Family Problems: Stress, Risk, and Resilience

Bringing a much–needed contemporary sensibility to a critical field of study, Family Problems: Stress, Risk, and Resilience presents an interdisciplinary collection of original essays that push the boundaries of family science to reflect the increasingly diverse complexity of family concerns in the modern world. Featuring contributions by leading experts in family stress, risk, and resilience, articles pay close attention to the gender, race, ethnicity, class, and cultural issues that inform the construction of—and responses to—a variety of family problems that occur over the course of a lifetime. Essays utilize an innovative approach based on a blending of family stress, constructivist, ecological, and developmental frameworks, and are divided into four thematic sections. These sections focus on the relationship of family problems to marginalization, parenting and caregiving in diverse contexts, family challenges over the life course, and policy and practice responses. The most up–to–date research sheds important new light on a variety of contemporary issues, from parental incarceration and same sex marriage to health care disparities, welfare reform, and more. Innovative and thought–provoking, Family Problems: Stress, Risk, and Resilience moves well beyond standard volumes of family stress theory to reveal the true complexity behind the myriad issues and challenges faced by families in contemporary society.

Joyce A. Arditti is Professor of Human Development at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. She is the author of Parental Incarceration and the Family: Psychological and Social Effects of Imprisonment on Children, Parents, and Caregivers (2012).