The current economic climate, which negatively affects institutional and departmental budgets and increases scrutiny of programs and their level of efficiency, makes it increasingly imperative for administrators and faculty of family science programs to be capable of identifying the strengths and growth areas of their programs, and to be poised to make necessary changes and to adapt to new demands and conditions. Administrators must be armed with knowledge of the field and its distinctiveness, best practices within it, tactics for enhancing and strengthening its image, and strategies for aligning departmental goals with institutional missions.Within this article, we briefly review the development of the field of family science, propose that family science has entered a new stage of evaluation and innovation, report important findings from a survey of administrators of family science programs, and offer innovative approaches for strengthening familyscienceprogramsandthedisciplineitself.The Developing Field of Family ScienceFamily science is a relatively young discipline and, as such, does not possess the same recognizability that some other social science programs like psychology, social work, or sociology enjoy. Consequently, it is imperative for those within the field to be familiar with where family science has been, where it is, and where it needs to go. Its development has been described as having evolved through three stages: the discovery stage, the pioneering stage, and the maturing stage (National Council on Family Relations [NCFR] Task Force, 1988). Results from this study offer future directions for the discipline.The Discovery Stage. The field of family science emerged in the United States during the progressive era, from 1880 to1920, when there was growing concern about the problems that families faced as a result of urbanization and industrialization and the need for social reform (Doherty, Boss, LaRossa, Schumm, & Steinmetz, 1993). During the early 1900s, in particular, an interdisciplinary group of pioneer scholars - anthropologists, sociologists, home economists, theologians, psychologists, criminologists, and social workers - recognized that ''family'' was an important domain of inquiry. During this stage of the field of family science, these interdisciplinary scholars began conducting systematic family research on salient topics of the day (NCFR Task Force, 1988), employing more rigorous, objective, scientific research methodologies and assuming a more holistic vision of family (Hollinger, 2002). Adams (1986) suggested that a significant body of scientific knowledge about the family was produced during the 30 years between 1920 and 1950.A number scholars concerned about the condition of marriages and families began to offer college courses and write texts on family. Professionals also organized around the topic of family. For instance, in 1934 Professor Ernest Groves cofounded the Groves Conference on Marriage and the Family, an interdisciplinary think tank on theory development and empirical research in the field (Groves Conference, n.d.). So, too, Paul Sayre (a law professor), Ernest Burgess (a sociologist), and Sidney Goldstein (a rabbi from New York) founded the NCFR - the premiere professional association for those interested in advancing theory, practice, and knowledge about families - in 1938, further highlighting the organization's, as well as the field's, interdisciplinary roots (Hollinger, 2002).The Pioneering Stage. The NCFR Task Force identified the second stage in the development of the field of family science as the ''pioneering stage.''Inaseminalpaper,Groves'(1946)called for a family field or a science of marriage and family. Specifically, Groves noted that this field would becarried out by specialists who will draw their data from a wide range of resources. They will not be sociologists, home economists or social workers but persons who are committed to the gathering and the giving of information that concerns marriage and the family, who have prepared themselves for such an undertaking, and have approached their task from a background shared by no other science. …

The Discipline of Family Science and the Continuing Need for Innovation

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Family Science as Translational Science: A History of the Discipline

Three decades ago, Burr and Leigh (1983) attempted to address the ''identity problem'' that the family field was experiencing. They proposed that common terminology be used to establish the identity and facilitate the development of the family field. Using some compelling arguments and survey results, they concluded that the family discipline should be labeled famology. Academic units would use the name Department of Famology and those who work in the field of famology would be known as famologists. These labels were not adopted; no department names have ever included the term famology and no scholars in the family field describe themselves as famologists. Burr and Leigh found that family studies and family science were the two most preferred names among 334 colleagues surveyed and concluded that family science was the better of the two because family studies ''cannot be used to describe the professional identity of scholars in the field. It does not make sense to be a 'Family Studiesist' or 'Family Studiest''' (p. 474). Subsequently, the National Council on Family Relations (NCFR) formed a Task Force on the Development of the Family Discipline, which ultimately led to adoption of the term family science ''to refer to the field of study where the primary goals are the discovery, verification and application of knowledge about the family'' (Leigh,1985b,p.15).Administratorsandfaculty members were encouraged to change course, major, and department names to align with this preferred terminology.Burr and Leigh (1983) argued that the incon- sistency in how departments are named within the family field is perhaps a partial cause and is certainly a symptom of the identity problem. Using the 1982 edition of Guide to Graduate Family Programs (Love, 1982), Burr and Leigh found that the 51 departments identified by Love as offering a graduate program in the family field were known by 36 different department names. The situation does not seem to have improved; the most frequent department name in the family field now is the ''Department of Human Development and Family Studies,'' which com- prises only 11% of departments (Hans, 2013b). By comparison, more than 60% of the depart- ments listed in Graduate Study in Psychology (American Psychological Association, 2011) are called the ''Department of Psychology.'' Consequently, as editor of the three most recent printed editions of Graduate and Undergradu- ate Study in Marriage and Family (Hans, 2002, 2005, 2008) and current editor of the online pro- gram guide on NCFR's website (Hans, 2013b), I envy at the relative simplicity that the editors of comparable guides in sociology and psychology have in locating programs for inclusion in their guides. If we have difficulty locating and labeling ourselves, it seems unrealistic to expect students to find us, scholars in other fields to understand us, and policy makers and lay people to acknowledge us. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine department name trends over nearly four decades and, more broadly, to consider the current state of the identity issue as reflected in department names.METHODS AND RESULTSThe investigation of department name trends began by replicating Burr and Leigh's (1983) approach, using academic units listed in the online program guide available on NCFR's website (Hans, 2013b). The online program guide supplanted the printed version of the guide that was last printed in 2008 under the title Graduate and Undergraduate Study in Marriage and Family (Hans, 2008) and included 300 family-related degree programs at the time of this writing in mid-2013. However, many listings were specific to family-related degree program options housed within larger academic units holding distinctly different disciplinary identities wherein family is not the primary unit of study (e.g., counseling, psychology, sociology), and the listing justly focused only on the relevant program option rather than the academic unit as a whole. …

Whither Famology? Department Name Trends Across Four Decades

Preparing the Educators Who Teach About Families: Engaging Family Science in the University Setting

Integrating Life Course, Globalization, and the Study of Racial and Ethnic Families

Throughout the chapters in this Handbook, research, theory, and methodology have been presented on marriage and family. The content provides much of the background for one to understand the study of family and family science as a discipline. In this chapter, the goal is to explore ideas around teaching family science as a discipline. We will examine the terms used to describe the science and the profession, and where the field fits among social science disciplines as primary, secondary, or tertiary. We will discuss the ethics, theories, and methodologies that many scholars believe should be included in the study of marriage and family and provide a discourse on whether or not a separate discipline of family science exists today. The seven criteria for a field to become a true discipline as described by Burr and Leigh (1983) will be explored. We will examine what “teaching” about families entails as the field prepares professionals. Finally, we will identify some emerging and futuristic topics for family science educators to consider.

Deborah B. Gentry

Papers

Teaching About Family Science as a Discipline