College women believe both the maternal role and the career role provide a variety of rewards. Though the marital and emotional costs of each role are recognized, college women do not hold a realistic impression of the role conflict and strain connected with the career role. (PS)

Families adopting older children are faced with three unique transitional tasks: boundary establishment, resolution of losses, and affirmation of roles. Describes these tasks, as well as the challenges to family development, and reframes stresses of adoptive families as normative to the transition process. Presents implications for practice.…

Describes a program known as "Parenting in Prison" which offers family support services for prisoners. Seeks to help inmates work toward ensuring better lives for their children and themselves through a series of educational activities and special events. (Author/ABB)

When students (N=38), labeled as gifted for at least five years, their parents (N=53), and siblings (N=28) completed an attitude scale, results indicated that non-labeled siblings came to terms with the label. The gifted child was less certain about the positive feelings of siblings and parents regarding the label. (Author/CB)

Reviews outcome studies of marriage enrichment groups for both premarital and marital couples, examining determination of change, measurement tools, stability of changes, differential effectiveness, and types of participants. Emphasizes the impact varies with the audience for such programs. Describes the focus as primary prevention for couples…

Raises the issue of whether the current state of the American family is suited to the needs of modern industrial society. Compares modern American family life to family life in Japan, looking at family roles and parent-child relationships. (NB)

Examines how "Journal of Marriage and the Family" has changed over past 50 years. Reviews development of field of family studies in areas of children and youth, sexuality, marital adjustment, divorce, and violence. Assesses progress and prospects of family field in several areas. (Author/NB)

The study of families (N=42) who had adopted or were long-term fostering mentally retarded children found very positive outcomes for most families in contrast to results from other studies with mentally retarded birth children. (Author/DB)

Describes a study documenting the types of school-based family life education programs implemented by nonschool agencies in Chicago. Most programs were relatively short, utilized few interactive teaching techniques (e.g., role-playing, exercises), covered a wide variety of topics, and were integrated into other curricula units rather than…

Examined 15 rural home-working families for allocation of work time. Found families displayed marked variability in work hour and work day patterns, both individual and across group. Both work days and allocated work times were punctuated by interruptions for child care and household chores, resulting in work/family time interaction rather than…

Discusses two books, "The Young Unicorns" (M. L'Engle) and "M.C. Higgins, The Great" (V. Hamilton), that give honest portrayals of life. Suggests each will stimulate preadolescents to examine their own lives. (ARH)

Examined cohesion and adaptability as two dimensions of family functioning in 294 Anglo- and Mexican-American parents of school-age children. Revealed no significant differences in mean scores or distributions between ethnic groups for cohesion or adaptability, even when acculturation was controlled. (Author/NB)

New parenthood had a greater general impact on women than on men, but effects of infant crying were greater on fathers than on mothers. Infant crying was related to mothers rating their infants more negatively but feeling less inadequate. For fathers, infant crying was associated with greater anxiety and inadequacy. (Author/ABB)

Presents a family systems perspective on career indecision as an alternative to existing theories of vocational development which generally contribute career indecision to character deficits in young adults. Speculates on family patterns that contribute to career indecisiveness and on the functions that this problem may serve within the larger…

Young adult, midlife, and older women from four role groups--homemaker, married career, single career, and student--were compared on a number of personality measures including achievement motivation, affiliation, autonomy, cultural sex role characteristics, self-esteem, and adjustment. Some significant age and role differences were found.…