Efforts to Design, Implement, and Evaluate Community‐Based Education for Stepfamilies: Current Knowledge and Future Directions

• Published date: 01 July 2020
• Author: Francesca Adler‐Baeder,Brian Higginbotham
• Date: 01 July 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12427

F A-BAuburn University

B HUtah State University

Efforts to Design, Implement, and Evaluate

Community-Based Education for Stepfamilies:

Current Knowledge and Future Directions

Stepfamilies are prevalent and have increased

in numbers over the past several decades in the

United States. Indications are that these families

may experience enhanced vulnerabilities and

inequities related to relational, psychological,

and physical health outcomes; thus, they repre-

sent an important target population for family

life educators. Efforts have been made to develop

detailed, research-informed conceptual frame-

works to guide best practices for stepfamily edu-

cation and a small body of evaluation research

has tested these guidelines. Studies of stepfam-

ily education, particularly in the past decade

and a half, provide some information on poten-

tial benets of stepfamily education. In addition,

information is provided by formative evalua-

tions of program implementation processes that

enhance recruitment and retention, particularly

for Latinx stepfamilies. Suggestions for future

work center on attention to the limited advance-

ments in stepfamily researchand program devel-

opment and efforts to better meet the needs of

diverse types of stepfamilies based on relation-

ship type, social address, culture, and develop-

mental context.

Department of Human Development and Family Studies,

Auburn University, 263 Spidle Hall, Auburn, AL 36849

(francesca@auburn.edu).

Key Words: community education, evaluation, family life

education, stepfamily.

Family life education (FLE) for stepfamilies

emerged in the late 1970s and grew from

early clinical efforts to offer psychoeducational

resources for remarried couples in which one or

both of the partners had children from a previ-

ous relationship (Lucier-Greer & Adler-Baeder,

2012; Visher & Visher, 1979). Unlike efforts

to provide community education for enhancing

couple relationships or parent–child relation-

ships, educational resources for stepfamily

couples, from the beginning, used a family

systems perspective and incorporated useful

information relevant to the intersection of mul-

tiple family relationships. The design of these

programs—as suggested from relevant research

and theoretical perspectives (Adler-Baeder &

Higginbotham, 2004; Adler-Baeder, Robertson,

& Schramm, 2010)—addresses couple function-

ing in the context of parenting, coparenting, and

stepparenting, and may also address complex

intergenerational family relationships. There is

recognition of child adjustment needs and a cen-

tral emphasis on mesosystem processes linking

couple functioning, coparenting functioning,

and parent–child relationship functioning.

There is also content focused on the broader

community level and macrolevel inuences on

stepfamily functioning (Adler-Baeder & Erick-

son 2007). Further, families, rather than couples,

are targeted for participation (Higginbotham &

Goodey, 2016). We believe no other type of FLE

Family Relations 69 (July 2020): 559–576559

DOI:10.1111/fare.12427

560 Family Relations

is as explicitly built on an ecological systems

framework in its research base and design as

stepfamily education.

Since the origination of stepfamily education

4 decades ago, indications are that complex fam-

ily systems continue to increase in prevalence

(e.g., Cherlin, 2010; Parker, 2011), yet access

to and research on stepfamily education remains

limited (Higginbotham & Goodey,2016), partic-

ularly compared with other forms of FLE. Only

14 reports or publications between 1982 to 2011

were found for a meta-analysis of stepfamily

education evaluations. Comparatively, multiple

meta-analyses of couple relationship education

(CRE) and parenting education have included

hundreds of evaluation studies published in just

the past two-and-a-half decades (e.g., Hawkins,

Blanchard, Baldwin, & Fawcett, 2008; Hawkins

& Erickson, 2015; Lundahl, Risser, & Lovejoy,

2006).

In this article, we highlight the state of the

science on stepfamily education. We explicate

the potential need and relevance to the popula-

tion in the United States and efforts to link the

research base to program content. We summa-

rize the limited research on these programs’ ef-

cacy and effectiveness, as well as the research

on the process of implementing stepfamily edu-

cation. Lastly, we present information and ideas

that serve to move the eld of stepfamily edu-

cation forward. We use the term stepfamily

in this article to indicate a structurally com-

plex family that includes a committed couple

in which at least one partner has at least one

child (biological or adopted) from a previous

relationship. This broader denition is more use-

ful when considering programming for step-

families (Ganong & Coleman, 2017a); however,

where specic studies tighten the denition (e.g.,

include only married couples), we note this. Our

more inclusive approach to stepfamily includes

married, remarried, and unmarried couples; res-

idential and nonresidential stepparents and par-

ents; as well as cohabiting and noncohabiting

couples. We use the term stepfamily because

it is the more common term used in research

and on resources for these families; however,

we recognize that stepfamilies use a variety

of labels (e.g., blended families, complex fam-

ilies, bonus families; Papernow, 2017) or no

specic labels (Skogrand, Barrios-Bell, & Hig-

ginbotham, 2009; Schramm & Adler-Baeder,

2012).

P  S

Various sources provide information on experi-

ences of family reorganization and the creation

of stepfamilies (e.g., Cherlin, 2010; Kreider &

Ellis, 2011; Manning & Smock, 2005; Parker,

2011; Raley & Bumpass, 2003; Seltzer, 2000;

Stevenson & Wolfers,2007). In general, the pat-

tern of ndings over the past several decades

consistently indicates that a substantial minor-

ity of individuals in the United States experi-

ence stepfamily living as a child or adult; that the

numbers involved have increased over time; and

that among specic subpopulations (e.g., racial

minority and low-income), stepfamily experi-

ences are the most common. Current estimates

suggest somewhere in the range of 9% to 17%

of children in the United States are living in a

stepfamily (Kreider & Ellis, 2011; Payne, 2019;

Pew Research Center, 2015). These numbers are

underestimates given that those over 18years of

age with a stepparent and nonresidential step-

parents are not included. Further, even within

household, the design of the Census survey links

the relationship of each child only to the parent

listed rst.

Marriage statistics of U.S. samples (rather

than population; not all states collect informa-

tion on marital history) indicate that 32% to

42% of marriages in a year is a remarriage for

one or both partners and 65% of remarriages

form stepfamilies (Kreider, 2007; Livingston,

2014). This does not include rst marriages in

which one or both partners have a child from

a previous nonmarital relationship, and current

reports do not include same-sex couples who

form stepfamilies. Further, it is estimated that

at least half of cohabiting families live as a

stepfamily (e.g., Manning, 2015; Seltzer, 2000).

Poll research, using more inclusive questions

regarding respondents’ step-relationships, has

found that having a step-relative is a common

experience, particularly for young adults (52%),

African Americans (60%), and those without a

college degree (46%; Parker, 2011).

R I  S C

 S

Scholars and practitioners emphasize as poten-

tial challenges the complexity of stepfamily

structure, “out-of-sequence” family develop-

ment patterns (e.g., relationship with child

predates couple relationship), and the lack of