Rick Bulcroft

Associate Professor

About

Rick Bulcroft is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology. He graduated from the University of New Hampshire in 1975 and received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1989. During the time between his BA and Ph.D., he spent several years as a research consultant and in user support services at SPSS, Inc. Prior to accepting a permanent position at Western, Rick served as a Research Analyst in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Washington as well as on the faculties of Seattle University, the University of Puget Sound, Western Washington University, and the University of British Columbia. Rick also spent one year (1993-94) at the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania as a Senior Fulbright Scholar. Professor Bulcroft maintains a long-standing interest in relationship dynamics, marriage, family development, and adolescence. He has published a number of articles concerning topics such as the timing of parental independence giving to adolescents, the nature and functions of dating in later life, race differences in attitudes and motivations to marry, the later life consequences of divorce and remarriage, and, most recently, risk in modern premarital relationships and the historical development of the North American honeymoon ritual. He has also co-authored a book based on an interdisciplinary research project looking at North American honeymoon rituals as they relate to changing cultural conceptions of marriage and family life. Currently, he is engaged in editing a textbook on research methods and collecting data on the effects of infant feeding practices on the transition to parenthood. Professor Bulcroft is an avid gardener and enjoys opera, hiking, fishing and sailing.

Research Interests

  • Family, relationships, adolescence, research methods