ABSTRACT
Congress was very slow to support funding the International Year of the Child; some say the United States effort came about only because of embarrassment over the programs other countries already had underway. Research has indicated an increase in family violence among complex families. The commitment to funding child or family legislation, in general, has continued to be weak in 1980. The US courts, as discussed briefly in the Introduction, have not clarified the area of children's rights. Some important new theories are emerging from this examination; for example, Jacques Donzelot sees the modern family as a compromise between traditional and liberal views, mediated by psychiatry. The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, an activist professional organization, formerly sponsored and implemented an "honest broker" concept, bringing experts to Washington to testify about the implications of their research findings pertaining to specific child and family policy issues.
