Department of Psychology

Abbie Goldberg

2010 Media Events

How are children in homosexual families?
Radio Free Europe 11/23/2010
Clark professor Abbie Goldberg was interviewed on her research on children raised by homosexual couples for Radio Free Europe. (Transcript online, in Belarusian.)

Study: Gay Parents More Likely to Have Gay Kids
AOL news 10/17/2010
"Walter Schumm knows what he's about to do is unpopular: publish a study arguing that gay parents are more likely to raise gay children than straight parents. But the Kansas State University family studies professor has a detailed analysis that past almost aggressively ideological researchers never had...Abbie Goldberg is a psychology professor at Clark University, and the author of 'Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle,’ which this year won the Distinguished Book Award from the APA. She hasn't read Schumm's study, only seen the abstract. But she says, in general, that a meta-analysis of this nature relies on sample sizes that are often too small and may furthermore brim with participants whose perspective is firmly aligned with the LGBT community. In other words, they're aware of these sorts of..."

New film puts spotlight on same-sex pairs gaining acceptance
Courier-Journal.com 7/27/2010
Assistant Professor of Psychology Abbie Goldberg was quoted in this article about "The Kids Are All Right," a new movie about a same-sex couple who raise two kids. "Benjamin Spiegel is like a lot of 11-year-old boys: He likes playing video games; he went to Walt Disney World Resort for his birthday last year; and, oh yeah, he lives with two women — his mother and her partner.... National data show that these households are becoming more common and accepted, e-mailed Abbie Goldberg, author of the 2009 book 'Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family ’" 

The new family
Newsweek Argentina 7/14/2010
Abbie Goldberg, assistant professor of psychology, was quoted in this Spanish-language article about the rights of same-sex couples to adopt children.

Gay Dads: Also Better than Straight Parents
Change.org 6/16/2010
"...When the lesbian mom study came out last week, many wrote about how it showed that lesbian moms were "better" than straight ones. The same thing happened last November, when Dr. Abbie Goldberg of Clark University published Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children and showed that not only were children of gay and lesbian parents happy and healthy, but tended to have 'more expansive and flexible ’and be more accepting of differences in others...."

Research Supports Gay and Lesbian Parenting
About.com 5/6/2010
"How does being raised by gay and lesbian parents affect children? There have been a lot of studies on gay and lesbian parents and for the first time, a new book analyzes those studies and puts their key findings in one place. Dr Abbie Goldberg is the author of Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle published by The American Psychological Association. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University...."

Huckabee in the doghouse
Bay Windows 4/15/2010
"Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and erstwhile Republican presidential candidate, thinks that letting same-sex parents raise children is too 'experimental.’...If Huckabee doesn’t want to wade through Prop. 8 trial transcripts, however, I would point him to 'Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children,’ by Dr. Abbie Goldberg of Clark University. Goldberg has compiled decades of research by herself and others into less than 200 pages, an easy read for a busy Fox News host. She concludes, 'Although lesbian- and gay-parent families construct and enact family in unique ways, they are not, by virtue of their family structure, essentially different from heterosexual-parent families.'"

Gay parents will count on census
Chicago Parent 3/23/2010
"... Day after day, gay and lesbian families are confronted with the fact that their family doesn't fit society's standards of what makes a real family. 'They face structural and social inequalities every day. The kind of laws that they have to deal with disadvantage their families,’ says Dr. Abby Goldberg, author of Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle. 'The way school forms are created, there's a space for mother and father. Where does the other parent go?..."

Challenge to California's Proposition
WFCR 88.5 FM 2/18/2010
Clark professor Abbie Goldberg did a radio interview on her area of study: same-sex couples as parents. Follow the link below for an audio archive of the interview. "Among the many written comments submitted to the court was research by Clark University professor Abbie Goldberg. She argued the children of same-sex couples are harmed when their parents' marriages are not recognized. She spoke with WFCR's Bob Paquette."

Trial shows best interests of kids lies with marriage equalit
Bay Windows 2/10/2010
"Star witnesses for both sides in the recent Proposition 8 trial agreed on one thing: Children of same-sex parents benefit from having two parents who are happily married to each other...Dr. Abbie Goldberg, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Clark University, recently published a book that compiles decades of research on the subject. ('Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children,’ published by the American Psychological Association: 2009) Goldberg thinks comparing lesbian- and gay-parent families to heterosexual married biological parents 'would conflate sexual orientation with a number of other key variables that may have implications for family and child outcomes.’..."

Proposition 8 witnesses debate scholarship on families
Keen News Service 1/30/2010
Star witnesses for both sides in the recent Proposition 8 trial agreed on one thing: Children of same-sex parents benefit from having two parents who are happily married to each other.... Dr. Abbie Goldberg, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Clark University, recently published Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children (American Psychological Association: 2009), a book that compiles decades of research on the subject. Goldberg thinks Thompson was off-base in his quest for a control group of married, biological parents...."

Gays, Blackwater, and Aborigines?
Keen News Service 1/9/2010
"What do gay political icon Harvey Milk, anti-gay marriage activist Maggie Gallagher, controversial military contractor Blackwater, and the Walibiri aborigines of Central Australia have in common? All are cited in the 3,001 exhibits filed by supporters of California’s same-sex marriage ban, Proposition 8, for inclusion in the trial challenging that law.... Dr. Abbie Goldberg, assistant professor of psychology at Clark University in Massachusetts and author of Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children (2009) ..."

Research supports gay and lesbian parenting
About.com: Lesbian Life 1/5/2010
"Interview with Lesbian and Gay Parenting Expert - How does being raised by gay and lesbian parents affect children? There have been a lot of studies on gay and lesbian parents and for the first time, a new book analyzes those studies and puts their key findings in one place. Dr Abbie Goldberg is the author of 'Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle’ published by The American Psychological Association. She is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Clark University. Her book is an overview of the many studies that have been done on gay and lesbian families and she hopes it will be used to influence public policy...."

What do lesbian and gay parents teach us?
Bay Area Reporter (San Francisco)
Assistant Professor of psycholoy Abbie Goldberg writes a Guest opinion feature: "Issues such as gay adoption, gay parenting, and same-sex marriage are currently making news headlines like never before. No longer considered "fringe" issues that affect a small minority of the population, these topics now figure prominently in routine news coverage, and are, by extension, being hotly contested and debated in today's society. As lesbians and gay men push for equal rights with respect to marriage and adoption, judges and legislators increasingly ask: What does the research say?..."

What’s good for the kids
"These children do just fine," says Abbie E. Goldberg, an assistant professor in the department of psychology at Clark University, who concedes there are some who will continue to believe that gay parents are a danger to their children, in spite of a growing web of psychological and sociological evidence to the contrary. Her new book, "Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children," is an analysis of more than 100 academic studies, most looking at groups of 30 to 150 subjects, and primarily on lesbian mothers, though of late there is a spike in research about gay fathers.

Are same-sex couples better parents?
Are the parenting styles of these couples and the psychological development of their children different from families led by heterosexual couples? There is an increasing body of data about this, too, compiled and analyzed in a new book by Abbie Goldberg, an assistant professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. In an essay in the NY Times Lisa Belkin explores that question, and concludes that in some ways same sex parents have a lot to teach the rest of us.

USA Today "Gay couples: A close look at this modern family, parenting"
So many gay couples today have kids that it has become a cultural phenomenon – there's even a new TV show about a modern family that includes a gay couple with an adopted baby. One in five male couples and one in three lesbian couples were raising children as of the 2000 Census. That's way up from 1990, when one in 20 male couples and one in five lesbian couples had kids.
But Census numbers are just part of a new comprehensive analysis of research on gay parenting since the 1970s in new book Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle, by Abbie Goldberg, an assistant professor of psychology at Clark University in Worcester, Mass. Click on the link to read more...

Growing up with gay parents
WGBH Boston "The Takeaway"
"Voters in Maine voted yesterday to revoke gay marriage in the state. Opponents of gay marriage frequently bring up the hypothetical effects of gay parenting on kids as a reason to deny gay couples the right to marry. At this point we don't have to rely on hypotheticals, however: We now have a generation of kids who have grown up with gay parents and can speak for themselves. One of those kids, Becca Lazarus, tells us about her life with two gay dads, while New York Times Motherlode writer Lisa Belkin explains the results of recent research."
Belkin cited research by Abbie Goldberg, assistant professor of psychology at Clark. She is the author of "Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle," the first book-length review and analysis of research on parenting by same-sex couples and their families.
The Takeaway is a co-production of PRI (Public Radio International) and WNYC Radio in collaboration with the BBC World Service, The New York Times and WGBH Boston.

Adoption and the LGBT community
blogtalkradio.com Creating a Family
Abbie Goldberg, assistant professor of psychology at Clark is interviewed by author and adoption expert Dawn Davenport on "Creating a Family: Talk about Adoption and Infertility."

Gay parents better than straight?
The Advocate
The Advocate features research presented in the book "Lesbian and Gay Parents and Their Children: Research on the Family Life Cycle," by Abbie Goldberg, assistant professor of psychology at Clark. Goldberg is also featured profiled in "Abbie Goldberg: A lens on gay and lesbian families," running in the November 20009 issue of Preview Massachusetts magazine. www.previewma.com

Midweek Politics with David Pakman (radio)
Midweekpolitics.com 8/12/2010
Abbie Goldberg, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Clark University, was interviewed along with Tom McClusky, Vice President of Government Affairs at the Family Research Council, in a debate about the moral and legal validity of Judge Vaughn Walker’s overturning of Proposition 8 in California. (The debate is about 30 minutes into the show.)