Family ProcessPub Date : 2026-05-31DOI: 10.1111/famp.70165
Qingyang Liu, Jayantika Chakraborty
{"title":"Material Hardship Trajectories From Infancy to Adolescence: Intergenerational Impact on Emerging Adults' Educational Pathways","authors":"Qingyang Liu, Jayantika Chakraborty","doi":"10.1111/famp.70165","DOIUrl":"10.1111/famp.70165","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Intergenerational transmission of disadvantage affects young adults' upward mobility, yet little is known about how distinct trajectories of material hardship from infancy to adolescence influence educational pathways. Using data from the U.S. Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (<i>N</i> = 4700; 21.17% White, 47.73% Black, 27.21% Latine), we identified material hardship at ages 1, 3, 5, 9, and 15 and examined its associations with educational outcomes at age 22. Growth mixture modeling uncovered four trajectories: Low Stable Hardship (<i>n</i> = 3617, 77%), Low Increasing Hardship (<i>n</i> = 502, 10.6%), High Decreasing Hardship (<i>n</i> = 375, 8%), and Persistent High Hardship (<i>n</i> = 206, 4.4%). Young adults in the Low Stable Hardship class reported higher educational aspirations than those in the Low Increasing Hardship and Persistent High Hardship classes, and higher educational attainment than all other classes. Findings highlight the importance of strengthening families' resources during sensitive developmental periods and inform tailored interventions to protect children from economic instability, thereby disrupting cycles of disadvantage and promoting intergenerational mobility.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":51396,"journal":{"name":"Family Process","volume":"65 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148139668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Family ProcessPub Date : 2026-05-22DOI: 10.1111/famp.70159
Marjatta Kekkonen, Angela Abela, Marja-Leena Böök, Kaisa Malinen, Johanna Moilanen, Anna K. Rönkä
{"title":"Ways of Supporting Coparenting in Child and Family Services: Discourses of Involvement, Capacity Building and Reconciliation","authors":"Marjatta Kekkonen, Angela Abela, Marja-Leena Böök, Kaisa Malinen, Johanna Moilanen, Anna K. Rönkä","doi":"10.1111/famp.70159","DOIUrl":"10.1111/famp.70159","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the research of parenting and family relations, there has been a visible shift from focusing on dyadic family relations—like parent–child—to triadic ones, such as coparenting. Likewise, in the family support research, knowledge about supporting coparenting of all parents has been called for. In this study, we were interested in what kind of discourses professionals construct to support parents to coparent, especially in the early phases of parenthood. The context of the study was preventive multiprofessional Finnish family centers. The data was collected in five focus group interviews from professionals (<i>n</i> = 21) working in health, social, child welfare and early childhood education and care services. Interviews were audio-taped, transcribed verbatim and pseudonymized. By identifying professional positions and two-fold agencies of parents, we could find three distinctive professional ways of supporting coparenting: discourse of coparenting involvement, discourse of coparenting capacity building, and discourse around coparenting reconciliation. In each discourse, the professionals used varying discursive strategies to assess and promote coparenting in the family system. Agency of father was emphasized in all discourses, but rights of the child were discussed mainly around reconciliation of coparenting. Results are discussed in the light of existing research on coparenting support. In practical implications for child and family services, we suggest that issues of coparenting are brought up to discussion actively by professionals, who can accordingly provide both universal and targeted support for families. The study is part of the research project Learning to coparent: A longitudinal, cross-national study on construction of coparenting in transition to parenthood (CopaGloba).</p>","PeriodicalId":51396,"journal":{"name":"Family Process","volume":"65 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/famp.70159","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148007421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Family ProcessPub Date : 2026-05-21DOI: 10.1111/famp.70158
Clairee Peterson, Catherine Walker O'Neal
{"title":"Military Couples' Patterns of Family Work: Associations With Demographic Characteristics and Relational Functioning","authors":"Clairee Peterson, Catherine Walker O'Neal","doi":"10.1111/famp.70158","DOIUrl":"10.1111/famp.70158","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Although research documents the demands of military life and the influence these demands can have on family life, little is known about military couples' patterns of family work and how these patterns are associated with their relational functioning. Grounded in the vulnerability stress adaptation model, this study addressed this gap by using a latent profile analysis with dyadic data from 228 United States military couples to identify groupings of couples with distinct patterns of family work, specifically, both partners' parenting work and emotion work. Four profiles emerged. They were distinguishable from each other as less emotionally attentive couples (21%), couples with highly involved mothers (29%), emotionally attentive couples (45%), and couples with highly involved fathers (5%). Group differences between the profiles were examined. Of the demographic characteristics examined, only service members' age varied between the profiles. Service members in the highly involved fathers profile tended to be younger than other profiles. Relationship satisfaction, communication satisfaction, balanced cohesion, and balanced flexibility were significantly lower for service members and civilian spouses in the less emotionally attentive couples profile compared to all other groups. Couples categorized as emotionally attentive averaged higher relational functioning compared to the highly involved mothers profile. Couples in the highly involved fathers profile tended to have relational functioning that was not statistically different from the couples in the emotionally attentive profile or the highly involved mothers profile. The results suggest that interventions that bolster military couples' performance of emotion work may be particularly helpful for relational functioning.</p>","PeriodicalId":51396,"journal":{"name":"Family Process","volume":"65 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/famp.70158","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147984261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Family ProcessPub Date : 2026-05-19DOI: 10.1111/famp.70157
Christian Roesler
{"title":"Effectiveness of Couple Therapy in Everyday Practice in Germany and Switzerland—An Update","authors":"Christian Roesler","doi":"10.1111/famp.70157","DOIUrl":"10.1111/famp.70157","url":null,"abstract":"<div>\u0000 \u0000 <p>Building on and continuing an earlier study, the effectiveness of couple therapy in practice settings in German-language countries was investigated in four independent studies using the same design: naturalistic prospective outcome study with three measurement points. The change in relationship quality was measured over the course of the therapy. In Germany and Switzerland, there is an extensive network of counseling centers run by non-profit organizations providing support to couples, in addition to couple therapists in private practice. Provision of couple therapy to the public is, therefore, on a high level compared to other countries, whereas research on its effectiveness is still scarce. Couple therapy has been found in experimental studies to be efficacious in reducing couple distress with a good effect size (<i>d</i> = 0.8). In naturalistic studies investigating couple therapy in everyday practice, however, the effectiveness is systematically lower (<i>d</i> = 0.5), only 40% of couples can be helped in a clinically significant way and 50% break off early. This discrepancy is known as the efficacy-effectiveness gap. The results reported in this paper show that couple therapy across four settings proved to be significantly effective. With effect sizes of <i>d</i> = 0.36–0.44, a drop-out rate of approximately 50%, and clinically significant improvements for less than 40% of the couples, the hypothesis of the limited effectiveness of couple therapy in real-life practice was further empirically substantiated. The findings confirm the hypothesis of an efficacy-effectiveness gap. Possible reasons for this limited effectiveness are discussed. As a potential way for improving the effectiveness of couple therapy in real life practice, EFT could serve as a potentially more effective method; this should be tested in direct comparison to other methods in the practice field.</p>\u0000 </div>","PeriodicalId":51396,"journal":{"name":"Family Process","volume":"65 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147977146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Family ProcessPub Date : 2026-05-19DOI: 10.1111/famp.70156
Olga Smoliak, Carmen Knudson-Martin
{"title":"The Enduring Logics of Settler Colonialism in Family Therapy: A Case Analysis of Sociocultural Attunement","authors":"Olga Smoliak, Carmen Knudson-Martin","doi":"10.1111/famp.70156","DOIUrl":"10.1111/famp.70156","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Drawing on insights from critical Indigenous studies, settler colonial studies, and critical whiteness studies, the authors examine how settler colonial and white supremacist ideologies may continue to structure their own family therapy theorizing and practice, with particular attention to the concept and practice of sociocultural attunement (SCA) as applied to Socio-Emotional Relationship Therapy (SERT). SCA was developed within settler colonial structures and is increasingly promoted as a decolonial, anti-oppressive practice in family therapy. An anticolonial lens, paradoxically, makes visible the nature and extent of racial settler colonial logics in SCA, highlighting the need for a more nuanced analysis of SCA (and other therapy practices) that acknowledges tensions and contradictions. The authors' critical analysis invites reflection on the cultural and material conditions in which family therapy concepts and practices are produced, circulated, and applied and illustrates how interrogating family therapy concepts and practices can disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions, improve distinct forms of accountability for the impact of therapy, and reveal new targets for socially responsible work.</p>","PeriodicalId":51396,"journal":{"name":"Family Process","volume":"65 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/famp.70156","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147977136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}