Introduction to the Special Issue: Exploring Strengths in American Families of Faith

We introduce the special issue of Marriage and Family Review on Exploring Strengths among American Families of Faith. The heart of the special issue is a collection of scholarly articles about couples and parents from eight religious-ethnic communities. In addition, there are introductory and concluding essays and an article placing the empirical articles in theoretical context. The sample includes 198 Christian, Jewish, and Muslim families (N=476 individuals) from 17 states of the United States. All families consisted of married or remarried parents who had at least one child, with the average being 3.3 children per couple. Parents had been married an average of 20years. Children were included in 55 of the interviews. More than half of the samples are from racial/ethnic minority families.