Cultivating theoretical advances in family science: <scp>JFTR</scp>'s innovation continues

As Editor of the Journal of Family Theory & Review, I have the privilege of seeing the remarkable diversity that comes our way from intersectional, interdisciplinary, and international perspectives.JFTR readers and authors share a passion for theorizing about families from a wide range of traditional, critical, and emerging perspectives.JFTR deeply respects the family science canon, and we also encourage the bold, often risky, displays of innovation in all things theoretical.As a unique specialty journal that champions family theory, theorizing about methodological commitments, critical reviews and meta-analyses of empirical research, and thoughtful critiques and applications of books and media, we endeavor to push the boundaries of family science by reaching out across our borders to new ways of doing theory and review that truly matter in the lives of all of our constituents.In the June 2025 issue, I call attention to four outstanding examples of the kind of intriguing scholarship JFTR relishes: (a) Original Voices, (b) Abstract Theorizing and Critical Reflection, (c) Theoretical Advances, and (d) Book Reviews.First, we highlight an Original Voices article by Lawrence Ganong and Marilyn Coleman, whose work on stepfamilies has changed the field and mentored several generations of prolific family scholars.We welcome their exciting analysis of career contributions to stepfamily scholarship and applaud their reflections on how they have shared their research trajectory in life, love, and work.In sharing their journey, we gain new insights into their lifelong contributions toward crafting a normative-adaptive, resilience perspective to understand stepfamily relationships in diverse contexts.Second, JFTR is pleased to offer a symposium on abstract theorizing in conversation with critical reflection on the very process of theorizing itself.Larry Constantine offers the Paradigmatic Framework, an integrative framework to classify and understand the complexity of human systems.He positions this work in classic systems theorizing and juxtaposes it with major applied frameworks, such as David Olson's Circumplex Model.As family theory instructors and students know, abstract theorizing in scholarship about families is especially challenging, given the endless variation and continuous experience of change that families embody.JFTR presents this symposium as an exercise in abstract theorizing because such examples in the family field are difficult to find.Along with the main article, we are treated to the insights of four outstanding commentaries, provided by (a) Todd Jensen, (b) Bethany Willis and Nikki