An extensive review of the literature on the academic, psychoemotional and psychosocial adjustment of children in stepfamilies was found to be mixed with some studies suggesting a debilitation in adjustment measures and other studies finding no debilitation. In an effort to bring clarity to the existing research, three separate meta-analyses of the effects of blended versus intact families on measures of children and adolescents' academic adjustment, psychosocial adjustment, and psychoemotional adjustment were performed.
Each analysis investigated several mediating variables including family characteristics (SES level and age of the child" and methodological characteristics of the studies (e.g. sampling technique, type of assessment instrument used, and so forth). It was expected that, for all measures of adjustment, children of intact families would show significantly higher levels of adjustment than children of stepfamilies.
The findings of the study did not support this conclusion. At best, findings showed a weak, basically negligible effect for the family structure variable. Further, moderating variables did not appear to explain adjustment variance. Although Age of Child was found to significantly interact with family structure for psychosocial adjustment, alternative explanations for this finding were possible. It was concluded that the notion that stepfamilies debilitate children's adjustment was without strong empirical justification and could be reflective of little more than an inherent cultural bias.
A META-ANALYSIS OF CHILDREN'S PSYCHOSOCIAL, PSYCHOEMOTIONAL
AND ACADEMIC ADJUSTMENT IN BLENDED VERSUS INTACT FAMILIES
There is a persistent claim that stepfamilies (often referred to in the literature as "blended families") debilitate the adjustment of children and adolescents. Bloomfield (1993) describes the onus that has come to be associated with living in a stepfamily as follows:
The word "ste...