Two primary sources of data were utilized: official church records, and a questionnaire survey administered to a random sample of Anglo and African-American United Methodists in the North Texas area. Questions covered socio-demographic and theological matters as well as perceptions of racism in the church. Ministers and lay members were surveyed separately.

Differences between joint custody and mother custody families were assessed. The sample consisted of 42 post divorce families which had a child between the age of 4 and 15 years and resided in the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex. This cross sectional, multimethod, quasi-experimental study examined two groups of divorced families. The experimental group consisting of 21 joint custody families, was compared to the control group, consisting of 21 mother custody families. Families were matched between the two groups based on the child's gender, age and time lapse since parental separation. Within each family, interviews were conducted with one parent and with the parent's permission, a target child. Besides the interview, parents completed a questionnaire and the Child Behavior Checklist. Only 19 parents gave permission for their child to be interviewed. Parents completed a questionnaire and the Child Behavior Checklist.

Women as a group hold little power in the social system which increases women's vulnerability to domestic violence. According to Merton (1970), social problems may be revealed through the disaster recovery process. A coraHunity1s organizational response to social problems such as wife abuse depends upon organizational members' perceptions. The data suggest that organizational perceptions of domestic violence largely depend upon the setting or environment in which an organization exists and operates. A second factor that greatly determines an organization's perception of domestic violence after disaster is organizational type. Organizations which provide services to domestic violence victims pre-disaster are more likely to perceive domestic violence following disaster than organizations which do not provide domestic violence related services prior to disaster.