Xu Anqi, a Chinese scholar who has been devoted to family and matrimony study for 20 years, has won the Herb Lingren Strengthening Families Award, named after the late family scholar of the United States.

Xu, 55, a research fellow with the Sociology Institute of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and deputy head of the academy's Center for Women's Studies, is the first Chinese scholar to win the award.

Xu said she was glad to have won the award and paid tribute to the late US scholar, describing Lingren as a distinguished family studies scholar, who "devoted his life to the happiness of his own family and that of others," she said.

Xu said she loved family studies and was determined to "seek the best solution to family issues and improve family life."

Xu is the winner of a dozen of domestic family studies awards and author of Psychology of Divorce, Study of Matrimonial Quality in China, China Matrimonial Study Report and other works.

She is now heading a research project on divorce in China sponsored by the Ford Foundation and another project on welfare and social policy for single-parent families.

The Herb Lingren award was established in 1998 and is awarded annually to two scholars, including a US national and a foreigner.

(Xinhua News Agency June 18, 2002)