In the 1990s it is no longer "news" that families do not operate independently from other social organizations and institutions. Instead, it is generally recognized that families are embedded in a complex set of relationships with other institutions and contexts outside the family. In spite of this recognition, a great deal remains to be discovered about the ways in which families are influenced by these outside agencies or how families influence the functioning of children and adults in these extra-familial settings--school, work, day-care, or peer group contexts. Moreover, little is known about the nature of the processes that account for this mutual influence between families and other societal institutions and settings. The goal of this volume is to present examples from a series of ongoing research programs that are beginning to provide some tentative answers to these questions. The result of a summer workshop characterized by lively exchanges not only between speakers and the audience, but among participants in small group discussions as well, this volume attempts to communicate some of the dynamism and excitement that was evident at the conference. In the final analysis, this book should stimulate further theoretical and empirical advances in understanding how families relate to other contexts.

In this fresh, more structural, alternative to other texts for the marriage and family course, Seccombe and Warner provide a comprehensive look at close relationships and the family in just 15 chapters. Examining close relationships and families by placing them in social context, the authors offer a unique emphasis on the structural and relational aspects of the family with a focus on family resilience. The text weaves together a macro view - social structural analysis of close relationships- with the macro - an individualist view. The authors demonstrate the interaction of theory and methodology in family studies in Chapter 2 and blend cutting-edge research and practical applications throughout. Among the highlights of this first edition are the exceptionally thorough exploration of the topics of singlehood and cohabitation in Chapter 7 and the unique six-chapter core (8-13) that focuses on all aspects of parenthood and the challenges and crises that families face today. The authors' emphasis on family resilience and how families can be strengthened is reflected in the Constructing Strong Families boxes that appear throughout the text. These features encourage students to apply groundbreaking research on what makes a family strong to their own families and in the concluding chapter, Looking Ahead: Helping Families Flourish, which examines the factors that successful families -regardless of ethnicity, culture, or social class--consistently exhibit.

This volume is at once a tightly focussed exploration of one of the hottest areas in social and developmental psychology, and also a tribute to one of the field's leaders. For social & dev psychologists, educators, & family studies specialists.

The problems of studying families arise from the difficulty in studying systems where there are multiple elements interacting with each other and with the child. How should this system be described? Still other problems relate to indirect effects; namely the influence of a particular dyad's interaction on the child when the child is not a member of the dyad. While all agree that the mother-father relationship has important bearing on the child's development, exactly how to study this--especially using observational techniques--remains a problem. While progress in studying the family has been slow, there is no question that an increase in interest in the family systems, as opposed to the mother-child relationship, is taking place. This has resulted in an increase in research on families and their effects. This volume, by leading figures in child development on families, attests to the growing sophistication of the conceptualization and measurement techniques for getting at family processes. The third in a series that aims to address topics relevant to the developmental problems and developmental disabilities of retardation, this volume is divided into two parts. Section 1 presents basic family processes and approaches for describing family dynamics. It deals with these issues from a broad perspective, including studying families at dinner, families in different cultural contexts, and the understanding of family in nonhuman primates. Section 2 looks at family processes in the service of studying families at-risk. The risk factors include poverty, malnutrition, and developmental delay and retardation. The study of family processes in these contexts provides data on family dynamics as well as how these dynamics impact on the children's developing competence. This volume will be informative for researchers, clinicians, and educators from a variety of disciplines and settings. The editors' aim is to bring a greater clarity to issues concerning the family life of children and highlight new research and possibilities for intervention.

Smooth Sailing enhances our understanding of the family's transition through adolescence by examining qualitative data about the experiences of parents and teens across multiple relationships and social contexts. This volume follows the same 60 families described in the authors' first book, Becoming a Family (2000), relating their stories about their transition from childhood to adolescence. Collectively, the two books provide a unique longitudinal perspective on family development using two distinct data collection formats and time frames. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book draws on theory and practice from the fields of social work, psychology, and sociology. Smooth Sailing reveals a picture of the transition to adolescence as it is influenced by intrafamily relationships as well as social context factors. Initial chapters lay the foundation for the study's methods. Proceeding chapters present the participants' stories, organized by context - developmental changes, interpersonal relationships, education, and work. Each chapter follows a similar format: an overview of past research; interview and coding techniques; and a presentation of parents' and teens' qualitative descriptions. Chapters also include an analysis of gender and conclude with implications for practice and policy. The final chapter in the book summarizes this work and looks ahead to the next developmental period, emerging adulthood. Intended for researchers in a variety of disciplines such as social work, psychology, and sociology, this volume also serves as a supplementary text for courses on the family and/or adolescent development.

The Communication Yearbook annuals publish diverse, state-of-the-discipline literature reviews that advance knowledge and understanding of communication systems, processes, and impacts across the discipline. Sponsored by the International Communication Association, each volume provides a forum for the exchange of interdisciplinary and internationally diverse scholarship relating to communication in its many forms. This volume re-issues the yearbook from 1997.

Parents, Children, and Adolescents presents an integrative perspective of the parent-child relationship within several contexts. You can expand your empirical and theoretical knowledge of the parent-child relationship and child development through the book’s unusually holistic, theoretical perspective that integrates three main frameworks: interactional theories on parents, children, and development; contextual (ecological) models; and behavior genetics. This insightful book’s empirical scope is broader than that of most books in that it considers the parent-child relationship throughout the life course as well as within a great variety of contexts, including interactions with sibling and peers, at school, in their neighborhoods, and with professionals. You’ll gain immeasurable knowledge about: parents’child-rearing styles and how they are affected by environmental variables the interaction between parents and children, and between their personalities behavior genetics as one of the explanatory frameworks for the role of genetics and environment negative child outcomes--emotional problems, conduct disorders, and delinquency poverty and other stressors affecting parents and children problematic-abusive, emotionally disturbed, alcoholic parents siblings and peers as contexts for the parent-child dyad the effect of the school system on the family, with a focus on minority families family structure--divorce, remarriage, and families headed by never-married mothers adolescent mothers and their own mothers the psychogenetic limitations on parental influence and cultural roadblocks to parental moral authority Complete with an Instructor’s Manual, Parents, Children, and Adolescents is ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate classes in family studies and human development, sociology of the family, interdisciplinary developmental psychology, and social work classes that need a thorough perspective on the parent-child relationship. Professionals and scholars in these fields seeking an interdisciplinary framework as well as research suggestions and incisive critiques of traditional perspectives will also find this innovative book a valuable addition to their reading lists.