Any agenda for family research in the 1990s must take seriously a contextual approach to the study of family relationships. The editors and contributors to this volume believe that the richness in family studies over the next decade will come from considering the diversity of family forms -- different ethnic groups and cultures, different stages of family life, as well as different historical cohorts. Their goal is to make more explicit how we think about families in order to study them and understand them. To illustrate the need for diversity in family studies, examples are presented from...