ABSTRACT
This volume is the third in a series sponsored by the Social Science Research Council's Committee on Biosocial Perspectives on Parent Be havior and Offspring Development. The committee, formed in 1980, is a multidisciplinary group (including biological, behavioral, and social scientists). The committee seeks to promote an exchange of concepts, methods, and data across disciplines on a variety of substantive issues on which the group shares intellectual and policy concerns. The goals of the committee's program are: to develop conceptualizations of social phenomena relying on biosocial science, to explore the interface be tween biological and social phenomena, and to advance our under standing of human social behavior. The first volume of the series, School-Age Pregnancy and Parenthood: Biosocial Dimensions, edited by J. Lancaster and B. Hamburg (Aldine, 1986) focuses on a particular segment of the life span and the challenges, problems, and opportun ities inherent in parenthood during such an early phase of the repro ductive years. The second volume, Parenting Across the Life Span: Bio social Dimensions, edited by J. Lancaster, J. Altmann, A.S. Rossi, and L.R. Sherrod (Aldine, 1987) sweeps across the life span, examining par enthood as a commitment involving the entire life course. Of particular concern is the impact of modern changes in the timing, distribution, and intensity of the commitment to parenthood for both parent and child behavior and experience. The current volume draws on a biosocial perspective to examine what has become a major concern of modern society, both for scientific inquiry and social policy formulation: child maltreatment.
