Recent data verifying a substantial amount of violence in dating relationships have presented a new challenge to the romantic love model. This study, which investigates abuse between high school couples, confirms the existence of violence among younger partners and describes their reactions to those abusive events. Findings suggest that violence is viewed by participating individuals as relatively nondisruptive to the relationship and sometimes is even seen as a positive occurrence. Discussion centers on how romance and violence coexist.

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In a series of five studies a method of assessing relationship thinking and its role in close relationship dynamics was developed. These studies were carried out with college students who responded to questionnaires. Studies 1 and 2 focused on identifying items representing the content and frequency of relationship thinking about participants' present dating relationships. Studies 3 and 4 examined personal characteristics, general relationship schema, and subjective conditions that were related to relationship thinking. Study 5 identified the ability of relationship thinking to predict individuals' perceptions of an interaction with their partners. Results uncovered three types of relationship thinking: partner, positive affect, and network. Relationship thinking was related in expected ways to several personal characteristics, subjective conditions, and general relationship schema. Relationship thinking was predictive of perceptions of distress‐maintaining and relationship‐enhancing interactions with the dating partners. The findings suggest increased attention to the social cognitive aspects of close relationships.

We discuss how to move the family studies field and the teaching of family theories from covering the “facts” that LGBT‐parent families exist to a critical conversation that incorporates conceptual tools, language, and theoretical insights from queer and intersectionality theories. We attempt to move this conversation by presenting a model of curricular change for teaching family studies theories courses that shifts from LGBT‐parent exclusion, compensatory addition of LGBT‐parent families, and LGBT‐parent families as disadvantaged to a focus on queer and intersectional scholarship and a continuing postmodern paradigm shift. We discuss how instructors can engage in critical feminist‐oriented self‐reflexivity and transformational pedagogy.

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