ABSTRACT
Over the past twenty-five years, social scientists have repeatedly documented the negative influence that divorce has on academic achievement (Cherlin, 1992; Hetherington, 1992; Jeynes, 1996; McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994; Shinn, 1978; Wallerstein, Corbin, and Lewis, 1988). Research on stepfamilies has lagged considerably behind that of divorce and is still a young area of study (Booth and Dunn, 1994; Furstenberg, 1988; Ganong and Coleman, 1994; Heyman, 1992; Jeynes, 1997). The primary reason for this is that many researchers and Americans, as a whole, believe that parental remarriage generally benefits children. First, remarriage introduces an additional caregiver who can help raise children. The assumption is that this additional caregiver would especially benefit children of divorce, if the stepparent was the same gender as the child. Second, remarriage generally substantially raises the SES level of a family and this should benefit any children involved.
