Strengthening the Family: Implications for International Development.

In many countries, and certainly in the West, much is made by politicians of the contemporary decline of the nuclear family, the rate at which family values are eroding, and the prospects for reversing that trend. With all this apparent primacy on the family, the irony lies "in the design of development policies, [where] families have remained an invisible layer sandwiched between the individual and the community". The authors posit that the smallest unit of analysis should be neither the individual nor the household, but the family. Unfortunately, federal and private aid programmes generally fail to recognize this.

Scholars all, these authors rely on vast fieldwork. Zeitlin has worked in 24 countries and specializes in the design of child and family development programmes. Megawangi is a faculty member at Bogor Agricultural University, Indonesia, whose research interests focus on women and family. A pediatric nutritionist, Kramer has worked directly in child nutrition programmes for the past 15 years. Colletta has worked in developing countries for 25 years, designing developmental programmes for preschool children. Babatunde is associate professor of anthropology at Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, with a research focus on family values and social change. An associate professor of economics at Tufts University, Garman's research centres on applications of econometrics.

The basis for this book develops from a five-year, three country United Nations Children's Fund study on the development of children in poverty. A judicious review of an extensive body of literature was undertaken and, proved to be dominated by studies of Western, North American Caucasian families. To counterbalance this bias, the authors use structural models to test their hypotheses against studies of two family groups distinct from the West, the Javanese of Indonesia and the Yoruba of Nigeria.

The authors begin by charting the evolution of the post-modern family. Special attention is devoted to the underlying themes of social change as a function of societal modernization and the feminization of poverty. Effects of international development assistance in early childhood development are examined with respect to a "two-generational" approach, that is, to avert poverty in the child's generation while improving overall family conditions.

Asserting that "the family is a living entity", the authors endeavour to identify characteristics of healthy families. Family social wellness is defined by four components that "roughly correspond to domains of policy of intervention approaches"--management; caring capacity; beliefs, rules, and goals; and boundary maintenance or structural integrity. Several policy recommendations are made. First, poverty relief programmes must "seek to develop the potential of families as an important force for promoting development". Second, policy for families must be determined by people of "intellectual stature". As such, strengthening of universities results in stronger social programmes at the local level. Third, more resources should be directed to early childhood education. Finally, family life education programmes can serve as a forum for "community mobilization", provide counselling for families in crises, and assist migrants arriving in urban areas. One of the strengths of this book is that the authors offer a visionary direction for future research. Not surprisingly, they cite a need for a multi-disciplined research approach. "The family is a topic that demands this blending and synthesis of methods."