The focus of this book is on the risk and protective processes that modify the effects of poverty on children's social and emotional adjustment. The attempt is to integrate findings of empirical research conducted over the past three decades on the adjustment of children facing socioeconomic deprivation. The chapters are: (1) "Introduction"; (2) "Child Attributes"; (3) "Poverty and the Family: Demographic and Structural Features"; (4) "Poverty and the Family: Psychological Processes"; (5) "Exosystemic Influences"; and (6) "Future Directions." (Contains 320 references, and author and subject indexes.) (SLD)