Historical Perspective of the Problem
The norm for family structure in the 1950s was the nuclear family. Since that time there have been dramatic increases in the divorce rates in the United States as well as an increase in the number of family forms. The age of couples staying together for the sake of the children, ended. In addition, family structures began to include cohabitation of heterosexual couples and gay or lesbian couples, single-parent families, blended and binuclear households, and households with extended family. These changes have taken place to the degree that the legal definition of family has changed from that of a traditional focus on biological, legal, and spatial factors, to a focus on the importance of long-standing affective ties taking the place of biological or legal ties (Newman, Roberts, & Syre, 1993).
The study of the effects of these changes in family structures have include early research on father-absent effects and more recent, inclusive research that regards divorced, stepparent, and two-parent nuclear families. This research has produced findings that the children from divorced families when compared to those from two-parent nuclear families tend to experience short- and long-term academic performance deficits. It was also found however, that the effects tend to diminish in size when controlling for socioeconomic factors. Research comparing children from two-parent nuclear families and children from stepfamilies have shown little differences regarding school grades and achievement, and IQ scores (Kurdek & Sinclair, 1988).
The history of this research has focused on the premise that the deficit family model, resulting from a variation in the nuclear family, will produce deviations in the child's personality, behavior, and school achievement. In contrast to this belief, the research has evolved to include the understanding that families of all structures have unique strengths and weakn...