The study of children?s peer relationships has been well represented within the pages of Merrill-Palmer Quarterly. Particularly over the last decade, the pace of publishing studies on peer relationships has increased. Despite this upswing in interest in peer relationships, significant gaps remain. In this article, we focus on a particularly…

This paper reviews how cascading levels of contextual influences, starting with family factors and extending to neighborhood and school factors, can affect children's behavioral and emotional development. The ability of contextual factors to trigger or to attenuate children's underlying temperament and biological risk factors is emphasized.…

This commentary focuses on new directions in the study of fathers and families. Several topics that are ripe for more theoretical and empirical scrutiny are outlined. These include the biological determinants of fathering, cultural constraints on fathers, the impact of becoming a father on men?s development as adults, and an intergenerational…