The purpose of this dissertation was threefold. First, this researcher identified and critically examined selected characteristics of professional social science journal articles related to African American grandparents; the level of their involvement/role (arbiter for parent-child conflict, bearer of family history, caretaker/ childrearing, emotional gratification, gift giving, passing traditions/values and role modeling). Secondly, this researcher identified and evaluated selected characteristics (race, gender, university affiliation and academic degree) of all authors associated with articles chosen for this dissertation study to determine who were writing these articles. Finally, a content analysis exploring direction of inclusion or exclusion of grandparents and scope of literature and research related to the dissertation as discovered in articles of professional social science journals covering a 16-year study period. Survey research and content analysis techniques were utilized to examine relevant articles in professional social science journals in a pool of 12,082 articles for the study period. Implications for counseling African Americans and Black family research are included. Limitations inherent in this study were that (1) relevant journal articles may have been overlooked because the authors used terms in their title or text which 'were related to African American grandparents but were unknown to the researcher; (2) the researcher assumed that descriptive data were necessary to analyze study journals and authors as well as to provide an analysis of the direction and scope of literature and research; and (3) a total of three (3) years of study journals were unavailable to the researcher which altered the number and percent of pages and articles pertaining to African American grandparents issues. Directions for future study conclude this investigation.