Minneapolis, MN – The National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) has conferred its Ethnic Minorities Section’s prestigious John and Harriette McAdoo Dissertation Award on Christiana Awosan, a marriage and family therapist and a doctoral candidate in Couple and Family Therapy at Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA. The award will be presented on November 2, 2012 at NCFR’s annual conference in Phoenix, AZ.

As eminent scholars and educators, the late Drs. John and Harriette McAdoo made significant contributions to the scholarship on ethnic minority families, especially our understanding of African American's familial experiences. The John and Harriette McAdoo Dissertation Award is named in their honor. The purpose of this award is to provide support for the completion of an approved doctoral dissertation with a focus on issues impacting ethnic minority families.

The primary research question that Ms. Awosan proposes to answer is: How do never married, heterosexual Black men and women between the ages of 25-35 describe and interpret their experiences in attempts to cultivate and maintain intimate romantic relationships?

Relevant sub-questions that will be explored are: 1) What are Black men and women’s attitudes regarding the influence of socio-cultural, socio-historical and institutional factors such as the legacy of slavery, gender role socialization, internalized racism and stereotypes, etc., on their coupling processes? 2) In what ways, if any, do these factors impact their experiences in their attempts to develop and sustain intimate non-marital romantic relationships?, and 3) Do participants’ desire to be involved in a secure intimate romantic relationship and/or marriage?

The National Council on Family Relations is the nation’s premier professional association for the multidisciplinary understanding of families. NCFR has a membership of over 3600 family researchers, practitioners and educators.  For more information on the National Council on Family Relations or its scholarly publications, contact NCFR at 1-888-781-9331 or visit its website at www.ncfr.org.