Pathways of Human Development uses theoretical perspectives from developmental, social, and behavioral sciences to examine the many ways that individuals, families, and communities intersect and interface. Focusing on the impact of change on human development, including its antecedents, processes, and consequences, the chapters examine a range of topics such as health and adaptation; social anxiety disorder; protective factors and risk behaviors; parent-child relationships; adolescent sexuality; intergenerational relationships; family stress and adaptation; and community resilience. By extending human development theorizing across these pivotal life-changing issues, this volume offers a comprehensive map of the trajectories of development among individuals, families, and communities.

This volume presents a field-tested enrichment program, MAP, to help married couples maximize their relationship potential. MAP is a metaphor for a planned and systematic change effort for helping spouses chart and navigate toward desired individual and collective goals. A key component of the program, which is tailored to the corporate sector, is assistance to couples in forging a more productive and supportive work and family partnership that will help them achieve their marital ambitions. The program is built upon an explicit consideration of family-related values and is undergirded by a theoretically and empirically based conceptual model: the Value-Behavior Congruency Model. Although the enrichment program provides the organizing theme, the core of the book is directed toward providing theoretical and empirical support for the Congruency Model, and linking the development and implementation of the program with trends in corporate America today. Two data sets are used to test the critical assumptions that form the basis of the model. The first involves 48 married couples from two posts in the U.S. Army, where one or both spouses were members of the Army; the second involves a sample of 34 couples from a Fortune 500 corporation in the northeastern United States in which MAP was first field-tested.

Taken together, the contents of this book represent an attempt to integrate theory, research, and practice in the development and grounding of the enrichment program. Although such attempts are recognized as important tasks in the behavioral and social sciences, segregation rather than integration of these three domains has been the rule rather than the exception in the literature. This volume should be especially relevant to the growing number of marital enrichment specialists who are looking for more theoretically and empirically grounded support programs, especially those that have been field tested in the expanding market of workplace programs for employees and their families. It should be a valuable resource for senior managers and human resource professionals in both the private and public sectors who want to strengthen the organizational support for employees and their families.

A penetrating analysis of the changing and interacting worlds of work and family life in the U.S. military, this volume extends the concept of the organization man to focus on the organization family. Based on the most recent literature and research on work and family dynamics in the military services today, the contributors examine such issues as the special problems of dual career couples and single parents, the challenge of rebuilding military communities, and the influence of family factors on the workplace. Taken together, their essays advance our understanding of the nature and dynamics of the work/family interface. This work also presents some significant policy implications for military leadership and family life professionals interested in forging a more productive partnership between the military organization and the military family.

The book is divided into three major sections, each of which addresses a key aspect of work and family life: work and family linkages, the problems of special population groups, and the organizational response to family-level issues in the workplace. Each chapter provides a theoretical and/or historical perspective on the topic under study as well as presenting the latest empirical research in the area. Throughout, the contributors draw relevant comparisons between the military and civilian employment sectors, making the book invaluable for advanced students of military and family sociology, contemporary family patterns and issues, and public policy.