Many Americans believe that a breakdown in the “traditional” two‐married‐parent family and the rise in single‐parent families are responsible for persistent family inequality. The general argument is that children do best when they are raised by both biological parents. Evidence increasingly calls into question conventional wisdom about the universal benefits of the two‐parent family, yet mainstream approaches to studying family structure continue to reinforce oversimplistic interpretations of the impact of family structure on well‐being. In this article, we reconsider long‐standing assumptions about the superiority of the heteropatriarchal two‐married‐parent family using historical and contemporary evidence to offset the stagnant theorizing in the study of family structure. We argue that, in pursuit of better science, family researchers must commit to theoretical approaches that move us beyond conventional perspectives of families toward critical perspectives that guide more nuanced, holistic, and contextualized analyses of how family structure actually operates in people's lives.

中文翻译：

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重新构想家庭结构的停滞观点：推进批判性理论研究议程


许多美国人认为，“传统”双亲家庭的崩溃和单亲家庭的增加是造成持续的家庭不平等的原因。人们普遍认为，孩子在由亲生父母抚养时表现最好。越来越多的证据对关于双亲家庭普遍利益的传统观点提出了质疑，但研究家庭结构的主流方法继续强化了对家庭结构对福祉影响的过于简单化的解释。在本文中，我们利用历史和当代证据重新考虑长期以来关于异父制双亲家庭优越性的假设，以抵消家庭结构研究中停滞不前的理论。我们认为，为了追求更好的科学，家庭研究人员必须致力于理论方法，使我们超越传统的家庭视角，转向批判性视角，指导对家庭结构如何在人们生活中实际运作进行更细致、更全面和更情境化的分析。