Reimagining stagnant perspectives of family structure: Advancing a critical theoretical research agenda

Abstract

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.