Notes for practice

Since the publication of Frazier’s classic studies of black family life, investigators have often maintained there is more pathology in black families than in white families. ¹ The pathology focus is more recently characterized in the controversial Moynihan report. Moynihan cited as evidence of greater dys-functioning in black families the high incidence of illegitimate births, households headed by females, welfare enrollment, and broken marriages. ² While some blacks have fiercely responded to Moynihan’s charge that the black family was deteriorating, little literature is available on black families which is not presented from the pathology perspective. Too rarely have researchers attempted to identify the virtues or strengths of black family life. This study attempts to do that by identifying family strengths as perceived by blacks.