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Arab adolescents in Israel must form a collective identity while living in both a social context that tends to vilify their existence and in a traditional family context that generally shuns modern Israeli society. The authors examined the relationship between perceptions of parental political socialization and the formation of collective identity among 1,241 Arab adolescents living in Israel. The findings suggest that Israeli Arab adolescents' perception of parental political (religious, national Arab-Palestinian, and Israel civic) socialization is statistically associated with the collective identity of adolescents. As hypothesized, parental political socialization mediated the relationship between parent-adolescent relationship quality and adolescents' collective identity. The results indicate a correlation between parental political socialization and collective identity of adolescents. The discussion focuses on the special place of family in the social context of ethno-religious minorities in a country where the majority perceives the minority as an enemy that endangers the existence of the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leading scholars of marital processes strongly recommend supplementing the current focus on marital conflict to include research on transformative processes. This qualitative study examines the connection between religion and the transformative processes of commitment and coping in marriage. The sample for this study includes 184 married couples (N = 368 individuals), making it far larger than most in-depth, qualitative interview-based studies. Participants included Christians, Jews, and Muslims with an over sampling of minorities and immigrant families living in all eight regions of the United States. For several decades studies have shown a largely positive correlation between (a) religiosity and marital commitment and (b) religiosity and (generally) positive coping, but with little explanation regarding how and why. Findings of this study indicate that there are specific religious beliefs and practices related to how these couples approach their marriages-including several that relate to the two transformative processes of commitment and coping. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty-five introductory marriage and family textbooks were reviewed for content about black families. Texts ranged in coverage from less than one page (5 texts) to entire chapters (2 texts). Perspectives of the authors were determined with 9 texts written from a black families as culturally deviant perspective, 13 from a cultural equivalent model, 3 from mixed perspectives, and none using the black family as variant approach. Recommendations to instructors selecting texts are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]