A few days back, I completed an important home project. I set up my lighted ceramic village for the holidays. For those who don't know what these are, I've got a photo of my display. They are miniature ceramic buildings-each has a 3 watt light bulb inside and, in the evening when I turn them on, light streams out of the windows. It's magic.

There are 16 buildings and little people, animals, trees and vehicles to accessorize it. I always take such care in setting it up. It's a planned community. There is a stable. This has to go by the house. There's a school which, of course, has to be right next to the library. There are two churches-I put one at each end of town to make sure everyone is close to a faith community. There's the tavern, of course. I keep that away from the churches, the school and the toy shop for obvious zoning reasons. Oh, and away from the library. Raucous laughter and research don't mix. Usually. The Inn has to go right next to the train station: weary travelers have traveled far enough. The Post Office is next to City Hall. There's a residential area, a civic area and a retail area and, although it's completely silly, I am very persnickety that each building goes in the right place. My town encourages spiritually, literacy, and convenience.

At NCFR we exist for "the multidisciplinary understanding of families." I remember the wisdom of the late Urie Bronfenrenner and his model of human ecology which shows how families are embedded in many layers of social structures. Our journals are just brimming with articles which examine families in the context of the smallest units to our macrosystems of society. Allow me to reach over my desk and grab the most recent issues of our scholarly journals. Here are some titles to some of our articles that cover some aspect of the influences on the family from a family dyad, to relationships with extended family, to those of the larger community and institutions and finally to geopolitical systems.

Commitment: Functions, Formation, and the Securing of Romantic Attachment (Journal of Family Theory & Review, December 2010)

Beyond Satisfaction: The Role of Attachment in Marital Functioning (Journal of Family Theory & Review, December 2010)

Passage to Hope: Marriage, Migration and the Need for a Cosmopolitan Turn in Family Research (Journal of Family Theory & Review, December 2010)

Intergenerational Relationship Quality, Gender, and Grandparent Involvement (Family Relations, February 2010)

Spousal Capital as a Resource for Couples Starting a Family Business (Family Relations, February 2010)

Marriageable Women: A Focus on Participants in a Community Healthy Marriage Program (Family Relations, February 2010)

Ambiguous Loss in a Non-Western Context: Families of the Disappeared in Postconflict Nepal (Family Relations, July 2010)

Maternity Leave in Taiwan (Family Relations, July 2010)

Buffers of Racial Discrimination: Links with Depression among Rural African American Mothers (Journal of Marriage and Family, April 2010)

Gender Asymmetry in Family Migration: Occupational Inequality or Interspousal Comparative Advantage?  (Journal of Marriage and Family, April 2010)

Work Related Health Limitations, Education, and the Risk of Marital Disruption (Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2010)

Parent-Child Coresidence: Who Moves in with Whom and for Whose Needs? (Journal of Marriage and Family, August 2010)

Union Dissolution and Mobility: Who Moves from the Family Home after Separation? (Journal of Marriage and Family, October 2010)

The Within-Job Motherhood Wage Penalty in Norway, 1979- 1996 (Journal of Marriage and Family, October 2010)

Micro- and Macrolevel Determinants of Women's Employment in Six Arab Countries (Journal of Marriage and Family, October 2010)

Nonstandard Work and Marital Instability: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (Journal of Marriage and Family, October 2010)

It Takes a Village (Perhaps a Nation): Families, States, and Educational Achievement (Journal of Marriage and Family, October 2010)

Don't these sound like fascinating reading? I invite you to join the NCFR community if you are not already one of our members. Just one of the benefits of our "Professional 2" membership is getting online access to all of these articles as well as every one of our journal articles dating back to 1938. Join here. 

Hmmm.  I need a name for my little ceramic village. I think I'll call it Bronfenbrenner.