Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology and Research Associate in the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania. His interest on the American family began at Columbia University where he received his Ph.D. in 1967.
Dr. Furstenberg’s recent book, Destinies of the Disadvantaged: Teenage Childbearing and Public Policy (2007), won the best authored book award from the Society for Research and Adolescence. On the Frontiers of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Public Policy, edited with Richard A. Settersten, Jr., and Rubén G. Rumbaut (2005), explores the lengthy period between adolescence and adulthood, and the consequences that this new area brings. His current research projects focus on the family in the context of disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, adolescent sexual behavior, cross national research on children’s wellbeing, urban education, and the transition from adolescence to adulthood. His recent articles include “Early childbearing in the new era of delayed adulthood (Handbook of youth and young adulthood: New perspectives and agendas, 2009) and “If Moynihan had only known: Race, class and family change in the late 20th century” (Annals, 2009).
Dr. Furstenberg has served as Chair of the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on the Transition to Adulthood. He received the Society for Research on Adolescence John P. Hill Memorial Award in 2004. He has been awarded research grants from the William Penn Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Zellerbach Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. He has been a Fellow of the Russell Sage Foundation, a member of the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, and received an Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the American Sociological Association Section on the Family.
