Toward a Better Understanding of African American Families: Development of the Sociocultural Family Stress Model

Family stress models have a long and rich history in family science research and are useful frameworks for understanding multicultural families. Although these models add greatly to research on diverse families in general, we believe that the almost exclusive focus on cross-cultural replications may come at the cost of a more culturally and contextually informed understanding of specific groups such as African Americans. In this article, we expand current family stress models using two key extensions that challenge some of the underlying assumptions and situate constructs within intersectionality and mundane extreme environmental stress (MEES) perspectives. In addition, we introduce an integrative theoretical framework, the sociocultural family stress (SFS) model, which includes explicit considerations of both the culture and heterogeneity of African Americans and their families. Suggestions for future research are discussed.