One of the myths about families in inner-city neighborhoods is that they are characterized by poor parenting. Sociologist Frank Furstenberg and his colleagues explode this and other misconceptions about success, parenting, and socioeconomic advantage in "Managing to Make It." This unique study the first in the MacArthur Foundation Studies on Successful Adolescent Development series focuses on how and why youth are able to overcome social disadvantages.
Based on nearly 500 interviews and case studies of families in inner-city Philadelphia, "Managing to Make It" lays out in detail the...

This landmark study traces the life histories of approximately 300 teenage mothers and their children over a seventeen-year period. From interview data and case studies, it provides a vivid account of the impact of early childbearing on young mothers and their children. Some remarkable and surprising results emerge from this unique study of the long term adaptation to early parenthood. It also offers new insights into the unexplored connections between mothers' careers and the development of their children. Adolescent Mothers in Later Life will be an invaluable resource for all those...

In spite of the upset children experience after parental separation, Furstenberg and Cherlin find that most children adapt successfully as long as their mother does reasonably well financially and psychologically, and as long as conflict between parents is low. The casualty of divorce is usually the declining relationship between fathers and their children.

Women who grow up in poor families begin childbearing at a younger age than nonpoor women, attain less education, work less, earn less, are dependent on federal aid, have less support from a husband, have more children, and spend more time as single mothers. This book reveals the relationship between Black teenage mothers and the welfare system.

Two leading sociologists of the family examine the changing role of American grandparents--how they strive for both independence and family ties.

More people than ever are going to graduate school to seek a PhD these days. When they get there, they discover a bewildering environment: a rapid immersion in their discipline, a keen competition for resources, and uncertain options for their future, whether inside or outside of academia. Life with a PhD can begin to resemble an unsolvable maze. In Behind the Academic Curtain, Frank F. Furstenberg offers a clear and user-friendly map to this maze. Drawing on decades of experience in academia, he provides a comprehensive, empirically grounded, and, most important of all, practical...