ABSTRACT
A comparison between step-families and foster families seems both logical and long overdue. Family scholars have studied a number of alternative family styles. Child welfare and family studies, despite their common concerns, are distinctly specialized and separate disciplines, with little inter-disciplinary sharing. Family studies scholars have usefully compared different forms of families, including single-parent families to nuclear families, and step-families to both single-parent and nuclear families. The relative marginality of the foster child and his birth parents is reflected in the different expectations placed upon the stepparent and the foster child. Both step- and foster families are created on the basis of the disruption of previous families. The loss of family members, shared by both step- and foster families, sets them both apart from nuclear families. The literature on step-families stresses that stepparents have no clear behavioral guides, norms or models to turn to for assistance in their performance of the step-parental role.
