This book and its contributing scientists address core theoretical, conceptual, developmental, identity, and policy issues surrounding the changing ethnic profile of American families. Guided by the increasing number of cross-cultural adoptions, interracial marriages and the resulting multiethnic families and children, social and behavioral scientists provide both scientific documentation and insights about and into these emerging family systems, their dynamics, challenges and interactions...

First Published in 1983. All families experience stress: the adjustment period when an infant is born; the many problems engendered by adolescents; role, dual-career, and work demands; environmental and societal problems; sexuality; divorce; marital tension; and the stress inherent in single parenting and stepparenting. In addition, families are frequently confronted by unexpected, stress-causing catastrophes: chronic illness and death addiction; abandonment by a spouse; unemployment; rape...

First published in 1983. This is Volume 1 of two in a collection of on stress and the family. The books view the family as both producing and reacting to stress and attempt to identify the sources of stress from either inside or outside the family microsystem. Further, the volumes distinguish between sudden, unpredictable, and overwhelming catastrophic stress and the more normal, gradual, and cumulative life stressors encountered over the life span. Moreover, the series brings into focus s...