The international character of San Francisco, the site for the 2009 NCFR Conference, will afford an exciting context for examining how diversity issues affect family scholarship, practice, policy, and education and how each of us might contribute to better understanding of the heterogeneity, as well as the commonalities of diverse families, not only in the United States, but also around the globe.

This theme encourages comparitive work on a variety of family topics, with particular attention to cross-cultural and international contributions to these matters. The hope is that scholars, educators and practitioners might share their varying perspectives on topics of concern to us all.