Abortion is one of the most difficult, controversial, and painful subjects in modern society. The principal controversy revolves around the questions of who makes the decision concerning abortion, the individual or the state; under what circumstances it may be done; and who is capable of making the decision. Medical questions such as techniques of abortion are less controversial but are sometimes …
Historically and culturally, sexual relationships rarely have been granted a place independent of the social, emotional, familial, generational, economic, and spiritual dimensions of human experience. That may be why the idea of premarital abstinence will continue to be a feature of philosophy and practice, even though many avenues of sexual involvement seem to be expanding in contemporary Western…
It is generally accepted that the quality of family interactions has important associations with children's and adolescents' academic motivation and achievement, and with young adults' eventual educational and occupational attainments. Thomas Kellaghan and his colleagues (1993) claim, for example, that the family environment is the most powerful influence in determining studen…
The term acculturation was first used to refer to the changes that take place in cultural groups as a result of contact between them: "Acculturation comprehends those phenomena which result when groups of individuals having different cultures come into continuous first-hand contact, with subsequent changes in the original culture patterns of either or both groups" (Redfield, Linton, …
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS) is caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which destroys the cells in the human body that combat infections. Although recent medical advances have caused a shift from the mindset of a terminal disease to one of a chronic, manageable condition in some areas of the world, this new approach brings challenges of its own, as the disease is eventually…
Adolescent parenting refers primarily to women and men nineteen years or younger who give birth to and elect to parent a child. Although most adolescent pregnancies are unintended, an increasing number of pregnant adolescents choose to continue the pregnancy and become parents. Estimates suggest that each year, slightly more than 10 percent of all births worldwide—almost 15 million— …
Adoption is a process in which a person (the adoptee) acquires the rights and duties of a biological child with respect to an individual who is not the adoptee's biological parent. The process is usually legal in character, but in some cultures adoption occurs by social ritual. As part of the process of adoption, the adoptee's legal relationship with his or her biological parents may…
Interest in adult development and the aging experience is a relatively new area of inquiry. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the study of human development was largely the study of child development. Growing awareness of the dramatic global growth in the older population and rising life expectancies led to the emergence of the field of social gerontology. In 1900 people over six…
In the hit 1978 song, "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," Neil Diamond and Barbra Streisand sing of two lovers' sadness over their dying relationship. The two lovers in this song notice that doing such things as bringing flowers, touching each other, and even chatting about the day's events, do not appear to be the priorities that they had once been. These expressions …
Afghanistan lies in Central Asia between Iran on the west, Pakistan on the east and south, and Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan on the north side. The Afghani population in the early twenty-first century is estimated at about 22 million people living in Afghanistan and as refugees in Iran and Pakistan. There are more than forty ethnic groups in Afghanistan. Pushtuns are the largest ethnic …
In 1998, there were approximately 8.4 million African-American households in the United States. With a total population of approximately 34.5 million, African Americans made up 13 percent of the population of U.S. families. African-American families are not very different from other U.S. families; they, too, are chiefly responsible for the care and development of children. However, African-America…
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive and irreversible neurological disorder that results in significant memory loss and behavioral and personality changes. It is the most common form of dementia, which is a category of diseases characterized by serious memory loss and other neurological symptoms. The two hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease are the amyloid plaques and neurofibrillar…
American Indians are the indigenous peoples of the United States. According to archeological estimates, bronze-skinned women and men from northern Asia had been exploring and settling the Americas for 10,000 to 50,000 years. By the fifteenth century, descendants of these women and men from northern Asia had spread southward to populate both continents (Nabokov 1999). When Christopher Columbus arri…
The Amish and Mennonites stem from the Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth-century Reformation. Members of the Anabaptist movement insisted that church membership involve a fully informed adult decision, hence many of them requested a second baptism that symbolically superceded their infant baptism. As a result of this practice their opponents called them rebaptizers or Anabaptists. The first adu…
The term ancestor worship, coined in 1885 by the British philosopher and sociologist Herbert Spencer, refers to a ritualized invocation of dead kin. It is based on the belief that the spirits of the dead have the power to influence the affairs of the living. Ancestors who are respected and remembered by elaborate rites include members of the family, clans, and tribes. Ancestral spirits that are wo…
Annulment is the judicial pronouncement declaring a marriage invalid. A few ideas must be kept in mind in order to understand the concept of annulment and how it differs from divorce: …
Anxiety disorders include separation anxiety disorder, social phobia, specific phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, agoraphobia, panic disorder with and without agoraphobia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, acute stress disorder, anxiety disorder due to a general medical condition, substance-induced anxiety disorder, and anxiety disorder not otherwise specified. Commo…
Argentine families are a heterogeneous result of the many changes that have had an impact on their structures and dynamics. These changes have taken place both in Argentina and other Latin American and Caribbean countries in the last few decades. The socioeconomic crisis that has affected Latin America since the 1970s aroused a growing interest in the study of its impact on family structures and d…
Asian Americans in the United States are a heterogeneous group of many ethnicities, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Asian (East) Indians, and Southeast Asians. They are neither a single identity group nor a monolithic culture; therefore it is more accurate to speak of Asian-American cultures (Zia 2000). Early Asian groups were voluntary immigrants, but after the Vietnam War, Southea…
The term assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) refers to a variety of procedures that enable people to reproduce without engaging in genital intercourse. Most people who use ARTs do so because they are infertile and other methods of treating their infertility have proven unsuccessful. Some people without fertility problems also use ARTs to minimize the risk of transmitting certain genetic diso…
Attachment refers to a specific type of bond that has four defining features: Bonds of attachment are found in some, but not all, relationships of emotional significance— only those that are critical to an individual's sense of security and emotional stability (Weiss 1982). Adult pair bonds, in which sexual partners mutually provide security to one another, are presumed to be the pro…