Describes the Vermont Skills Bank/Futures Project, FUTURES, which provides a supportive atmosphere for people to voice their dreams, examine the effect of change in their lives, and to begin to set realistic goals with measurable outcomes for success. Participants explore career options, work with adult basic education tutors, and gain access to…

Adolescents (N=424) in Barbados completed Family Functioning in Adolescence Questionnaire. Findings revealed that most adolescents, like Australian peers, reported fairly favorable perceptions of their families. Adolescents not living with their fathers seemed to have somewhat lower sense of personal security; in other respects did not report…

Analyzed findings of previous studies of the adolescent parent population to determine the relationship between age of parent and maltreatment, and whether adolescent parents are overrepresented within the maltreating and foster care populations. Found that adolescents are not overrepresented, suggesting that programs for adolescents should focus…

Sociologists have linked black family structure to persisting disadvantage. This study employs data from the 1990 Public Use Microdata Samples to compare the rural African American family to its urban counterpart. Results from the logistic regression analysis reveal that for rural blacks, family structure is less important than community type and…

Examined single mothers' well-being and perceptions of their preschoolers' behavior. Findings from 76 single, employed mothers indicated that variables reflecting interface between work and family roles were important for well-being and perceptions of children's behavior. Depression appeared allied with stability and resources in mothers' lives;…

Summarizes data from 1990 Current Population Survey supporting three general conclusions: (1) parental employment and children's poverty are linked in married-couple and female-headed families; (2) child poverty rates are insensitive to parental employment; (3) black-white differences in child poverty are not result of racial differences in…

Examined low-income family characteristics important to American public in judging deserved amounts of public assistance. Finding from 1,369 adults suggest focus on characteristics of need in evaluating mother-only families and focus on work status and motivation of father in evaluating 2-parent families. Average benefit designated by respondents…

Analyzes burglary rates for 141 cities for which data on burglary, Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), cost of living, unemployment, household status, and other social and economic variables were available. Cost-of-living AFDC payment per recipient was found to have a direct negative impact on burglary and a separate indirect negative…

Using reanalyzed data from ethnographic research performed in Taiwan during the 1990s, the authors inspect Taiwanese cultural patterns as they affect adaptation to loss in the form of death. The data include participant observations and the narratives of 52 widows and 30 of their children. An analysis of interview transcripts suggests that the…

Food insecurity is a problem faced by smallholder farmers in Malawi. In any given year between 70 and 85 percent of households run out of food stocks several months prior to the next harvest. Once food stocks are depleted many households obtain food by doing ganyu. This paper uses qualitative data to examine ganyu in relation to food security in…

This ethnographic study focuses on two homeless mothers and their efforts to support their families. The study reveals how the mothers came to be homeless and how this experience has affected them. The work examines the experiences of the mothers with and perceptions of their children's education as well as the roles the mothers play in the…

This document reviews the literature from 1949 to the present on psychological effects of husband/father separations and reunifications upon military families. Separations are limited to those that result directly from military duties; divorces, deaths and other permanent separations are not included. The review is organized into two parts, the…

The Parental Attitude Research Instrument (PARI) was administered to 34 wives of nuclear submarine personnel under counterbalanced conditions of father presence and absence. Significant differences were found on seven subscales as a function of the father's status. (Author/SDH)

Research investigating the development of sex-role identity in children from father-absent families was reviewed using Biller and Borstelmann's (1967) three-fold conceptualization of sex-role identity as sex-role orientation, sex-role preference, and sex-role adoption as an organizational framework. The review revealed that sex-role orientation…

This article attempts to evaluate, critically, the scattered findings on divorced women as single parents and on the family units they head, and to re-examine effects of stigma on these families. (Author)