The Workshop on Violence and the American Family, held May 11-13, 1993, was one in a series of meetings on current and emerging child and family policy issues organized by the National Forum on the Future of Children and Families (now incorporated into the Board on Children and Families). A joint project of the National Research Council' s Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education and the Institute of Medicine, the forum was established in 1987 to promote an ongoing dialogue among scholars and experts in children and family issues and leaders in government, business, philanthropy, and the media.

An advisory group, chaired by Margaret Heagarty, director of pediatrics of Harlem Hospital Center in New York City and member of the National Forum, organized the workshop. Other advisory group members were Lucy Berliner, director of research, Harborview Sexual Assault Center in Seattle; Richard Gelles, director of the Family Violence Research Program, University of Rhode Island; Jill Korbin, associate professor of anthropology, Case Western Reserve University; Lawrence Sherman, professor of criminology, University of Maryland; and Rosemary Chalk, senior program officer, Board on Children and Families, National Research Council.

Thirty-five participants met for three days at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin, to discuss the topic of violence and the American family and to assess the quality of research in this field. In order to stimulate a broad review of the issues associated with family violence, workshop participants were selected from a variety of institutional and disciplinary backgrounds. Participants were drawn from the communities of researchers, service providers, and policy makers, whose perspectives on