How does being male or female shape us? And what, aside from obvious anatomical differences, does being male or female mean? In this book, the distinguished psychologist Eleanor Maccoby explores how individuals express their sexual identity at successive periods of their lives. A book about sex in the broadest sense, The Two Sexes seeks to tell us how our development from infancy through adolescence and into adulthood is affected by gender. Chief among Maccoby's contentions is that gender differences appear primarily in group, or social, contexts. In childhood, boys and girls tend to gravitate toward others of their own sex. The Two Sexes examines why this segregation occurs and how boys' groups and girls' groups develop distinct cultures with different agendas. Deploying evidence from her own research and studies by many other scholars, Maccoby identifies a complex combination of biological, cognitive, and social factors that contribute to gender segregation and group differentiation. A major finding of The Two Sexes is that these childhood experiences in same-sex groups profoundly influence how members of the two sexes relate to one another in adulthood-as lovers, coworkers, and parents. Maccoby shows how, in constructing these adult relationships, men and women utilize old elements from their childhood experiences as well as new ones arising from different adult agendas. Finally, she considers social changes in gender roles in light of her discoveries about the constraints and opportunities implicit in the same-sex and cross-sex relationships of childhood.

When their parents divorce, some children falter and others thrive. This book asks why. Is it the custody arrangement? A parent's new partner? Conflict or consistency between the two households? Adolescents after Divorce follows teenagers from 1,100 divorcing families to discover what makes the difference. Focusing on a period beginning four years after the divorce, the authors have the articulate, often insightful help of their subjects in exploring the altered conditions of their lives. These teenagers come from a wide range of backgrounds. Some are functioning well. Some are faring poorly. The authors examine the full variety of situations in which these children find themselves once the initial disruption has passed - whether parents remarry or repartner, how parents relate to each other and to their children, and how life in two homes is integrated. Certain findings emerge - for instance, remarried new partners are better accepted than cohabiting new partners. And when parents' relations are amicable, adolescents in dual custody are less likely than other adolescents to experience loyalty conflicts. The authors also consider the effects of visitation arrangements, The demands made and the goals set within each home, and the emotional closeness of the residential parent to the child. A mine of information on a topic that touches so many Americans, this study will be crucial for researchers, counselors, lawyers, judges, and parents.

Questions about how children fare in divided families have become as perplexing and urgent as they are common. In this landmark work on custody arrangements, the developmental psychologist Eleanor Maccoby and the legal scholar Robert Mnookin examine the social and legal realities of how divorcing parents make arrangements for their children.