Adolescent Outcome Measures in the NLSY97 Family Process Data Set: Variation by Race and Socioeconomic Conditions

This study uses nationally representative data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1997 to analyze adolescent outcome indexes (delinquency, substance use, and emotional and behavior problems) by gender, race, household income, and family structure. Results from analysis of variance show that family structure is correlated with better adolescent outcomes, even after controlling for gender, race, and household income. For example, adolescents from two-parent biological homes consistently reported significantly less delinquency and use of illegal substances such as alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana than adolescents from single-mother or stepfamily households. All adolescents and their parents in two-parent biological families reported significantly lower incidences of behavioral and emotional problems than adolescents and their parents in single-mother or stepfamilies. Other findings with respect to gender, race, and income, as well as some interaction effects, were also indicated by the analysis.     

Peer Relationships and Indonesian Muslim Adolescents' Religiosity and Religious Coping: Selection and Influence

The religious similarity of adolescents and their friends can arise from selection or influence. Prior studies were limited because of confounds that arose from the ethnic and religious heterogeneity of the samples and the use of cross-sectional designs. SIENA was used in this two-year longitudinal study of 825 Indonesian Muslim high school students (445 girls; mean age = 16.5 years) to assess peer selection and influence as these pertained to religiosity and religious coping. The analyses yielded significant influence but not selection effects for both religiosity and religious coping. This study is an important methodological advance over prior research and although limited by correlational data, nevertheless, provides evidence that adolescents influence their peers' religiousness.     

Changing Patterns of Religious Affiliation,Religiosity, and Marital Dissolution: A 35-Year Study of Three-Generation Families

This article examines multiple aspects of religion and the risk of marital dissolution with a life course lens. Relying on the Longitudinal Study of Generations (LSOG), 1971 to 2005, we explore the effects of religion on the risk of first marital dissolution. Using discrete time-logit analysis, we find that the effect of religion and religiosity on divorce and separation were not significant, after controlling for sociodemographic factors, such as gender, ethnicity, marriage cohort, education, presence of children, household income, and employment status. Our findings support exchange theory that emphasizes educational and financial resources as key factors in divorce rather than religion or religiosity.     

A Longitudinal Examination of Family Processes,Demographic Variables,and Adolescent Weight

Nationally representative studies estimate that almost one in five adolescents in the United States is overweight. This is a major concern for individuals' physical and psychological health and the overall economy in terms of health care costs and loss of productivity. A 12- to 14-year-old subsample of 4,688 adolescents from the NLSY97 cohort was used to address the association between family processes, demographic variables, and adolescent body mass index (BMI) percentile over 4 years. The final model indicated that frequency of family meals, gender, race, control, and mothers' BMI were important predictors of adolescent BMI percentile over time. Mothers' BMI was the strongest predictor of adolescent BMI percentile. More frequent family meals led to decreases in BMI percentile over time, whereas males, African Americans, and Latinos had higher average BMI percentiles than other groups.     

Coming to Terms With Parental Divorce: Associations With Marital Outcomes and the Role of Gender and Religiosity

In this article we examine the current marriage relationship outcomes for children of divorce compared to children from intact families. The sample is 997 matched married couples. Those from families with married parents were more likely to come to terms with issues in their family of origin, and had higher religiosity, less negative communication, and more positive relationship satisfaction than those with divorced parents. Religiosity was effective in helping those with married parents come to terms with family of origin. The variable coming to terms with family of origin predicted positive marital outcomes to some extent for all couples, although for couples where both partners' parents had divorced coming to terms predicted fewer positive outcomes. Coming to terms for females was associated more profoundly with decreases in negative communication for both males and the females, and also predicted satisfaction and stability in more cases than did coming to terms for males.     

Teaching and Learning Theory For Family Therapy Practice: On The Art and Craft of Balancing

As with all practice knowledges, family therapy theory sits in a complicated relationship to practice. This paper offers a set of reflections exploring challenges of teaching and learning theory for, and about, practice in family therapy. The importance of teaching particular frameworks of practice sits in tension and balance with the importance of the common factors of therapeutic change, and the inseparability of the use of self and the use of particular practice knowledge. Passion and commitment to particular ways of working is held in balance with the need for flexibility and the freedom to think independently. Discipline and focus is balanced with creativity and the room for integration. A number of balancing practices are identified in the art and craft of teaching, and the contextual issue of power and vulnerability in the teaching and learning relationship is acknowledged. Finally, the three ‘Rs’ in teaching and learning family therapy practice theory are drawn out – reflection, the recursiveness of theory and practice, and the reflexivity of self in relation to context and knowledge.     

Perceived Family Functioning and Family Resources of Hong Kong Families: Implications for Social Work Practice

This article reports the results of a telephone survey (n = 1,015 respondents) that aims to identify the perceived general family functioning and family resources of Hong Kong Chinese families and their linkage to each other in a rapidly transforming society. The perceived general family functioning of the respondents was average, and the five types of family resources—time, income, human capital, psychological capital, and social capital—of the respondents ranged from average to good. The following family resource domains, in descending order, have accounted for significant variance in perceived general family functioning: income, time spent with family, stress coping efficacy, religion, and satisfaction with the living environment. Our findings provide empirical support for policy formulation and social work practice.     

Frameworks for Practice in the Systemic Field: Part 1 — Continuities and Transitions in Family Therapy Knowledge

This is the first of two articles to map the landscape of practice theory in systemic family therapy. In this first article, the representation of knowledge for practice is explored, and an argument is made that while frameworks remain important, the relationship to them is now more conditional and pragmatic. A particular chronology is offered of the development of family therapy practice theory frameworks, beginning with the frameworks that emerged in the 1960s to the 1970s. An analysis is given of the important transitions in the 1980s and three sets of influences in this decade — ecosystemic epistemology, the feminist challenge and postmodernism — are identified. This reading emphasises hidden continuities in the transition, despite the seemingly discontinuous shifts in practice theory from the beginning of the 1980s to the beginning of the 1990s. Context and relationship are identified as the enduring parameters of systemic family therapy knowledge, though understandings of context and relationship have been recast in the contemporary (post‐1990s) practice theory. The second article will explore the four contemporary influential approaches in Australian family therapy — the Milan‐systemic, narrative and solution‐focused frameworks, and the dialogical perspective — and point to intersections in practice ideas and integrative movements.     

Frameworks for Practice in the Systemic Field: Part 2 — Contemporary Frameworks in Family Therapy

This is the second of two articles to map the landscape of practice theory in systemic family therapy. The first article gave a particular chronology of the development of family therapy practice theory, beginning with the frameworks that emerged in the 1960s‐1970s and then tracing the transitional decade of the 1980s. The convergences of three sets of influences — ecosystemic epistemology, the feminist challenge and postmodernist ideas — led to the changed landscape of post‐1990 practice theory. This second article picks up at this point, mapping four contemporary influential approaches in Australian family therapy — the Milan‐systemic, narrative and solution‐focused frameworks, and the dialogical perspective. Social constructionist and narrative ideas together constitute the dominant common theory influence in the post‐1990 practice frameworks, although intersected and used in different ways in the different frameworks. Throughout the history of the development of practice theory, context and relationship remain the enduring parameters of the systemic family therapy field.     

Adolescent Sexuality: Disentangling the Effects of Family Structure and Family Context

Growing up in single‐parent, step‐, cohabiting, or lesbian families has been suggested to have negative effects on adolescent sexual behavior. However, our analysis reveals that, with the exception of girls in single‐parent families, family structure does not significantly influence adolescents' sexual initiation. Rather, the family context—more specifically the mother‐child relationship, their level of interaction, and the mother's attitudes toward and discussion of sex—is associated with adolescent sexual debut. When looking at sexually active teenagers, neither family structure nor family context have an impact on the sexual partnerships of boys, and they explain little in terms of girl's sexual partnering.     

Expanding the Family Economic Stress Model: Insights From a Mixed‐Methods Approach

The current study used a mixed‐methods approach to examine how low‐income mothers managed their household economies, their experiences of economic pressure, and the consequences for family and child functioning. Qualitative analyses (N = 32 families) revealed that experiences of economic pressure were associated with an inability to afford both basic needs and some modest but highly valued “extras.” To meet demands, mothers reported using a variety of strategies, including instrumental support from friends and family members and other financial strategies. Results from the quantitative analyses (N= 516 families; 800 children, ages 6 – 15) were generally consistent with patterns observed in the qualitative analyses and extended the findings to include effects on parenting practices and children’s behavioral functioning.     

Applied Restorative Justice as a Complement to Systemic Family Therapy: Theory and Practice Implications for Families Experiencing Intra‐Familial Adolescent Sibling Incest

This article considers the impact on and therapeutic responses to families where there has been intra‐familial sexual assault (IFSA) by an adolescent member of the family against another younger member of the family. In doing so, the article will specifically highlight the nexus between systemic family therapy ideas and an applied restorative justice response in the form of Youth Justice Conferencing (YJC), as experienced through working as a family therapist in the area of adolescent sexual offending.     

Nonstandard Work and Marital Instability: Evidence From the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth

This article replicated and extended Harriet Presser's (2000) investigation of the linkages between nonstandard work and marital instability. We reexplored this question using data from a sample of 2,893 newlywed couples from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and using different analytic techniques. In contrast to Presser, we found that the key dimension of husbands' and wives' employment was nonemployment. Similar to Presser, we found that wives' working of fixed night shifts increased the risk of divorce, driven by the experience in marriages over 5 years in duration. However, we did not replicate Presser's finding that the effect is significant only among households with children; rather, wives' fixed night shifts were associated with divorce only among those without children.     

A Family Therapist's Look Into Interpersonal Neurobiology and the Adolescent Brain: An Interview With Dr Daniel Siegel

Advances in brain research are increasingly having an impact on clinical interventions in all fields of psychotherapy. For adolescent family therapists it is important not only to understand the developing adolescent brain, but also how brain research can influence interventions aimed at interrupting problematic familial interactions. Interpersonal neurobiology and the ideas of Dr Daniel Siegel synthesise the interpersonal with the scientific, offering practical clinical methods of incorporating the research into everyday practice. This article incorporates a verbatim interview with Dr Siegel about the adolescent brain, interpersonal neurobiology and attachment with an outline of key concepts from interpersonal neurobiology including the hand model of the brain, nine functions of the prefrontal cortex, the triangle of wellbeing and eight domains of integration. Clinical applications are suggested using a common presenting problem of escalating conflict between teenagers and their parents.     

Family Policy and Complex Contemporary Families: A Decade in Review and Implications for the Next Decade of Research and Policy Practice

Prior Journal of Marriage and Family decade-in-review articles have grappled with the definition and role of family policy for research and policy practice while emphasizing its value to both. In this article, we begin with a broad conceptualization of family policy that encompasses actions intended to achieve explicitly stated goals for families (explicit policies) and those that affect families without an explicitly stated goal for doing so (implicit policies), which we believe provides a solid framework for guiding and understanding both research and practice in the field. Second, we review major U.S. policy initiatives in the past decade and their documented and potential effects on families. Third, we describe several key aspects by which contemporary families have become more diverse and complex. Fourth, we discuss the implications of ongoing family complexity for public policies. We conclude with a discussion about future research and policy development in the context of contemporary family complexity.     

Relationship Dynamics and Healthy Exchange across the Family Life Cycle: Implications for Practice

The capacity to form and develop healthy interpersonal relationships with others is fundamental for human development. In the realm of practice, the theory of social exchange is among the most prominent conceptual frameworks for examining and understanding human behaviors and relationship dynamics. While interpersonal bonds may take several forms across the family life cycle, this article addresses how healthy social exchange can provide a basis for establishing a mutually fulfilling alliance by examining three different types of interpersonal relationships: dating relationships, marital relationships, and parent–child co-residential relationships. Interventions aimed at marriage and family therapists as well as social work practitioners working with couples and families facing relationship troubles are discussed.