay together or marry, and the timing of breakups (or what factors influence some couples to break up faster than others). He is also revising three papers and plans to submit them to journals in the next few months. One is a comparison of couples in different premarital relationship statuses. The second uses symbolic interaction theory to compare the processes of self and artistic creation. The third examines popular art groups and the creative benefits of collaboration. His future projects include: a co-authored paper on the decreasing divorce rate and an examination of the effects of technology on dating.
Last year, Clint taught the sociology course “Marriage and the Family” during both semesters. Through the course, he helped introduce many students to sociology and electronic database research.
Clint has a bachelor’s degree in humanities and a master’s degree in public administration (MPA) from Brigham Young University.