Parents of children with disabilities are distinctly involved with their children inside and outside of school as they partake in special education procedures and support individualized child needs. Yet standards for parent involvement are largely designed for parents of children without disabilities, making them potentially less meaningful for parents whose children are enrolled in special education. Conceptual parent involvement frameworks are the foundation for existing involvement standards and practices; thus, they may benefit from expansions that support the use of these models for families with children in special education. We explore the alignment of existing parent involvement frameworks within the context of special education and parenting a child with a disability. To advance inclusivity for families of children receiving special education services, we offer considerations for future conceptual work on parent involvement and discuss possible implications of such expansions for research, practice, and policy.

This special collection aims to extend understanding of LGBTQ+ couples and families from multiple theoretical and international perspectives, in the context of remarkable sociohistorical change. Five articles address changes in LGBTQ+ family patterns - and within LGBTQ+ families, attending to differences across generations, and considering contextual and cultural differences. Together these articles offer a range of theoretical integration, adaptation, or application, each with the goal of deepening understanding of LGBTQ+ relationships in families in times of social change.

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer diagnosed among women in the United States. Although advances in detection and medical treatment have improved survival rates, breast cancer survivors experience physical symptoms and psychological distress that can adversely impact their quality of life. Examining the quality of life in breast cancer survivors is important as it may inform supportive services, patient-centered care, and well-being after treatment. Theoretical perspectives such as ambiguous loss theory can assist in understanding the factors that shape quality of life. Ambiguous loss theory, developed by Pauline Boss, refers to a loss that remains unclear, unresolved, and lacks closure. Grief theorists have acknowledged grief associated with symbolic losses, such as the loss of health status. The current article integrates empirical research and established constructs derived from ambiguous loss theory to develop a middle-range theory focused on explaining quality of life among breast cancer survivors.

Nearly three decades since the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, federal cash assistance to families in poverty in the United States has entered political discourse once more with the Biden Administration's introduction of the American Families Plan. At the heart of this discussion are theories of change that derive from the family and developmental sciences. As a result, scientists in these fields have a duty to understand the history of the last reform and the consequences it has since had for children in poverty. In this paper, I review the history of perspectives toward government social assistance programs, as well as extant research demonstrating the mechanisms through which maternal employment and federal cash assistance impact child wellbeing. Lastly, I propose a conceptual framework for understanding the influence of family-based social assistance programs and parenting on child wellbeing to guide future research.

This conceptual review paper takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of self-injury in families. The overall goal is to begin integrating siloed bodies of knowledge from empirical work based on findings from individuals with and without intellectual and developmental disabilities and self-injury. The research literature on self-injury and family-level variables is reviewed, including dyadic and individual-level variables with potential bidirectional impact on the family. Then, opportunities for knowledge translation are explored with respect to the pragmatic goal of developing family-level interventions for self-injurious behavior in individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Four opportunities for knowledge translation are highlighted: family patterns, parenting behavior, attachment relationships, and emotional experience.

Despite increasing research, the links between racial discrimination and Black Americans' romantic relationship dynamics remain unclear. Guided by models of mundane extreme environmental stress (Peters & Massey, 1983), sociocultural family stress (McNeil Smith & Landor, 2018), and Black marital outcomes (Bryant et al., 2010), we conducted a systematic review of the literature examining racial discrimination and relationship dynamics among Black Americans in same-race and interracial romantic relationships. Synthesizing findings from 32 published empirical articles, we find support for manifestations of each component of MEES in Black intimate life. We uncover evidence that racial discrimination is associated with compromised relationship functioning for Black Americans. Several psychosocial resources were also identified as either buffering these associations or posing drawbacks/limitations for Black Americans. We discuss notable gaps in the literature and directions for future research including intersectional investigations, broader examination of the MEES context, and de-centering whiteness among studies of interracial relationship dynamics.

In this paper, the authors introduce the Triadic Model of Pediatric Care, an innovative conceptual framework for pediatric practice with transgender and gender diverse children. The Triadic Model of Pediatric Care consists of three experts-pediatricians, primary caregiver(s), and children-who each possess unique insights, knowledge, and decision-making power. This model guides pediatricians to provide gender-affirming care that acknowledges children as experts of their own experience and worthy of bodily autonomy, while also working to ensure primary caregiver(s) have the information and support necessary to provide a safe and nurturing developmental environment for their child. The authors provide a recommendation for how the Triadic Model of Pediatric Care might be applied in a pediatric healthcare setting and conclude with a summary of the model's implications, limitations, and future directions.

Over the past two decades, scholars have investigated a multitude of different aspects of motherhood. This article provides a scoping review of research published from 2001 to 2021, covering 115 Social Science Citation Index-referenced papers from WEIRD countries, with the aim of reconstructing social norms around motherhood and mothers' responses to them. The analysis is theoretically based on normological and praxeological concepts. The findings reveal five contemporary norms of motherhood that reflect both stability and increasing differentiation, and are related to five types of mothers: the norms of being attentive to the child (present mother), of securing the child's successful development (future-oriented mother), of integrating employment into mothering (working mother), of being in control (public mother), and of being contented (happy mother). Relying on an intersectional lens, we analyze mothers' heterogeneous responses to these norms of motherhood, and examine how neoliberal demands build on and perpetuate inequalities.

Race science attributes differences in human populations to biology and genetics that reflect a hierarchy of human races with whiteness at its pinnacle. This article examining the history of race science and current family scholarship and practice contends that race science matters for family science. We discuss 1) white supremacy, the development of race science, and the eugenics movement in the U.S.; 2) racism, racialized experiences, and oppression of Black families in the U.S.; 3) the construction of whiteness in family science and re-envisioning theories to make racism's impact visible; 4) racial reckonings for professional organizations; and 5) why race science matters for family science and a call to action. Clarity about the meaning of race can ensure that family science addresses white supremacy and racism embedded in scholarship, training, and practice, and promotes work that supports the well-being of families that are most vulnerable and marginalized.

Research documents high levels of instrumental, financial, and expressive support exchanges within multigenerational families in the 21st century. The COVID-19 pandemic poses unique challenges to support exchanges between the generations; however, the pandemic may provide opportunities for greater solidarity within families. In this review, we draw from theoretical perspectives that have been used to study family relationships to understand the implications of the pandemic for multigenerational families: the life course perspective, the intergenerational solidarity model, and rational choice/social exchange theory. We review literature on multigenerational relationships in the United States and discuss how established social support patterns and processes may be altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. We reflect on how the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on multigenerational relationships may vary by gender, race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Finally, we provide directions for future researchers to pursue in order to understand the lasting impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on multigenerational ties.