This volume is a synopsis of the diversity of all birds. It distills the voluminous detail of the 17-volume Handbook of Birds of the World into a single book. Based on the latest systematic research and summarizing what is known about the life history and biology of each group, this volume is the best single-volume entry to avian diversity available.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

An important skill for students, whether they remain in academia or move on to careers elsewhere, is to become critical consumers of research, with the ability to sort out and evaluate sometimes conflicting findings that are reported in the popular media. While traditional sociological methods texts focus on teaching how to produce research, Greenstein teaches students how to understand the research results they'll encounter. He equips students with the essentials they'll need to become intelligent and critical readers of research ...

This sourcebook is an unparalleled resource in the field of family science. It provides a comprehensive overview of both traditional and contemporary theories and methodologies to promote a greater understanding of increasingly complex family realities. It focuses on broad developments in research design and conceptualization, while also offering a historical perspective on developments in family science over time, particularly emerging theories from the past several decades. Each chapter summarizes and evaluates a major theory or methodological approach in the field, delving into its main principles; its debates and challenges; how it has evolved over time; its practical uses in policy, education, or further research; and links to other theories and methodologies. In highlighting recent research of note, chapters emphasize the potential for innovative future applications. Key areas of coverage include: · Risk and resilience, family stress, feminist, critical race, and social exchange theories. · Ambiguous loss, intersectionality, Queer, and family development theory. · Life course framework. · Biosocial theory and biomarker methods. · Symbolic interactionism. · Ethnography. · Mixed methods, participatory action research, and evaluation.