Children and Divorce

This entry provides an updated review of how children experience and respond to parental divorce. Scholars, particularly E. Mavis Hetherington and Joan Wallerstein, have reached quite different conclusions regarding how children adjust to divorce, and the entry begins with an attempt by Emery to reconcile the conflicting claims that scholars have reached. The entry provides new information on directions that divorce research has taken, including new trends emphasizing biological and genetic factors involved in children's divorce adjustment, gay and lesbian relationships and divorce, ethnic and racial differences in divorce adjustment, and the role that increased cohabitation rates have played in children's adjustment to divorce. The entry concludes with some suggestions for future research directions.

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