Family Science Review
Research Articles
NCFR Task Force on the Development of a Family Discipline
ABSTRACT: This paper reviews the historical development of family science. It began as an interdisciplinary area in the early decades of the twentieth century. Several new professions, such as marriage and family therapist and family life educator appeared, and a new disciplinary perspective emerged. The result is that family science is now a large, changing dynamic, complex, and multifaceted field. There are scholars in many disciplines who contribute knowledge from their perspective, and there are also several groups of scholars and practitioners who view the family field as their primary discipline. These complicated patterns make it difficult for new students to understand what the field is, and this paper is an attempt to help them by describing historical and current patterns of scholarship and intervention.
Suzanne K. Steinmetz & Karen F. Stein
ABSTRACT: A typology of diverse family forms, based on past research studies of family functions and structure, is developed to help researchers and theorists organize and classify, family type. The matrix, based upon traditional and emerging family functions and structures, appears superficially to follow the mold of the traditional structural/functional framework with each type of family fitting into one mutually exclusive quadrant. However, unlike earlier applications of structural-functional analysis, this typology of applied to a range of variant family forms instead of treating non-nuclear families as problematic.
Teresa D. Marciano
ABSTRACT:
Wesley R. Burr, Jay D. Schvaneveldt, George Roleder, & Christina Marshall
ABSTRACT: Considerable data have been gathered on American graduate programs for over five decades, but none of the surveys have included family science programs. This study is an attempt to begin correcting this deficiency. The data reported here are from anonymously completed questionnaires from 55 professionals who were interviewed as part of a fact finding tour of family science programs. The sample is therefore small and accidental, but eve with these limitations, if appropriate care is taken in how findings are used, the data are better than the previous condition of no data at all.
Gregory W. Brock
ABSTRACT: Valid, reliable program admission criteria and applicant screening procedures are important to high quality graduate training of any kind. This need is perhaps more pronounced among disciplines such as family therapy where faculty-student contact is highly intimate over a long time period. Clinical training also demands students who serve clients in a responsible and ethical manner. Once in place, however, program admission criteria and the procedures used to screen applicants are seldom examined. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the admission criteria and screening procedures used in an accredited family therapy degree program. Our intent in communicating the the results is threefold: to describe admission criteria and procedures used in one program, to provide a model of evaluation perhaps useful to other programs, and to show how such an evaluation can change admission criteria and procedures.
Patrick C. Mckenry & Sharon J. Price
ABSTRACT: Harold Christensen wrote in 1964 that family research was a difficult undertaking because of the inability of scholars to put aside their strong values about family living and their own family experience for the sake of objective social science research. The literature in family science has more than tripled since Christensen made this statement, and we’re now talking about distinct knowledge base in family study, i.e. family “science.” Yet we would contend that not only is family research still difficult to conduct, but that it suffers qualitatively as a result of persisting personal and even political bias in the formulation of research problems and the interpretation of research findings.
Ad-Hoc Family Discipline Section Publication Committee
ABSTRACT: The first issue of Family Science Review was published in November, 1987. At the time the decision was made to print the first issue, it was believed by the leaders of the family discipline section of the National Council on Family Relations that enough “guidelines” had been provided that it had permission to publish FSR. Discussions prior to and during the annual meeting in Atlanta, however, revealed there were several misunderstandings, and a number of issues and procedural matters had not been dealt with adequately. The result is that FSR has become an ongoing periodical, but it does not have endorsement of NCFR and is separate publication. In fact, currently, FSR is a publication independent of any professional organization.
Pamela A. Moore
ABSTRACT: Family scientists are beginning to recognize that any career options are available to them. Ours is relatively new discipline, and our past efforts were focused on developing a sense of identity as a profession. We could hardly prepare students for alternative careers until there were enough scholars and professors to handle the academic training of family scientists. Now, we are approaching the saturation point for academic positions. In a 1987 survey of all student members of the National Council on Family Relations, nearly 40% of respondents indicated that they expected to practice family science in an academic setting. It is my opinion that our academic job market simply cannot absorb so many new professors. It is time for faculty members and students to consider, prepare for, and even create new opportunities for family scientists. This essay will describe one such career, that of the legislative research analysts.
William H. Meredith, Larry D. Kallemeyn, & Pauline D. Zeece
ABSTRACT: In a cooperative arrangement between a private foundation and a university academic department, the Human Development and the Family Department at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for the past one and half years to provide managerial and professional services for the Cedars Home for Children in Lincoln, Nebraska. the Cedars Home has served as an excellent training facility for undergraduate and graduate students in the department. To our knowledge this arrangement is the only one of its kind in the United States where a university academic department runs a licensed private family and child service agency.