Family Problems E-Book
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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Family Problems: Stress, Risk, and Resilience presents an interdisciplinary collection of original essays that push the boundaries of family science to reflect the increasingly diverse complexity of family concerns in the modern world.
- Represents the most up-to-date family problem research while addressing such contemporary issues as parental incarceration, same sex marriage, health care disparities, and welfare reform
- Features brief chapter introductions that provide context and direction to guide the student to the heart of what’s important in the piece that follows
- Includes critical thinking questions to enhance the utility of the book for classroom use
- Responds to family problem issues through the lens of a social justice perspective
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014
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CONTENTS
Cover
Title page
Copyright page
Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction and Conceptual Overview
What is a Family Problem?
Overview of Book
References
I: Social Inequality and Marginalization
2 We’re Here, We’re Queer, and We Count
Introduction
Queer Feminist Ecologies of Same-Sex-Headed Families
Queer Lives in Context
Queer, but Not Queer Enough: Marginalization in the Queer Community
Queer Strengths and Resilience
Critical Thinking Questions
References
3 The Stigma of Families with Mental Illness
What is the Problem of the Stigma of Mental Illness?
Types of Stigma
What is the Problem of Stigma and Families?
Types of Family Stigma
Population Perspectives on Family Stigma
Family Perspectives on Stigma
Factors that Affect Family Members’ Perceptions of and Experience of Family Stigma
Changing Stigma
Summary
Critical Thinking Questions
References
4 Inside and Out
Family Life Prior to Incarceration
Impact on the Family: The Incarceration Years
Family Life after Release
Summary
Critical Thinking Questions
References
5 Social Disparities in Family Health
The Second Demographic Transition
Conceptual Models for Understanding Disparities in Family Health
The Central Role of Stressful Experiences
Protective Factors and Resilience
Contextual Influences
Conclusions
Critical Thinking Questions
References
6 Low-Income Fathers as Resilient Caregivers
Marginalization in an Era of Rising Inequality
“Be Real with Myself”: Steeling for Inevitable Challenges
“Gotta Change Play Groups”: Maturation and Learning from Past Mistakes
“Damn, I'm
Still
Around”: Perseverance in “Being There” for Children
Summary
Critical Thinking Questions
References
II: Parenting and Caregiving in Diverse Contexts
7 “Do What You Gotta' Do”
Introduction
Defining Food Insecurity
Demographic Correlates of Food Insecurity: Income, Race, Household Composition, and Context
The Consequences of Food Insecurity
Qualitative Studies of Coping Strategies against Food Insecurity
Discussion
Implications
Critical Thinking Questions
Acknowledgments
References
8 The Diverse Family Contexts of Youth in Foster Care
Factors that Precipitate Foster Care Placement
The Foster Care Process
Types of Placement for Children in Out-of-Home Care
Common Challenges Associated with the Foster Care Context
Factors Associated with Resilience
Potential Benefits of Foster Care Placement
Foster Care Policy in the United States
Conclusion
Critical Thinking Questions
References
9 Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
Influences on the Development of Grandparent-Headed Families
A Demographic Profile of Grandparent-Headed Families
Ethnicity: A Key Demographic Characteristic
Experiences of Grandparent-Headed Families
A Resilience Perspective on Grandparent-Headed Families
Defining resilience in grandparent-headed families
Global Perspectives on Grandparents Raising Grandchildren
Summary
Critical Thinking Questions
References
10 Caring for Older Adults
Introduction
What is Caregiving?
Prevalence of Caregiving
Who Provides Care and Why?
How do Families Decide on who Provides Elder Care?
Family Dynamics that Impact Elder Care Provision
Stress, Coping, Burden, and Burnout among Family Caregivers
Caregiver Coping Strategies and their Relationship to Depression and Anxiety
Caregiver Burden and Influences on Burden
The Consequences of Caregiver Burnout
Help for Caregivers: Supportive Services
Looking Ahead: The Costs and Needs of Current Caregiver Policies
Critical Thinking Questions
References
11 Childhood Adultification and the Paradox of Parenting
Economic Disadvantage and Childhood Adultification
Forms of Childhood Adultification
Parenting Adultified African American Boys and Teens
Summary and Conclusions
Critical Thinking Questions
Acknowledgments
References
III: Family Challenges Over the Life Course
12 Family Resilience to Promote Positive Child Development, Strong and Flexible Families, and Intergenerational Vitality
Key Biosocial Systems Principles That Characterize Family Units
Application of Scientific Evidence about How Parents Promote Positive Development in Their Children: The RPM3 Approach
Application of the Applied Biosocial Contextual Development Conceptual Framework for Understanding Promotive and Resilient Factors in Families and Children
Conclusion
Critical Thinking Questions
References
13 Challenges and Changes
The State of the Military Family
Resiliency
Adaptability: Developmental Considerations across the Life Course
Military-Developed Programs to Increase Resiliency in Service Members and Families
Summary
Critical Thinking Questions
References
14 Intimate Partner Violence
Extent and Nature of Intimate Partner Violence
Child Abuse and Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence
Intimate Partner Violence and the Process of Resilience
Responding to Intimate Partner Violence
Conclusion
Critical Thinking Questions
References
15 Abuse in Late Life
Prevalence and Incidence Rates
Victims and Perpetrators of Elder Abuse
Costs and Consequences of Elder Abuse
Theorizing Pathways and Response to Abuse in Late Life
Responding to the Challenges of Elder Abuse
Conclusion
Critical Thinking Questions
References
16 Adolescent Development and Romantic Relationships
Challenges of Adolescent Romantic Relationships
Dating Aggression in Adolescence
Challenges: Concluding Points
Future Opportunities for Research and Practice
Youth-Focused Relationship Education
Conclusions
Critical Thinking Questions
References
IV: Policy and Practice Responses to Family Problems
17 Strengthening Family Resilience
Introduction: The Road of Life
Resilience
Community Capacity
Policy and Practice Responses to Family Problems
Conclusion: Navigating Life's Journey
Critical Thinking Questions
References
18 Family Policy through a Human Rights Lens
Family Policy through a Human Rights Lens
Marriage as a Human Right for Some, but Not All?
US Health Care: Not Necessarily Equal for All
Conclusions
Critical Thinking Questions
References
19 Multisystemic Therapy as a Strength-Based Model for Working with Multiproblem Families
Part 1 Multiple Problem Families: Ecological Overview
Part 2 Case Example: MST with Derek and His Family
Summary
Critical Thinking Questions
References
20 Risk and Resilience among Latino Immigrant Families
Latino Immigrants in the United States
Historical Understanding of Latino Immigration
Understanding the Life Experiences of Latino Immigrants in the United States: Risk and Protective Factors
Implications for Community-Based Programs: A Model of Services Research with a Cultural Adaptation Focus
Conclusion
Critical Thinking Questions
References
21 Harm Reduction as a Model for Families Responding to Substance Abuse
Introduction
Vulnerability to Substance Misuse
Harm Reduction as a Public Health and Clinical Model
Harm-Reduction Psychotherapy: Working with Family Systems
Conclusion
Critical Thinking Questions
References
V: Conclusion
22 Responding to Family Problems
The Pyramid of Principles
Final Words: The Need for Evidence-Informed Practice and Policy
Conclusion
References
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 06
Table 6.1 Demographics of total sample and subsamples of low-income fathers
Chapter 07
Table 7.1 Demographics
Chapter 14
Table 14.1 Theoretical perspectives of intimate partner violence (IPV)
Chapter 15
Table 15.1 Types of elder abuse
Chapter 19
Table 19.1 Overview of factors that contribute to delinquency
Table 19.2 MST treatment principles
Chapter 20
Table 20.1 Life experiences and parenting needs
Chapter 21
Table 21.1 Major models of substance use disorders
List of Illustrations
Chapter 03
Figure 3.1 A matrix for understanding stigma: typology by constructs to describe the “what” of stigma.
Figure 3.2 A matrix for understanding family stigma: typology by constructs.
Chapter 06
Figure 6.1 Steeling and resilient fathering.
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1 A conceptual model of childhood adultification in economically disadvantaged families (Burton, 2007).
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1 The Applied Biosocial Contextual Development (ABCD) model of human development (adapted from C. Ramey
et al.
, 2006).
Chapter 15
Figure 15.1 Ecological framework for elder abuse
Chapter 17
Figure 17.1 Social organizational processes, social structure, and individual/family results.
Figure 17.2 A typology of community capacity (adapted from Mancini and Bowen, 2009, p. 255).
Chapter 19
Figure 19.1 Social-ecological model of influences on youth behavior
Chapter 20
Figure 20.1 Proposed model of services research.
Chapter 21
Figure 21.1 Drug, set, setting (from Zinberg, 1984). Compiled by Jeannie Little and Patt Denning.
Figure 21.2 Risks and benefits associated with possible solutions.
Chapter 22
Figure 22.1 The pyramid of principles (from Arditti, 2012).
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
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Family Problems
Stress, Risk, and Resilience
Edited by
Joyce A. Arditti
This edition first published 2015© 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
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Notes on Contributors
Elaine A. Anderson is Professor and Chair in the Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, at the University of Maryland. Her work focuses on the impact of policies on the health and well-being of families. She has used her research to inform state and federal legislators about how best to modify programmatic and policy initiatives on behalf of families. She is the former President of the National Council on Family Relations. She earned her Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University.
Joyce A. Arditti is Professor of Human Development at Virginia Tech. She received her doctorate in Family Studies from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. Her research interests include family disruption, parent–child relationships in vulnerable families, and public policy. Her scholarship is recognized nationally and internationally and she has published numerous empirical and review articles in therapy, human services, family studies, and criminal justice journals. She is the author of the book Parental incarceration and the family: Psychological and social effects of imprisonment on children, parents, and care-givers published by New York University Press, for which she was the 2014 recipient of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) Outstanding Book Award, an honor awarded to a member of ACJS who has authored a book representing an extraordinary contribution in the field of criminal justice. Joyce recently served as the Editor in Chief of Family Relations: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Applied Family Studies. She is a Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR), and Chair of the Research and Theory Section (NCFR). She is an Associate Editor for the Journal of Child and Family Studies, serves on various editorial boards, and is actively involved in research projects dealing with families involved in the criminal justice system.
William R. Avison is Professor of Sociology, Paediatrics, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Western Ontario and Chair of the Division of Children's Health and Therapeutics at the Children's Health Research Institute. His research focuses on the effects of socio-economic disadvantage and social stressors on the health of families and children. He is the founding editor of Society and Mental Health: The Journal of the Sociology of Mental Health Section of the American Sociological Association. He received the Leonard I. Pearlin Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Sociological Study of Mental Health from the American Sociological Association in 2009. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Alberta.
Ozge Sensoy Bahar is a recent doctoral graduate of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, School of Social Work. Her research interests include inner-city communities, ethnic families, migration and women, the intersection of race/ethnicity, gender, and class, and resilience. Her dissertation explored how low-income Kurdish migrant/displaced mothers reconstructed their lives in an inner-city neighborhood of Istanbul, Turkey after migrating from the southeast of Turkey. Dr. Sensoy Bahar has co-authored multiple publications and conference presentations on the challenges encountered by inner-city residents both in Turkey and the United States as well as the resilience of female members of these communities in navigating multiple challenges created by structural factors.
Kristen Benson is Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Science at North Dakota State University. A licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Family Life Educator, her research and clinical focus is on supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) people and relationships. She is a clinical fellow of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy and a member of the National Council on Family Relations. She received her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.
Adrian Blow is Associate Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University and Program Director of the couple and family therapy program. He is involved with several studies related to military deployment, including post-deployment adjustment of National Guard couples, evaluation of the Buddy-to-Buddy program (a peer-to-peer support program), resiliency processes in National Guard families, and other family-based interventions. He received his Ph.D. from Purdue University.
Gary L. Bowen is Kenan Distinguished Professor and serves as Lead Scientist in the Jordan Institute for Military Members, Veterans, and their Families, School of Social Work, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He also co-directs the School Success Profile (SSP) project and is a Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR), the Society for Social Work and Research (SSWR), and Armed Forces & Society (AFS). He is past President of NCFR (2009–2011). He received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Patricia A. Brennan is Professor of Psychology at Emory University. Her primary area of research is developmental psychopathology. She employs longitudinal and treatment research designs to assess biosocial risk factors for aggression, as well as the intergenerational transmission of depression and related disorders. Recently she has been examining the utility of biological factors as predictors of outcome in the context of Multisystemic Therapy. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.
Linda M. Burton is James B. Duke Professor of Sociology at Duke University. She directed the ethnographic component of Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study and is Principal Investigator of a multi-site team ethnographic study (Family Life Project) of poverty, family processes, and child development in six rural communities. Her research integrates ethnographic and demographic approaches and examines the roles that poverty and intergenerational family dynamics play in the intimate unions of low-income mothers and the accelerated life course transitions of children, adolescents, and adults in urban and rural families. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.
Hans Saint-Eloi Cadely is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn University. His research focuses on adolescent identity development and changes in romantic relationships throughout the transitional period of adolescence to adulthood. Hans currently has four refereed journal publications that address adolescent romantic relationships, identity development, and intervention programs. He has also been involved in the implementation of relationship education programs across the state of Alabama such as Relationship Smarts.
Jinette Comeau is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at Western University and graduate research fellow at the Children's Health Research Institute. Her dissertation examines the impact of socioeconomic disadvantage, neighborhood context, and family processes on children's mental health over the life course. She is co-author of “The impact of mental illness on the family” in The handbook of the sociology of mental health, 2nd edn.
Patrick W. Corrigan is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology and a licensed clinical psychologist for more than 30 years. He is the Director of the National Consortium on Stigma and Empowerment (NCSE), a research center supported by NIMH. Central to NCSE is the Center on Adherence and Self-Determination (CASD), supported as a developing center in services research by NIMH. Corrigan is a prolific researcher, having authored or edited 12 books and more than 300 papers. He received his Psy.D. from the Illinois School of Professional Psychology.
Kimberly A. Crossman is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on women's experiences of violent and nonviolent intimate partner abuse in the contexts of marriage, divorce or separation, and co-parenting with a current or former abusive partner. She is particularly interested in the roles of coercive control and the influence of gender in women's experiences of abuse.
Phillippe B. Cunningham is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Family Services Research Center at the Medical University of South Carolina. He has had a longstanding commitment to addressing the psychosocial needs of children and adolescents, especially those who are disadvantaged and underserved. Much of this work has taken place within the context of federally funded studies aimed at further validating and disseminating Multisystemic Therapy. In 2000, Dr. Cunningham received the Theodore H. Blau Early Career Award from the American Psychological Association's Society of Clinical Psychology. He received his Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.
Patt Denning is Director of Clinical Services and Training at the Harm Reduction Therapy Center (HRTC) and has been a primary developer of Harm Reduction Treatments (HTC). She is a Diplomate-Fellow in Psychopharmacology and a certified addiction specialist through the American Psychological Association's College of Professional Psychology. She has worked in public and private treatment settings since 1975. She received her Ph.D. from the San Francisco School of Psychology.
Megan L. Dolbin-MacNab is Associate Professor of Human Development, Associate Professor of Health Sciences, and a faculty affiliate of the Center for Gerontology at Virginia Tech. She is also a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and the Clinical Training Director at the Family Therapy Center of Virginia Tech. Her research on grandfamilies has explored grandchild experiences and well-being, parenting and family dynamics, and best practices for community-based interventions. She is the author of numerous journal articles and book chapters about grandfamilies, and has also developed variety of resources for practitioners working with custodial grandparents and their grandchildren. She received her Ph.D. from Purdue University.
Ana Rocío Escobar-Chew is an international Fulbright scholar and a postdoctoral fellow in the program of Couple and Family Therapy at Michigan State University. She is the project manager of various mix-methods studies focused on evidenced-based services for Latinos (including an NIMH-funded study on parenting and a program evaluation study for IPV Latina survivors). Her research experience includes community-based research, cultural adaptation of evidenced-based interventions, gender-based violence, and immigrant families. Her doctoral dissertation explored the life experiences and parenting needs of Guatemalan women exposed to violence. She is a member of the MSU Research Consortium on Gender-Based Violence at MSU. She earned her Ph.D. from Michigan State University.
Anne F. Farrell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Connecticut. She is a translational scholar whose work encompasses at-risk and underserved populations, including children with special health care needs (CSHCN) and their families. Recent projects and publications address family-centered practices, positive behavior interventions, cross-systems collaboration, family resilience, supportive housing in child welfare, and military families with CSHCN. She serves on the editorial boards of Infants and Young Children, Family Relations, and Early Childhood Research Quarterly. She received her Ph.D. from Hofstra University.
Sharon L. Foster is Distinguished Professor at the California School of Professional Psychology at Alliant International University in San Diego. She is the author of numerous articles and book chapters on children's aggression and peer relations, assessment and treatment of parent–adolescent conflict, and research methodology. She also co-authored Helping adolescents at risk (2004) and Negotiating parent–adolescent conflict (1989). She received her Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Natalie R. Gela is a doctoral candidate in Clinical Psychology at the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois. Her research and clinical interests include working with individuals, couples and families coping with mental illness.
Samantha A. Goodrich is Senior Research and Evaluation Scientist in the Office of Health Systems Research and Innovation within the Lehigh Valley Health Network. Her research interests include evaluations of prevention and intervention programs for children and families. In particular, her focus is on the implementation of programs that aim to improve the health and well-being of families and communities, including home visiting, parent education, early education, early intervention, and wrap-around programs. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Connecticut Department of Human Development and Family Studies.
Lisa Gorman is Program Director for the Michigan Public Health Institute and a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She works collaboratively with families, public health, universities, policy makers, and other community partners on innovative solutions that will improve health outcomes and quality of life for families. Dr. Gorman has been engaged in program development, evaluation, and research activities on behalf of military families since 2005 and is co-principal investigator of Risk, Resiliency, and Coping in National Guard Families, a Department of Defense-funded study. She received her Ph.D. in Family and Child Ecology from Michigan State University.
Jennifer L. Hardesty is Associate Professor of Family Studies in the Department of Human and Community Development at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on mothers who separate from violent partners, with specific attention to the separation/divorce process, post-separation violence and coercive control, parenting with violent former partners, and the health and safety of mothers and children after separation. She received her Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Missouri-Columbia and completed a postdoctoral training fellowship in violence research in the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins University.
Bert Hayslip, Jr. is Regents Professor Emeritus at the University of North Texas. He is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Gerontological Society of America, and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. An Associate Editor of Experimental Aging Research and of Developmental Psychology, his co-authored books include Emerging perspectives on resilience in adulthood and later life (Springer, 2012), Resilient grandparent caregivers: A strengths-based perspective (Routledge, 2012), Adult development and aging (Krieger, 2011), and Parenting the custodial grandchild (Springer, 2008). He is Co-principal Investigator on a NINR-funded project exploring interventions to improve the functioning of grandparent caregivers. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Akron.
Robin L. Jarrett is Professor of Family Studies in the Department of Human and Community Development, and Professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research interests include positive child and adolescent development, African American family functioning and resilience, and building supportive inner-city communities. As an urban ethnographer, Dr. Jarrett uses an array of qualitative data collection strategies in her research, including participant observation, neighborhood observation, individual and group interviewing, photo-documentation, and GIS. She has published widely in journals that reflect her interest in child/youth development, families, and neighborhoods, including Journal of Children and Poverty, Journal of Family Issues, Journal of Family Psychology, Journal of Poverty, Journal of Research on Adolescence, and International Journal of the Constructed Environment. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, Department of Sociology.
Jennifer Kerpelman is Professor of Human Development and Family Studies and Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Human Sciences at Auburn University. Her research focuses on the examination of adolescent development and adolescents' relationships with parents and peers. She has over 50 refereed journal publications that address individual development, close relationship functioning, and adolescent outcomes such as educational goals, sexual health, relationship knowledge and quality, and identity development. She also has created resources designed to promote positive youth development in areas of self-development, civic engagement, parent–adolescent relationships, and adolescent peer and dating relationships. She received her Ph.D. from Auburn University.
Robin Gaines Lanzi is Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director of Health Behavior in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is a developmental psychologist with a maternal and child health background whose research centers on reducing maternal and child health disparities and promoting positive youth development. A central theme throughout her research is “putting research into practice” through multiple pathways, including a focus on community-based participatory research in the design, planning, implementation, and dissemination of findings. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Sara Lappan is a doctoral student in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies with a concentration in Couple and Family Therapy at Michigan State University. She is currently involved in program evaluation research. Sara is a student affiliate of the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy. Her clinical experience includes providing family, couple, and individual therapy working in the Adolescent Partial Hospitalization Program at Borgess Medical Center, at Western Michigan University's Center for Counseling and Psychological Services, Michigan State University's Couple and Family Therapy Clinic, and Perspectives Therapy Services.
Bethany L. Letiecq is Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Science at George Mason University. She teaches courses on family relations and family law and social policy. Her community-based and action research focuses on the health and well-being of families marginalized by social, economic, and political forces. Most recently, she has worked in partnership with Mexican migrant families settling in new destinations to ameliorate poor mental health conditions among migrant families and promote migrant justice. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at College Park.
Ann Booker Loper is Professor at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education. Her research focuses on the mental health and adjustment of prisoners and their family members, with a particular emphasis upon the parent–child relationships in justice-involved families. Dr. Loper has collaborated with prison, jail, and community partners in the development of a parenting program for incarcerated mothers. She has consulted with local and state agencies concerning the rehabilitative needs of returning prisoners, particularly as related to family reunification. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin.
Chris Marchiondo is a doctoral student in Human Development and Family Studies, with a specialization in Couple and Family Therapy at Michigan State University. His research focuses on the risk and protective factors facing veterans and their families after combat deployments. Previously, Chris served as an active duty Army officer.
Alyssa McElwain is a doctoral candidate in Human Development and Family Studies at Auburn University. Her research focuses on interpersonal and individual factors associated with adolescent sexual development including romantic relationships, parent–adolescent relationships, and identity exploration. She has worked in outreach in the state of Alabama by assisting with the implementation of sexual health and relationship education programs, writing website content, and providing technical assistance and program evaluation. She has also coordinated undergraduate service learning courses that implement positive youth development and relationship education programs targeting adolescents in the local community.
Marvin McKinney is Research Fellow at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Co-principal Investigator for Promoting Academic Success for Young Boys of Color. He is also a member of the Research, Policy, and Practice Alliance Supporting Excellence in Black Children and serves as senior consultant to University Outreach and Engagement at Michigan State University. He has over three decades of experience working as a strategist and an advocate for young children in urban communities. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan.
Ezella McPherson has expertise in qualitative research, STEM education, mentoring, academic advising, K-20 retention, persistence, and graduation for underserved populations. Her dissertation centered on the persistence of African American women in STEM fields. It examined why some African American women stayed in or departed from STEM majors. Her current research projects focus on college student persistence and success for underrepresented populations in STEM fields at PWIs and HBCUs. Other research interests include: resilience, mentoring, health, neighborhoods, environmental studies, and urban studies. She recently received her Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Marya C. McPherson is Executive Director at Mental Health America of New River Valley in Blacksburg, Virginia. She has over 20 years' experience working with families, children, and older adults through educational and community-based programs. In recent years, Ms. McPherson has acquired additional credentials and expertise in adult development and aging, research, and grant-writing, with a primary focus on family violence prevention and mental health across the lifespan. Her current role involves advocacy, education, and program development for improved community response to mental health challenges. She received her Master's degree from Virginia Tech.
Lenore M. McWey is Professor in the Marriage and Family Therapy Doctoral Program at Florida State University. Her research and clinical interests involve working with families at high risk for child maltreatment. She is particularly interested in systemic interventions aimed to improve outcomes of families involved with the child welfare system. She received her Ph.D. from Florida State University.
Rob Palkovitz is Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Delaware. His research interests are in fathering and intergenerational relationships and development, with a particular emphasis on the relationships between patterns of father involvement and developmental outcomes for men and their children. His teaching, research, and community service focus on applied systems perspectives for facilitating life opportunities for persons at risk. He received his Ph.D. from Rutgers University.
José Rubén Parra-Cardona is Associate Professor in the program of Couple and Family Therapy at Michigan State University (MSU), Department of Human Development and Family Studies. He is also Associate Director of the MSU Research Consortium on Gender-Based Violence. His NIMH-funded research is focused on the prevention of child abuse and neglect through the cultural adaptation of evidence-based parenting interventions for Latino immigrant populations. His violence research is focused on: (a) investigating the cultural relevance of services for Latina survivors and Latino men who abuse, and (b) understanding intervention processes associated with men's elimination of abusive behaviors. He received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University.
Kathleen W. Piercy is Professor in the Department of Family, Consumer, and Human Development at Utah State University. She teaches undergraduate and graduate student courses in family policy, and graduate courses in personal relationships and in qualitative methods. Dr. Piercy's primary research focus is on the dynamics of family care of older adults. Her first book, Working with aging families: Therapeutic solutions for caregivers, spouses, and adult children, was published by W. W. Norton in 2010. She has authored or co-authored 40 refereed journal articles, mostly on aging topics, and three book chapters. She received her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.
Craig T. Ramey is Distinguished Scholar of Human Development at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Professor of Psychology at Virginia Tech. He is a lifespan developmental psychologist who has conducted randomized controlled studies of the impact of high-quality early childhood education on the cognitive, social, and educational outcomes for vulnerable children (including the Abecedarian Project, Project CARE, and the Infant Health and Development Program). These studies have affirmed that positive early childhood experiences exert a large effect on adolescent and adult outcomes, including health and educational attainment with benefits to the entire family. He received his Ph.D. from West Virginia University.
Sharon Landesman Ramey is Distinguished Scholar of Human Development at the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute and Professor of Psychology at Virginia Tech. She is a developmental scientist who has studied the changing American family. She has developed and tested interventions for children with developmental disabilities and with family risk conditions, often resulting in large and sustained benefits that exceed what had been predicted based on their biology and life circumstances. She also conducts research on stress and resilience effects across multiple generations. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Washington at Seattle.
Karen A. Roberto is Professor and Director of the Center for Gerontology and the Institute for Society, Culture and Environment at Virginia Tech. Her research focuses on health and social support in late life and includes studies of rural older women, family relationships and caregiving, and elder abuse. She is the author of over 180 scholarly publications and the editor/author of 11 books. Dr. Roberto is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the National Council on Family Relations. She is a recipient of the Gerontological Society of America Behavioral and Social Sciences Distinguished Mentorship Award. She received her Ph.D. from Texas Tech University.
Kevin M. Roy is Associate Professor in the Department of Family Science at the University of Maryland, College Park, School of Public Health. His research focuses on the life course of young men on the margins of families and the work force, as they transition into adulthood and fatherhood. He explores the intersection of policy systems, such as welfare reform, community-based parenting programs, and incarceration, with caregiving and providing roles in kin networks. He received his Ph.D. from Northwestern University.
Stacy R. Ryan is Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Neurobehavioral Research Laboratory and Clinic at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. Her primary research interests center on identifying factors that influence outcomes for treatment of youth substance use and related aggressive/delinquent behavior. She is particularly interested in using this information to understand the utility of current evidence-based programs for underserved families. She received her Ph.D. from Emory University.
Howard Stevenson is Constance E. Clayton Professor of Urban Education and Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania in the Applied Psychology and Human Development Division at the Graduate School of Education. His research interests include the development of racial socialization interventions to promote racial coping strategies that increase youth and family well-being. His latest book, Promoting racial literacy in schools: Differences that make a difference, focuses on how educators, community leaders, and parents can resolve face-to-face racially stressful encounters that undermine student achievement and health, racial profiling, and social conflicts within neighborhoods of color. He received his Ph.D. from the Fuller Graduate School of Psychology.
Pamela B. Teaster is Professor at the Center for Gerontology and Department of Human Development at Virginia Tech. She previously served as Director of the Geriatric Education Center and Director and Chairperson of the Graduate Center for Gerontology/Department of Gerontology, Director of Doctoral Studies, and Associate Dean for Research for the College of Public Health at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Teaster is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Elder Abuse and Neglect and is a Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America and the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. She received her Ph.D. from Virginia Tech.
Brad van Eeden-Moorefield is Associate Professor in the Department of Family and Child Studies at Montclair State University. He also is a Certified Family Life Educator and has previously worked as a clinical therapist. His research focuses on how the social context influences relationship processes and outcomes among diverse families, including stepfamilies and those headed by same-sex couples. Much of his work uses a queer feminist lens to understand these influences. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
Damian Waters is a doctoral candidate in the Family Science Department at the University of Maryland. His research interests center around understanding the processes and contexts shaping fatherhood, particularly the intersection of paternal and child health. His current project explores father involvement in pediatric caregiving among low-income, emerging adult men. He is also a Licensed Graduate Marriage and Family Therapist and coordinates fatherhood services for a teen parenting program at Children's National Medical Center.
Mathilde Whalen is a doctoral candidate in Clinical and School Psychology at the University of Virginia's Curry School of Education, where she received her Master's degree in 2011. Her research focuses on behavioral outcomes of youth who have experienced the incarceration of a close family member. She has worked to revise and implement a parenting curriculum designed for incarcerated mothers at several correctional facilities across the state of Virginia. Ms. Whalen's clinical interests include forensic assessment and providing mental health interventions within the correctional system.
Michael Whitehead is a doctoral student in the Couple and Family Therapy program at Michigan State University. He is currently involved in research focusing on the statewide implementation of an efficacious parenting program. He has also been involved in a number of research projects ranging from theory evaluation to intervention development. His current research focus is primarily on the experience of children in bi-racial families, and more broadly on evidence-based interventions for children and families.
Joanna Will is a doctoral candidate in Clinical and School Psychology in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. She is a former probation officer who has provided assessment and intervention to justice-involved individuals across a variety of community, forensic, and inpatient settings. Her research interests include domestic violence, inmate adjustment and mental health, and the impact of incarceration on the family.
Donna-Marie Winn is Research Scientist at the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her areas of expertise include mental health and well-being, race, and culture. Dr. Winn has been involved in the development of numerous national, evidence-based programs to enhance children's social, emotional, and academic skills. She has extensive experience in conducting research on resilience in African American families. She currently leads the Research, Policy, and Practice Alliance Supporting Excellence in Black Children and the Promoting Academic Success of Boys of Color Project. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Armeda Stevenson Wojciak is Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa in the Couple and Family Therapy Doctoral Program. Her research focuses on identifying and using protective factors to improve outcomes for children and families involved with the foster-care system. She received her Ph.D. from Florida State University.
Acknowledgments
This textbook resulted from the efforts and contributions of many different people. I would like to first gratefully acknowledge Wiley Executive Editor Julia Teweles for her early input in developing this project and her encouragement to assemble an edited volume that addressed contemporary challenges and strengths among families. Thanks also to Julia Kirk, Wiley Senior Project Editor, for her excellent assistance in organizing the details of the book project and overseeing its execution. I also want to acknowledge those who assisted me in the final stages of copyediting this book and preparing it for production: Wiley staff Ian Critchley and Christopher Feeney, and Virginia Tech students Cailin Clinton, Sara Spiers, and Kendra Woodley.
Most of all I would like to thank the 20 contributors of this textbook and their willingness to share their knowledge and viewpoint on vulnerable families and how best to respond to diverse family contexts of care and community. Family Problems is truly an interdisciplinary endeavor; authors represent varied academic disciplines and professional backgrounds and I appreciate the obvious effort that went into each and every chapter.
Finally, this textbook is a means for me to acknowledge my own family in all their complexity. We are a resilient bunch, and it is from them that I learned to endure, and ultimately be transformed by, family problems.
1Introduction and Conceptual Overview
Joyce A. Arditti
Case Example: Nick
Nick, a 16-year-old, moved with his family from a large city in the Northwestern United States to a Southern rural town during the summer before his eleventh-grade year. Nick is a second-generation member of a Chinese family; his grandparents immigrated during the 1950s; his father, whose job transfer caused the move, is an engineer and his mother an elementary schoolteacher. Up to the point of the move, Nick’s medical and psychological histories had been “unremarkable to date.” In his home city, he was an avid gaming enthusiast, and a natural on the baseball field. Nick was well liked by his circle of friends who accepted his bisexual orientation without judgement. In contrast to his large, racially diverse high school in his home city, his new school was small, and comprised 550 predominantly white students. Cliques among students were well formed and hard to penetrate. In his new environment, Nick had trouble making friends, was terribly homesick, and kept his sexual orientation a secret for fear of being bullied. By the end of the fall semester, Nick’s grades had dropped to an all-time low and he was spending most of his time in his room alone, either sleeping or gaming. He had not touched a baseball in months. Additionally, he was having a great deal of stomach pain and was diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer, causing him to miss a great deal of school. Nick’s family realized he was in trouble.
As we can see from the case examples on pages 1 and 2, both Nick’s and Martina’s family are in trouble, and affected by an array of problems stemming from caregiver stress, economic inadequacy, adolescent development, social exclusion, and health challenges. Whether Nick or Martina and their families will be able to effectively deal with the problems they are faced with depends on a number of individual, family, and societal factors including how they define their situation, their ability to respond to family demands, resources and assets at their disposal, individual competencies and strengths, social support, and societal tolerance and understanding regarding the conditions and situations with which each family is confronted. For example, whether Nick will thrive, survive, or deteriorate during his junior year and beyond is contingent on his ability to get the help he needs, find support, and transform his experience into something that has meaning and ultimately enhances his development. How might this happen? First, Nick is lucky: he is smart and has loving and supportive parents and siblings who believe in him. Nick’s family has health insurance and financial resources and are able to get him in to see a counselor who understands the challenges Nick is facing and is nonjudgmental about Nick’s bisexuality. Nick also receives the medical attention he needs for his ulcer. He begins to feel better about himself, breaks his isolation, and with his family’s support, decides to try out for the baseball team the spring of his junior year. A new family moves in next door and Nick becomes friends with the teenage daughter, Zoe, who is also into gaming. Nick feels safe with her – she too was a city girl and a non-conformist in her politics and dress. She has a small group of gaming and political friends and Nick decides to “come out” and with his counselor’s help, Nick shares his sexual orientation with his new-found friends and joins their causes for civil rights. Between medical and psychological treatment, making the baseball team, and the support of his friends and family, Nick’s senior year looks bright. Nick’s path is one of transcendence over adversity. But he did not necessarily do it alone.
Case Example: Martina
Mexican-born Martina is an 81-year-old widow with an array of medical needs. She has painful arthritis and is showing the early signs of dementia. Martina lives with her daughter, Lisa, and her four grandchildren aged 4 to 14. Lisa is a single mother who does shift-work at a local poultry factory near an urban center. She, Martina, and the kids live in a third story two-bedroom apartment in a tough neighborhood punctuated with occasional gang-related violence. Once a caring grandmother and a help to Lisa and the children, Martina has increasingly become a “burden” to the family. Martina has trouble walking and caring for herself and personality changes include irritability and forgetfulness. For example, recently after making dinner, Martina left the stove on overnight. Now, 14-year-old Johnny is left in charge of Martina and the children while Lisa works evenings. However, Johnny has taken up with a new set of friends and rather than holding down the fort, he is out most nights on the streets leaving Martina and the younger children to fend for themselves. Lisa is at a breaking point – she is unable to carry the load of caring for her children, work, and dealing with Martina’s caregiving and health needs. Lisa is also grieving the loss of the loving mother she once had, before Martina’s dementia. While Martina has Medicare coverage, Lisa’s earnings are barely enough to get by. Based on Lisa’s commitment to keeping her family together and caring for her mother at home, Lisa has taken an extra shift on weekends to make ends meet.
Perhaps Lisa, Martina and their wider family are not so lucky. Lisa is teetering on the poverty line, and without the financial resources that Nick’s family has, she will have a tough time meeting the demands of her situation. Lisa’s children are at risk of endangerment unless adequate supervision and developmentally enhancing care can be found. Martina will continue to deteriorate without the proper medical and physical care. Johnny may end up joining one of the gangs in his neighborhood without some kind of intervention to promote his well-being. It is clear he cannot handle the adult-like family responsibilities Lisa has given him. Lisa has too many responsibilities as a single-mother and caregiver to Martina. She needs support and help and since she has no kin to rely on, it will have to come from the outside. Tired and alone, Lisa, herself is at risk for burn-out.
All families have problems. Some of these problems stem from change within and outside the family. Other problems are connected to developmental transitions and challenges inherent in certain caregiving arrangements, such as caring for an elder or infirm family member. Further, problems may be intensified or seemingly irresolvable due to discrimination and social inequality. Family Problems: Stress, Risk, and Resilience examines an array of critical challenges faced by contemporary families such as Nick’s and Lisa’s, and digs deep into their origins, effects, and perhaps most importantly how families may still thrive and grow in the face of adversity. Additionally, an essential question posed throughout the book is: when do family issues become “problems”?
What is a Family Problem?
The field of family studies has long considered the issue of family problems, with particular attention to how families cope with stress related to various life transitions and difficult life events. Key trends within family science that emerged during the 1990s have been influential in how we define and conceive of family problems. These developments include a focus on individual and family resilience, as well as feminist and ethnic minority critique that has given way to recognition of the diversity of family experiences (Doherty, Boss, LaRossa, Schumm, and Steinmetz, 2008). The diverse “postmodern” family is fluid and distinct from previous generations, essentially broadening the scope of family problem definition, as well as expert interpretation of the challenges families face in their everyday lives and how best to solve these challenges. There are three broad perspectives that can be applied in thinking about family problems today and these perspectives or theories are utilized throughout the book: (1) a constructivist perspective, (2) the family stress perspective, and (3) ecological systems theory.
Constructivist reflections on the nature of family problems
First, a phenomenon is a family problem when it is seen as such by family members themselves or defined by a great many others in the family’s social world. This criterion is rooted in “constructivist theory,” which emphasizes how people view the relationships and situations they are involved in. For example, some of Nick’s difficulties were rooted in his concern that his bisexuality would be viewed as abnormal or different by members of his new school and community. This fear is warranted given the likelihood of negative and homophobic attitudes that more often characterize both rural and Southern regions of the United States (Eldridge, Mack, and Swank, 2006; Snively, Krueger, Stretch, Watt, and Chadha, 2004). Thus real or imagined discrimination was a force that was adding to the difficulties Nick was having in adjusting to his new life after his move.
From a constructivist perspective, all knowledge systems are “ever-changing human inventions” to help people make sense of their lives (Raskin, 2006, p. 212). Constructivism also involves an increasing emphasis on understanding families in context, in their social world, with a sensitivity to the oppressive power of larger social forces. Power may be manifested to the extent to which people can get others to accept and live according to their preferred discourses. From a constructivist viewpoint, social inequality is in part a byproduct of one’s inability to gain this acceptance – thus problems signify a gap in how families experience the world and social pathologizing of that experience.
At the core of constructivism is a central assumption that human beings – individually and through their relationships (e.g., Gergen, 1994), “create meaningful mental frameworks of understanding,” which are the basis for self-understanding and comprehending the surrounding world (Raskin, 2006, p. 212). By extension, families construe their interactions with the world and these constructions may serve to organize families around specific problems (Doherty and Baptiste, 2008). In contrast, a hallmark of positivistic social science was the belief that “facts” about the world and more specifically about families were givens that could produce generalizations that could be tested by gathering more facts (Doherty and Baptiste, 2008). Therefore, family health, well-being, and other specific child and family outcomes rested on a certain pattern of facts and objective conditions. Concurrently, deviations from these facts, typically defined in terms of traditional family forms, role functions, and normative developmental trajectories, were characterized as problems located within people and within families. Now, with family science’s recognition of the postmodern family, the question of whether a particular role variation, family structure, or interactional pattern is defined as a problem is more complex. Family phenomena can be defined one way within the family by its members, and defined outside the boundaries of the family by society in another manner altogether. Consider for example the controversy that swirls around the notion of the “family bed.” Is sleeping with your child a problem? Medical experts argue that co-sleeping can be physically dangerous for children, emotionally unhealthy, and compromise marital intimacy. Parent advocates cite benefits such as increased bonding and access between parents and child(ren), as well as more confident and secure children. A polarizing illustration such as the family bed illustrates how family and social definitions may be at odds. From a constructivist perspective, people are viewed as actively creating meaning – and as we see from the family-bed example, meaning systems can be wildly different among people and contexts.
Thus problems, sometimes defined as psychopathology or family pathology, occur not only as a result of social rejection, but when individual, familial, and cultural ways of construing are incongruent or become ineffective. Problems are inherently rooted in meaning because they involve a “felt discrepancy between the way things are and the way they are … supposed to be” (Mahoney, 2003, p. 45). Lisa’s family is a case-in-point, based on her cultural heritage she believes she should be able to take care of her mother Martina and keep her at home, yet the way things are and the necessities associated with Martina’s care is creating a great discrepancy for her which has become a source of distress. Therefore, problems can be viewed as expressions of a family’s attempt to protect itself, and pursue directions that feel “immediately satisfying” (Mahoney, 2003, p. 45). From this standpoint, problems are often attempts at solutions (Mahoney, 2003), and in this manner, important mechanisms of development and systemic reorganization. Lisa’s shift work, which takes her out of the home and leaves vulnerable family members unsupervised, is a problem, but also an attempt on her part to resolve the family’s economic inadequacies.
In sum, constructivism highlights that problems are rooted in discrepant or ineffective meanings and often products of collective definition – particularly in relation to social and cultural norms pertaining to family dysfunction and deviance (Schneider, 1985). However, it is also worth noting that some family conditions fail to be identified as “social problems” and thus remain invisible to society in that they are not deemed important issues of concern (worthy of resources and intervention) (Schneider, 1985). Society and even family experts may not recognize a problem per se, and yet a certain set of conditions, behaviors, interactions, can be defined within the family, or by one of its members, as problematic. Moreover, family problems of devalued groups (such as the poor, minorities, prisoners) may be particularly invisible and thus collective definition of an issue may dominate, effectively obscuring the families’ experience.
Family stress theory and family problems
A second perspective applied in deciding whether an issue is a “family problem” involves the extent to which the degree of stress reaches a level that is more than the family “can handle.” Family members may become dissatisfied, compromised, or show other signs of disturbance. We can clearly see this happening in Lisa’s family. The fact that Lisa is feeling that she is “ready to snap” suggests the demands of her situation are exceeding her ability to respond to them as well as compromising the healthy functioning of the family and the well-being of its members. This perspective focuses on how change, loss, and disturbance can create stress (Boss, 2002). Lisa’s stress is further intensified by the loss she feels due to the changes in her mother’s mental and physical health.
