ࡗ Reinvestigating Remarriage: Another Decade of ProgressThe body of stepfamily research published this decade exceeded the entire output of the previous 90 years of the century. The complexity and quality of the scholarly work in this decade improved as well-better samples were obtained, methods were more sensitive to stepfamily complexity, longitudinal designs were more frequently employed, and other important methodological gains were made. Unfortunately, many unknowns regarding remarriages and stepfamilies remain. We present an overview of trends regarding topics, research methods, and theories; we critique research methods that have not been productive; and we identify scholarly advances. Finally, new conceptual, methodological, and theoretical directions for future scholarship on remarriages and stepfamilies are proposed.Remarriages and stepfamilies have always represented a substantial proportion of marriages and families in the United States and other Western countries (Phillips, 1997). However, researchers paid little attention to stepfamilies until the 1970s, when divorce replaced bereavement as the leading precursor to remarriage (Cherlin, 1992). Postdivorce stepfamilies were hard to ignore because unlike postbereavement stepfamilies, remarriage no longer reconstituted the nuclear family, and stepparents often were added ''parent figures'' rather than substitutes for deceased parents. The

We provide a summary of the limited research on three uniquely stressful experiences of military families: relocation, separation, and reunion. Using the insights derived from this literature, we identify and discuss interventions to assist and guide military families through these unique events.

Thirty-two stepdaughters and 17 stepsons participated in this grounded theory study of emerging adult stepchildren's perceptions about how relationships with their stepparents developed. The theory created from this study proposes that the degree to which stepchildren engage in relationship-building and -maintaining behaviors with stepparents is a function of stepchildren's evaluative judgments about the stepparents' positive contributions. Stepchildren's judgments about stepparents are made with inputs from biological parents and other kin.Stepchildren's ages when relationships began, gender of stepchildren and stepparents, and time spent together because of custody arrangements provided the context within which relationships developed. The outcomes in this grounded theory were six patterns of step-relationship development: accepting as a parent, liking from the

The purposes of this study were to examine the strategies that stepparents use to develop and maintain affinity with stepchildren and the effects that these strategies have on the development of stepparent-stepchild relationships. Data were collected via interviews with members of 17 stepfamilies in which there was at least one stepchild between the ages of 10 and 19 living in the household. Stepparent-stepchild relationships are characterized by liking and affection when stepparents focus on developing friendships with stepchildren and when they continue those efforts after they begin sharing a residence together. We identified 31 affinity-seeking strategies. Dyadic activities worked best, but it is important that stepchildren recognize affinity-seeking attempts. The success of affinity-seeking and affinity-maintaining strategies are contingent on the interpersonal and intrapersonal contexts within which they occur. In the stepfamilies in which step-relationships were poor, there was competition from the nonresidential parent, the stepparents had take-charge personalities, and the stepchildren did not recognize the stepparent's affinity-seeking efforts.

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