This executive summary reports on an investigation of the impact of parent-absence on the socialization of black children. Four different studies were conducted by the Parent Improvement and Child Socialization Project among respondents identified through lists of inmates supplied by the D.C. Department of Corrections and by visits to penal institutions in the Washington Metropolitan area. In the first study specially-designed culturally relevant questionnaires were used to follow the academic and personality development of a group of black children through three years of schooling. The second study employed a Transactional Analysis approach to assess ways black female prisoners viewed separation from their children. In the third study, 121 children of separated, divorced and incarcerated parents were examined on several intellectual/academic achievement performance variables. The fourth study examined types of single-parent families in relationship to employment/unemployment, knowledge and availability of supplemental child care, community involvement, absent-spouse status and effects of maternal employment on the child. Among the five categories of parent absent families (divorce, desertion, separation, death and incarceration) differences were observed in two major areas: (1) socio-psychological variables affecting parent-absent families, and (2) the impact of various social systems and their interaction with the family. (Author/RH)