esp | eng

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

    Summary Links


  1. What is the purpose of this website?
  2. Who is responsible for this website?
  3. What is the Witherspoon Institute?
  4. How can I contact the Witherspoon Institute concerning this website?

  5. What was the purpose of the New Family Structures Study?
  6. What does the abbreviation NFSS stand for?
  7. What is the source of the data on this website?

  8. Who helped to design and plan the NFSS?
  9. What are the ideological commitments of the scholars who helped to design the NFSS?
  10. Which institution hosted, oversaw, and approved the NFSS?
  11. Who funded the NFSS?
  12. Why did no socially liberal donors fund the NFSS?
  13. What involvement did the Witherspoon Institute have in the design, implementation, or interpretation of the NFSS?

  14. Who wrote the first article about the NFSS?
  15. What is the purpose of Dr. Regneruss article?
  16. What is the basic conclusion of Dr. Regneruss article?
  17. Do all the scholars who were consulted for the NFSS subscribe to the conclusions of Dr. Regneruss article?

  18. What other article does this website summarize beside that of Dr. Regnerus?
  19. Has this other article also been published by a peer-reviewed academic journal?

  20. How does the NFSS differ from other gay-parenting studies?
  21. How did the NFSS find people to survey?
  22. How should the findings from the NFSS be understood in the case of a particular childs experience?
  23. In how many outcomes did Dr. Regnerus find the children of intact, biological families to differ significantly from those of parents who had a same-sex relationship?
  24. Why did Dr. Regnerus not compare children from intact, stable homes of same-sex parents to intact, stable homes of married, heterosexual parents?
  25. Where can I find more information about the survey?

1. What is the purpose of this website?

This website was created to present the data of the recently completed New Family Structures Study and the findings of related, recent studies in an easily accessible format and in both English and Spanish.
back to top

2. Who is responsible for this website?

The Witherspoon Institute alone is responsible for the creation of this website. The interpretation of the findings presented here is the product of careful study and of a desire to represent accurately the original studies; it is not, however, the work of the original researchers themselves. For references and statements made by the original researchers, see the footnotes in the Summary page of this website, as well as the links to the original articles in the Articles page of this website. The website of the Witherspoon Institute can be found at http://www.winst.org.
back to top

3. What is the Witherspoon Institute?

The Witherspoon Institute, Inc. is an independent, non-profit public charity as described under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of the United States. The website of the Witherspoon Institute can be found at http://www.winst.org.
back to top

4. How can I contact the Witherspoon Institute concerning this website?

For comments, questions, and concerns please email the Witherspoon Institute at familystructures@winst.org.
back to top

5. What was the purpose of the New Family Structures Study?

The purpose of the New Family Structures Study is described on the University of Texas website (http://www.prc.utexas.edu/nfss/) as follows:

The New Family Structure Study (NFSS) is a comparative project which seeks to understand how young adults (ages 18 to 39) raised by same-sex parents fare on a variety of social, emotional, and relational outcomes when compared with young adults raised in homes with their married biological parents, those raised with a step-parent, and those raised in homes with two adoptive parents. In particular, the NFSS aims to collect new data in order to evaluate whether biological relatedness and the gender of young adults parents are associated with important social, emotional, and relational outcomes. Moreover, because there have been no large-scale studies of young adults who have spent time in households with two parents of the same sex, the NFSS seeks to field exactly such a study. Accordingly, the NFSS would provide scholars with an up-to-date portrait of the association between a variety of different family structure background experiences and the welfare of young adults.
back to top

6. What does the abbreviation NFSS stand for?

NFSS is the abbreviation for the New Family Structures Study.
back to top

7. What is the source of the data on this website?

This site draws its information from the article about the NFSS written by the Studys principal investigator, Dr. Mark Regnerus. The article is published in the July 2012 issue of the academic journal Social Science Research with the title How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships? Social Science Research is well regarded in the academy and subjects all its articles to rigorous independent review by qualified outside scholars before publication.
back to top

8. Who helped to design and plan the NFSS?

The New Family Structures Study was designed and planned in consultation with a team of eight social science scholars from major institutions of higher learning across the country. They were led by principal investigator Dr. Mark Regnerus, Associate Professor of Sociology at the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Regnerus was also primarily responsible for implementing the NFSS. Additional information about the implementation of the study can be found through the University of Texas at http://www.prc.utexas.edu/nfss/index.html.
back to top

9. What are the ideological commitments of the scholars who helped to design the NFSS?

The scholars who helped to design the NFSS come from a range of backgrounds, from socially conservative to socially liberal. Some do not think that legal recognition of gay marriage would be a good thing; others think that it would be a good thing. Regardless of their ideological leanings, they all committed to the design of good scholarship, executed with integrity and professionalism.
back to top

10. Which institution hosted, oversaw, and approved the NFSS?

The NFSS was based out of the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin. The University of Texas approved the plan for the NFSS that Dr. Regnerus presented on behalf of the team of scholars.
back to top

11. Who funded the NFSS?

The Witherspoon Institute assumed responsibility for funding the NFSS. It made this fact public in August 2011 on its website, before the NFSSs survey was administered. (See the original announcement here:
http://winst.org/announcements/11_08_19_new_family_structure_study.php.).
back to top

12. Why did no socially liberal donors fund the NFSS?

When the NFSS was broadly outlined in late 2010, the Witherspoon Institute approached four different funding sources that were known to be committed to gay rights and also to have an interest in the welfare of children. They were asked to be partners by providing financial support to fund a study (the NFSS) with the proviso that none of the funding sources would have any influence regarding the design, implementation, or interpretation of the data. They were told the study would be conducted at a major research university and that the team of scholars involved in the design of the study would be evenly represented across ideological lines. All four declined.
back to top

13. What involvement did the Witherspoon Institute have in the design, implementation, or interpretation of the NFSS?

In order to insure that the NFSS was conducted with intellectual integrity, beginning from the earliest stages the Witherspoon Institute was not involved in the Studys design, implementation, or interpretation.
back to top

14. Who wrote the first article on the NFSS?

Dr. Mark Regnerus, the NFSSs principal investigator and Associate Professor of Sociology at the Population Research Center of the University of Texas at Austin wrote the first article, entitled How Different Are the Adult Children of Parents Who Have Same-Sex Relationships?
back to top

15. What is the purpose of Dr. Regneruss article?

In his article, Dr. Regnerus gives a general overview of the data collected by the NFSS and offers a first conclusion drawn from the data.
back to top

16. What is the basic conclusion of Dr. Regneruss article?

Dr. Regneruss article finds that the claim that there are no differences in significant measurable outcomes between the children of intact, biological families and children raised amid same-sex romantic relationships is unsound. More precisely, he says, the data suggest rather clearly that children who were raised by a parent who had a same-sex relationship were on average at a significant disadvantage when compared to children who were raised by their married, biological mother and father.
back to top

17. Do all of the scholars who were consulted for the NFSS subscribe to the conclusions of Dr. Regneruss article?

Any of Dr. Regneruss interpretations of the NFSS data are his own. Other members of the team of scholars may have different interpretations, as is seen in the response paper of Dr. Paul Amato, published alongside Dr. Regneruss article in Social Science Research.
back to top

18. What other article does this website summarize beside that of Dr. Regnerus?

The summary page of this website also presents data published by Dr. Loren Marks (Louisiana State University). Dr. Marks examines each of the 59 studies that the American Psychological Association (APA) has cited in support of the claim that there are no disadvantages for children raised by lesbian or gay parents. He concludes that none of these studies is methodologically strong enough to support the APAs position.
back to top

19. Has this other article also been peer-reviewed and published in an academic journal?

The study by Loren Marks was published in the same issue of Social Science Research in which Regneruss report on the NFSS was published and was also peer-reviewed.
back to top

20. How does the NFSS differ from other gay-parenting studies?

The NFSS studied a statistically large, random sample of the general U.S. population. By using a sample that is randomly selected and statistically large, scientists can be highly confident that the sample represents the makeup and behavior of the bigger population with almost as much certainty as if they had surveyed every individual in the population. In all prior surveys of gay parenting, except one by Dr.  Michael J. Rosenfeld of Stanford University, the sample size of children was either too small to make meaningful claims or the participants were not selected randomly but by other methods like snowball or convenience sampling. These other methods tend to select people that are more similar to each other than is the case in the larger population that they are meant to represent. They inherently lack the representative accuracy and strength of random samples.

The NFSS also surveyed participants on a broad range of outcomes spanning physical and emotional health, experience in personal relationships, and general social behavior. The one other survey that studied a statistically large, random sample (Rosenfelds) studied only one outcome: childrens educational achievement.

Finally, the NFSS surveyed the children of parents who had a same-sex relationship directly and as young adults (after they had reached maturity). Many previous studies surveyed only the childrens parents, and no prior study surveyed the children in their young-adult years.
back to top

21. How did the NFSS find people to survey?

The NFSS contracted with a company called Knowledge Networks to administer its survey to the companys Knowledge Panel, a statistically representative, large group of people selected randomly from the U.S. population. Knowledge Networks has administered many studies like the NFSS and is regarded highly among social scientists for the quality of its survey-takers. You can learn more about Knowledge Networks at http://www.knowledgenetworks.com/.
back to top

22. How should the findings from the NFSS be understood in the case of a particular childs experience?

The NFSS findings presented on this website report upon the average experiences and outcomes of children raised in various family-types. They do not describe how each child in the survey fared individually, nor do they predict how any given child will fare. They do, however, describe the population overall and reveal general trends exhibited by each group as a whole. An individual child in any group might fare better or worse than the average experience of the groups members.
back to top

23. In how many outcomes did Dr. Regnerus find the children of intact, biological families to differ significantly from those of parents who had a same-sex relationship?

Dr. Regnerus found that the children of mothers who had a same-sex relationship differed to a statistically significant degree from children of intact, biological families in 25 out of the 40 outcomes that the study measured. The children of fathers who had a same-sex relationship differed to a statistically significant degree from children of intact, biological families in 11 out of the 40 outcomes measured. For more information on the nature of these differences, please consult Dr. Regneruss article, in particular Tables 2, 3, and 4.
back to top

24. Why did Dr. Regnerus not compare children from intact, stable homes of same-sex parents to intact, stable homes of married, heterosexual parents?

Although it would have been helpful to compare the children of intact heterosexual marriages to the children of committed and intact gay or lesbian couples, this was not possible. Despite drawing from a large, representative sample of the U.S. population and despite using screening tactics to boost the number of respondents who reported having had a parent in a same-sex relationship, the NFSS found a very small segment that reported having been parented by the same two gay or lesbian parents for three years or more.

The study found that the children who were raised by a gay or lesbian parent as recently as the late 1990s were usually conceived within a heterosexual marriage, which then underwent divorce or separation, leaving the child with a single parent. Instead of finding gay couples who planned to raise children together, the NFSS normally found situations of single gay-parenting, where the parent had at least one same-sex romantic relationship of less than three years duration. The data suggest, then, that the parents same-sex relationships were often short-lived, a finding consistent with the broader research on same-sex romantic relationships. For more information, see the Summary page of this website.
back to top

25. Where can I find more information about the survey?

More information about the surveys design, including the survey itself, can be found on the website of the Population Resource Center at the University of Texas at Austin:
http://www.prc.utexas.edu/nfss/index.html.
back to top