Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research

Vern Bengtson is the AARP/University Chair in Gerontology and Professor of Sociology at the University of Southern California. He has published 15 books and over 220 articles in gerontology, the sociology of the life course, family sociology, social psychology, and ethnicity and aging. He was elected President of the Gerontological Society of America and has been granted a MERIT award from the National Institute on Aging for his 35-year Longitudinal Study of Generations. Bengtson’s honors include (twice) the Reuben Hill Award from the National Council of Family Relations (1980 and 1986); the Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Sociological Association’s section on aging (1995); the Robert W. Kleemeier Award from the Gerontological Society of America (1996); and the Ernest W. Burgess Award from the National Council on Family Relations (1998). In addition he has received several awards for teaching, which has provided his greatest satisfaction throughout his career.

Alan Acock (Ph.D., Washington State University) is Professor and former Chair of Human Development and Family Sciences at Oregon State University. He has also taught at Louisiana State University, Virginia Tech, and the University of Southern California. Alan has published 4 books, 20 book chapters, and 120 articles. He is a Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations, a winner of the Reuben Hill Award, several awards for teaching, and his book on Family Diversity and Well-Being received the 1995 Choice Award for Outstanding Academic Book. Alan has held elected offices in the American Sociological Association and the National Council on Family Relations. His substantive research has been on the effects of family structure on the well-being of family members and on intergenerational relations. He is currently investigating the effects of fathers returning to families after incarceration. He has served on editorial boards of several substantive journals including the Journal of Marriage and Family. His methodological research has focused on structural equation modeling and missing values. He is currently writing a book on Stata. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Structural Equation Modeling.

Katherine R. Allen (Ph.D., Syracuse University) is Professor of Family Studies and adjunct professor of Women's Studies at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Her primary academic interests are in family diversity over the life course, feminism and family studies, and qualitative research methods. She is also interested in feminist and anti-racist pedagogy and women's leadership in higher education. She serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Marriage and the Family, Journal of Family Issues, Family Relations, Journal of Aging Studies, and Journal of GLBT Family Studies. She was co-editor of the Handbook of Family Diversity (Oxford University Press, 2000) with David Demo and Mark Fine, the co-author of Women and Families: Feminist Reconstructions with Kristine Baber (Guilford, 1992), and the author of Single Women/Family Ties: Life Histories of Older Women (Sage, 1989), has served as a contributing author in a number of Sage titles (e.g., Hendrick & Hendrick's Close Relationships: A Sourcebook, McKenry/Price's Families & Change, 3/e), and is a prolific author of journal articles.

Peggye Dilworth-Anderson (Ph.D., Northwestern University) is Director, Center for Aging and Diversity in the Institute on Aging at Chapel Hill and Professor of Health Policy and Administration in the School of Public Health. She earned her Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1975 and also received training in family therapy from the Family Institute of Chicago, Institute of Psychiatry, Northwestern University. In 1989 she received additional training in family issues and Alzheimer's disease from the Harvard Geriatric Education Center. Her research and publications have included both theoretically and empirically-based topics on ethnic minority families, with emphasis on older African-Americans. In addition to being cited in professional journals, her work has been cited in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, and numerous local and regional newspapers. She has received funding to support her research from the National Institute on Aging, the Administration on Aging, the March of Dimes Birth Defect Foundation, the Alzheimer's Association and GalxoSmithKline.

David M. Klein is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Notre Dame. His current research is on relationship formation, assessment, and dissolution. He co-edited the Sourcebook of Family Theory and Research, and has served as Chair and Archivist of the Theory Construction and Research Methodology Workshop. He also has been Treasurer of the National Council on Family Relations, and Chair of its Research and Theory Section. He is also an Honorary Fellow of the National Council on Family Relations.