This issue brief is one in a series examining timely topics that are relevant to Black families and children in the United States. The series identifies key information and opportunities for consideration by policymakers, researchers, practitioners, philanthropists, and others interested in supporting the progress of Black families and…

The current study compared patterns of service utilization reported by Early Head Start (EHS) families of children with and without disabilities by secondary analysis of data from the longitudinal investigation of the effectiveness of EHS. Findings reveal comparable positive trends for both groups of families for receipt of services corresponding…

The United Nations International Year of the Family 1994 will give policymakers the opportunity to bring together threads of social life that have previously been treated separately. The danger in talking about the concept of "the family" lies both in its abstractness and in its emotional, religious, and political overtones. To avoid…

Canadian families differ from one another to the degree that it is now customary for researchers, helping professionals, teachers, and others to declare their interest in families, not "the family." The proliferation of different family forms has led some, who disregard the fact that the traditional family has had a very brief history,…

Literature on the American family that is pertinent to pediatrics is reviewed. Family characteristics considered include fertility, family structure, divorce, maternal employment and child care arrangements, family wealth and poverty, governmental assistance, and adolescent sexuality. Other topics of discussion include problematic effects of…

Marriage offers important social and economic benefits. Well-designed public policies could play a constructive role in helping couples develop the skills needed to develop healthy, sustainable relationships with each other and their children. It does not follow, however, that marriage promotion should be a significant component of anti-poverty…

When Canadian parents look back on their own lives and the lives of their parents, they see changes across a generation that have profoundly affected their parenting experience, compared to when they themselves were young children. Supports for today's parents must take into consideration these changes that affect the care and nurturing of…

These six research papers were presented as public lectures: "Federal Child Care Policy" (David M. Blau) outlined the role of the federal government in child care, the failure of market-based care programs, and the ideal goals of a federal child care policy as well as its cost (4 tables; 41 references); "Thinking About Child Care…