Alan Booth

Ann C. Crouter

Mari L. Clements

Tanya Boone-Holladay

This classic volume provides a solid foundation for thinking about creative ways in which our society can work to prevent or minimize destructive couple conflict and enhance couples' abilities to constructively handle their differences. A common thread throughout is that constructive conflict and negotiation are beneficial for relationships. The new introduction provides an overview of how this classic text is still relevant today. Divided into four parts, this book: *addresses the societal and bio-evolutionary underpinnings of couple conflict; *presents the interpersonal roots of couple conflict and the consequences for individuals and couples; *discusses what effects couple conflict have on children and how individual differences in children moderate these effects; *outlines policies and programs that address couple conflict; and * concludes with an essay that pulls these four themes together and points to new directions for research and program efforts. This book serves as a supplement in graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on interpersonal relationships, couples and/or family and conflict, divorce, couples and/or family therapy taught in human development and family studies, clinical or counseling psychology, social work, sociology, and communications and it is also a helpful compendium for researchers and clinicians/counselors interested in couple conflict.

Classic Edition

Couples in Conflict

Nancy S. Landale

Based on the presentations and discussions from a national symposia, Just Living Together represents one of the first systematic efforts to focus on cohabitation. The book is divided into four parts, each dealing with a different aspect of cohabitation. Part I addresses the big picture question, "What are the historical and cross cultural foundations of cohabitation?" Part II focuses specifically on North America and asks, "What is the role of cohabitation in contemporary North American family structure?" Part III turns the focus to the question, "What is the long- and short-term impact of cohabitation on child well-being?" Part IV addresses how cohabiting couples are affected by current policies and what policy innovations could be introduced to support these couples. Providing a road map for future research, program development, and policymaking. Just Living Together will serve as an important resource for people interested in learning about variations in the ways families of today are choosing to organize themselves.

Implications of Cohabitation on Families, Children, and Social Policy

Just Living Together

"Sociological essays on policies that could help employees balance their workplace responsibilities with their other responsibilities. Policies examined encompass organizational policies, municipal policies, state policies, and federal policies. Workers s

Work-life Policies

Significant disparities exist in children's behavioral and learning capacities that support successful transitions into school. In this new volume, leading researchers from a variety of disciplines review the latest data on how families influence their children's transitions into school. The inequalities that exist in school readiness, the roots of the inequalities, and the ways in which families exacerbate or minimize these inequalities, are explored. The book concludes with a review of policies and programs that represent the best practices for how families, schools and communities can address these disparities. Each of the following topics is explored through a lead essay followed by three critiques: Inequalities in school readiness and the community, school, and family characteristics that contribute to these inequalities. Family processes and contextual conditions that impact the acquisition of literacy, numeracy, language, and cognitive skills. The role that extracurricular activities play in shaping children's school achievement, including differences based on gender, ethnicity, race, and socioeconomic status. Family processes underlying the development of behavioral control and its impact on school readiness. Disparities in School Readiness paints a compelling, interdisciplinary portrait using a variety of types of data and data sets, including longitudinal data from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development's Study of Early Childhood and recent analyses of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study from the National Center for Education Statistics. Interdisciplinary in nature, this new book appeals to researchers in family studies, human development, education, psychology, social work, sociology, economics, and public policy interested in improving children's school transitions.

How Families Contribute to Transitions Into School

Disparities in School Readiness

Nancy Landale

This book documents the third in a series of annual symposia on family issues--the National Symposium on International Migration and Family Change: The Experience of U.S. Immigrants--held at Pennsylvania State University. Although most existing literature on migration focuses solely on the origin, numbers, and economic success of migrants, this book examines how migration affects family relations and child development. By exploring the experiences of immigrant families, particularly as they relate to assimilation and adaptation processes, the text provides information that is central to a better understanding of the migrant experience and its affect on family outcomes. Policymakers and academics alike will take interest in the questions this book addresses: * Does the fact that migrant offspring get involved in U.S. culture more quickly than their parents jeopardize the parents' effectiveness in preventing the development of antisocial behavior? * How does the change in culture and language affect the cognitive development of children and youth? * Does exposure to patterns of family organizations, so prevalent in the United States (cohabitation, divorce, nonmarital childbearing), decrease the stability of immigrant families? * Does the poverty facing many immigrant families lead to harsher and less supportive child-rearing practices? * What familial and extra-familial conditions promote "resilience" in immigrant parents and their children? * Does discrimination, coupled with the need for rapid adaption, create stress that erodes marital quality and the parent-child bond in immigrant families? * What policies enhance or impede immigrant family links to U.S. institutions?

Research and Policy on U.s. Immigrants

Immigration and the Family

Anastasia Snyder

In this classic edition top scholars in family research examine the nature and origin of adolescents’ contemporary patterns of sexual and romantic relationships, from the evolutionary roots of these behaviors to policies and programs that represent best practices for addressing these issues in schools and communities. The text offers interdisciplinary expertise from scholars of psychology, social work, sociology, demography, economics, human development and family studies, and public policy. Adolescents and young adults today face very different choices about family formation than did their parents’ generation, given such societal changes as the rise in cohabitation, the increase in divorce rates, and families having fewer children. This book examines these demographic trends and provides a backdrop against which adolescents and emerging adults form and maintain romantic and sexual relationships. This book addresses such questions as: *What are the ways in which early family and peer relationships give rise to romantic relationships in the late adolescent and early adult years? *How do early romantic and sexual relationships influence individuals’ subsequent development and life choices, including family formation? *To what extent are current trends in romantic and sexual relationships in adolescence and emerging adulthood problematic for individuals, families, and communities, and what are the most effective ways to address these issues at the level of practice, program, and policy? Ideal as a supplement in graduate or advanced undergraduate courses on interpersonal (romantic) relationships, adolescent development, human sexuality, couples and/or family and conflict, sociology of children and youth, family therapy taught in human development and family studies, clinical or counseling psychology, social work, sociology, communications, and human sexuality this book also appreciated by researchers and clinicians/counselors who work with families and adolescents.

Risks and Opportunities

Romance and Sex in Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

Any parent who has raised more than one child is likely to be keenly aware of subtle or even striking differences among their offspring. The central premise of this volume is that children bring personal qualities to their relationships with other family members that help shape family interaction, relationships, and even processes that family researchers have called "parenting." The chapters address how children's personal qualities make their mark on families in ways that may in turn influence children's subsequent development. The volume is based on the presentations and discussions from a national symposium on "Children's influence on family dynamics: The neglected side of family relationships" held at the Pennsylvania State University, as the ninth in a series of annual interdisciplinary symposia focused on family issues. It is divided into four parts, each dealing with a different aspect of the topic. Part I sets the stage by focusing on the features of children that make a difference, as well as the kinds of research designs that are likely to shed light on the role of child influences. Part II focuses on early childhood, particularly the role of infant temperament and other individual differences in very young children in shaping their parents' behaviors, reactions in turn that feedback and influence the developing child. Part III focuses on adolescence, a time when young people are able to exert more choice in how they spend their time and who they spend it with. Part IV pulls the themes of the volume together and points the way for future research.

Ann C. Crouter

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