Lecture at Pitt's Center on Race and Social Problems Will Focus on Relationships and Marriage in the Black Community

PITTSBURGH-The state of love and marriage in the Black community is the focus of a lecture by M. Belinda Tucker, to be presented from noon to 1:30 p.m. April 22, at Pitt's Center on Race and Social Problems (CRSP), School of Social Work Conference Center, 2017 Cathedral of Learning, 4200 Fifth Ave., Oakland.

Tucker's lecture is titled "Marriage, Men, and Money: African American Women's Continued Investment in the Romantic Ideal." It is the final talk in the Reed Smith Spring 2009 Speaker Series at CRSP and is free and open to the public. Registration is not required, and lunch will be provided. For more information, call 412-624-7382.

Tucker is a social psychologist and professor of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences and a faculty associate of the Bunche Center for African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles.

For the past 25 years, she has examined the nature of close, personal relationships in a

sociocultural context. She has helped lead a number of national studies, including the initial national Survey of Black Americans. More recently, she directed a survey and re-interview of more than 3,400 residents in 21 U.S. cities for the Survey of Families and Relationships. She also has studied inter-ethnic relations, the transition to adulthood among urban Black youth, and the social adaptation of developmentally delayed adults over the course of life. Currently, she is examining the impact of incarceration on family members and close friends.

For the past five years, Tucker directed the National Institute of Mental Health-funded Family Research Consortium IV, a national collaborative network of scholars interested in family mental health. She is the author of "The Decline in Marriage Among African Americans" (Russell Sage Foundation, 1995) as well as articles on couple relationships, family formation, and inter-ethnic relationships.

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