ABSTRACT
Studies of black families and children have undergone major changes since the 1920s. The central question up to mid-century concerned the etiology of family disorganization, a theme now challenged by growing interest in the resilience and adaptiveness of families under stress (McCubbin et al., 1980). This change increased awareness of three family dimensions; time, process, and context. Increasingly, black families are now studied across historical time, life course, and successive generations. They are more frequently depicted as actors who shape their own lives within the constraints of structured environments.
