Evaluations of child transgressions, disciplinary choices, and expected child compliance in a no-cry and a crying infant condition in physically abusive and comparison mothers

OBJECTIVE: Several components of a social information processing model of child physical abuse were tested. Abusive and comparison mothers' evaluations of children's transgressions, choices of disciplinary techniques, expectations for children's compliance following discipline, and appraisals of the appropriateness of disciplinary choice were examined in a no-cry and a crying-infant condition. METHOD: Thirty physically abusive and 30 matched comparison mothers were individually matched on ethnic background, age, education, marital status, number of children, and cognitive ability. Mothers were asked to respond to questions related to vignettes describing children engaging in moral, conventional, and personal transgressions. RESULTS: As predicted, abusive, relative to comparison, mothers evaluated conventional and personal, but not moral, transgressions as more wrong, used more power assertion (physical and verbal force), expected less compliance from their own children, and appraised their own disciplinary responses as less appropriate. In contrast to expectations, there were no group by cry condition interaction effects on any of the study measures. CONCLUSIONS: The findings provide additional support for the view that abusive, relative to comparison, mothers are different in their evaluations and expectations of their own children's behaviors and that they more frequently select aversive disciplinary techniques. However, given the lack of an expected differential impact of a stressful condition on the cognitions and disciplinary choices in abusive mothers, additional research is needed.     

Attributing responsibility for child maltreatment when domestic violence is present

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to examine factors that influence how child welfare workers attribute responsibility for child maltreatment and child safety in cases involving domestic violence. METHODS: The study used a factorial survey approach, combining elements of survey research with an experimental design. Case vignettes were constructed by randomly assigning characteristics to vignettes believed to be related to assessments about responsibility for child maltreatment. Public child welfare workers were systematically sampled and asked to rate vignettes on male and female caregivers' responsibility for child maltreatment and concerns for safety. RESULTS: The presence of domestic violence significantly affected workers' assessments of the attribution of responsibility and concern for child safety, more so than variables related to child maltreatment. Responsibility for exposing a child to domestic violence differed for males and females, with more factors explaining female responsibility. Substance use by either caregiver was significant in attributing responsibility for physical harm, not watching the child closely enough, and concern for child safety, but not for exposure to domestic violence. CONCLUSIONS: Domestic violence appeared to heighten workers' assessments of responsibility for child maltreatment and concerns about child safety, taking precedence over the characteristics of the child maltreatment itself. Battering tends to work against the domestic violence victim in terms of the attribution of responsibility. A greater number of factors affect female responsibility for exposing a child to domestic violence than male responsibility, even though in every case the male was the designated domestic violence batterer.     

Ethics in field work research: A case study

Most field work studies report findings but fail to deal with ethical problems encountered during their execution. This paper concentrates on four ethical problems which arose during the conduct of a field work investigation of the life experiences of three student teachers. The four problems were: acquiring permission to begin the study; how far to dig into personal lives to extract necessary information; the pitfalls of doing collaborative research; the more a participant tells, the worse he/she looks. A major implication is that ethical problems given the current bureaucratic and interpersonal climate in urban institutions (universities and city school districts) may be unresolvable, rather than simply a minor hindrance to the researchers and participants.     

A dialogic about using Facebook status updates for education research: a PhD student's journey

Facebook status updates provided the data for a study about the transition learning experiences of 1st-year university students. Strict ethical guidelines were proposed by the PhD researcher from the outset of the study. Anonymity was considered important for the approved ethical clearance for both the university and the participants. Phenomenography was adopted and adapted for the study because it both conceptually and methodologically managed anonymity as well as questions of authenticity. An ethical dilemma arose during the research because the archival parameters were expanded by the researcher to allow the collection of data from the participants’ network. Questions of consent in an online space and how to report findings, which included data from people unaware of their involvement in the research, needed to be considered.     

Issues in researching the perspectives of deaf children

Research on children's perspectives has traditionally been neglected, influenced by adults' assumptions of children's vulnerability and incompetence. These assumptions produce methodological and ethical concerns about research with children, such as the need to protect the child from unethical research, validity of the data, and unequal research power relations. This paper reviews these points, with particular consideration to children who are deaf1. The first section examines the assumptions about children in research. These assumptions, as shown in the second section, have further implications for children with disabilities. Section III examines the challenges and issues that need to be taken into account when researching deaf children. Section IV then describes the methodological issues encountered in a study that examined the perspectives of 23 young deaf children in the US and UK.     

Access negotiation and curriculum change: Lessons from Botswana

This paper shares the author's fieldwork experiences gained on access negotiation during a one-year case study of the implementation of a new science curriculum in eight lower secondary schools in Botswana. The qualitative research strategy adopted was deemed appropriate as the study focused on what actually happened in the classroom and on seeking explanations to the transactions from the context and the 26 teachers who participated in the study. This paper considers the main outcomes and results of the fieldwork to be the educative experience of the entire research process and the fostering in the author of a reconceptualization of access negotiation within a developing country context. The implications of this paper for further research can be seen broadly in terms of the ethical concerns and research approaches that are to be observed, adopted, and implemented in working within the "stressed" or underprivileged teaching environments in developing nations.     

Early Attachment Relationships as Predictors of Preschool Children's Emotion Regulation with a Distressed Sibling

The present study examined (1) the emotion regulation of preschool children by observing their emotional responses to a distressed younger sibling during a separation episode; (2) whether children's regulatory responses were related to sibling interaction observed during the separation episode, and (3) whether individual differences in these children's regulatory responses and the quality of sibling interaction could be predicted from early attachment relationships. Older siblings who ignored their younger siblings' distress were more likely to experience personal distress and use avoidant coping strategies. Emotion regulation strategies were related to the quality of sibling interaction such that older siblings who offered comfort to a distressed younger sibling were more likely to express positive affect in sibling interaction, whereas older siblings seeking adult assistance were less likely to engage in conflict and hostile behavior with a younger sibling. Preschool children who had an insecure-resistant infant-mother attachment at 1 year, were more likely to seek comfort from their younger siblings and engaged in more sibling conflict and hostility when they were 4 years old. The quality of infant-father attachment relationships was not significantly related to the child's emotion regulation at 4 years of age. Results are discussed with respect to the social origins of preschool children's emotional self-regulation and the consequences of emotional dysregulation in preschool settings.     

Child sexual abuse prevention: evaluation and one-year follow-up

Because of the high incidence and negative psychological consequences of child sexual abuse, prevention programs have been developed and implemented nationwide. Few programs, however, have been comprehensively evaluated. In this multimodal study, a 3-session adaptation of the Feeling Yes, Feeling No curriculum was provided to 286 third and fourth graders from four schools whose responses were compared to 113 delayed-treatment control children from two schools. Program impact was assessed using a knowledge scale, the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children, a videotape vignettes measure, a parent questionnaire, and disclosure data. Treatment children exhibited significantly greater knowledge and better ability to discriminate safe from unsafe situations on the video measure than control children at posttesting. These gains were maintained at 6-week follow-up testing. There were no differences in treatment and control children's self-reported anxiety or parents' reports of negative emotional/behavioral consequences, which were minimal. Over 5% of participating children reported ongoing or past sexual abuse. In the One-Year Follow-Up Study, children's knowledge gains and prevention skills scores on the video measure were maintained at one-year follow-up. A 1-session "booster shot" program further enhanced children's safety discrimination skills on the video measure.     

Authority and ethics: A case for estrangement in educational research and research education

This article focuses attention on an underexamined issue in the literature on educational research ethics: how ethical authority is established in educational research. We address this from a perspective that disrupts naturalised approaches to ethics, arguing that rather than seeking ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’, researchers are always tasked with constructing ethical stances. Attention can then be placed on the array of embodied and objectified resources that might be recruited in establishing these. Through an engagement with published academic accounts of ethical reflection and decision-making, the article explores the ways that educational researchers achieve or sometimes question their ethical security in respect of their research activity. The analysis we present draws out the referential strategies that constitute ethical subjectivity and maps the diversity of anchoring points that might be recruited in this action. We also draw attention to the process of recontextualisation that is inevitable when one activity (or aspect of an activity) regards another, introducing necessary incoherence into ethical practice. The case we present celebrates rather than seeking to conceal or repair such disruption.     

Inappropriate child rearing practices as perceived by Jewish immmigrant parents from the former Soviet Union.

OBJECTIVES: First to explore what Jewish immigrant parents from the Former Soviet Union consider to be appropriate and inappropriate child rearing practices, and second what are their help seeking preferences in situations of children at risk. METHOD: Interviews with 273 immigrant parents were conducted in Israel. A semi-structured questionnaire included seven vignettes which related to three areas of parental behaviors: Lack of provision of child's needs, corporal punishment and psychological punishment. In addition, open-ended questions were included about the participants' personal beliefs regarding the use of physical punishment towards children. RESULTS: Suggest a concrete and practical approach towards child rearing practices, support for the utilization of certain types of corporal and psychological punishment, consideration of the gender of the child might be a factor in the approach towards corporal punishment. a perception of children as self sufficient at a fairly young age and a tendency not to cooperate with outsiders in situations of children at risk. CONCLUSIONS: Even though Jewish immigrants from the Former Soviet Union might be in a new country for several years, their background may still have a significant role in their child rearing practices and help seeking patterns. Awareness of their perceptions could provide information which is significant for the accurate assessment of situations of abuse and neglect among the immigrants and for defining appropriate treatment objectives and means for achieving change.     

Shameful interest in educational research

ABSTRACT

This article considers ontological conceptualizations of shame-interest as experienced in educational research. Shame has frequently been reported in research as a property of the autonomous individual: the shame of the participant to share with the researcher, and the shame of the researcher to reflexively eliminate. Shame-interest is re-theorized here as a generative research event, as intra-action, as one simultaneous movement in the ongoing present. We attempt an ethical shift from a reflexive stance to fluxing movements of response-ability and co-consequence in order to encourage socially responsive educational research, informed through the conceptual resources of psychologist Silvan Tomkins, and feminist philosopher and physicist Karen Barad. Theory is threaded through a series of personal research vignettes to illustrate our thinking through ways shame-interest materialized within research events. Shame is re/conceptualized as a contestable composite feeling entangled with interest that allows an alternate non-reductive and ethical approach to educational research. We amplify our researcher responsibility, and our shame, by placing ourselves as entangled with the research ‘problem’ under investigation.     

Predicting Mothers' Beliefs about Preschool-Aged Children's Social Behavior: Evidence for Maternal Attitudes Moderating Child Effects

Maternal beliefs about children's social behavior may be important contributors to socialization and development, but little is known about how such beliefs form. Transactional models suggest that children's characteristics may influence parents. At 2 years of age, the shy and aggressive behaviors of 65 toddlers (28 females) were observed during interactions with an unfamiliar peer; as well, mothers described the extent to which they advocated protective and authoritarian childrearing attitudes. These variables were used to predict mothers emotions, attributions, parenting goals, and socialization strategies in response to vignettes depicting aggressive and withdrawn child behaviors 2 years later. Most child effects were moderated by maternal attitudes or gender effects. Authoritarian mothers of aggressive toddlers were most likely to report high control and anger, to blame their children for aggression, and to focus on obtaining compliance rather than teaching skills to their children. Protective mothers reported that they would use warmth and involvement to comfort withdrawn children, especially their daughters.     

Some Ethical Considerations:

This commentary addresses some of the ethical considerations that arise when the college consultant attempts to strike a balance between the parsimony of Shakespeare's Cordelia and the "can-do" posture of Pirandello's Guido. Particular emphasis is given to the ethical implications of mandatory psychotherapy. As well, the author's clinical examples are analyzed and alternative approaches to those that were used in the vignettes are recommended.     

Evaluations, attributions, affect, and disciplinary choices in mothers at high and low risk for child physical abuse

OBJECTIVE: The present study investigated several components of a social information-processing model of child physical abuse. The main objective was to examine the extent to which high-risk, relative to low-risk, mothers differed in their evaluations, attributions, negative affect, and disciplinary choices for children's behavior, and to explore whether these differences may be expressed in interactions between risk status and mitigating information. METHOD: Nineteen high- and 19 matched low-risk mothers' evaluations of children transgressions, attributions, affect, and choices of disciplinary techniques were examined using six vignettes depicting a child engaging in moral, conventional, and personal transgressions. One-half of the vignettes contained mitigating information and one-half did not. High- and low-risk mothers were chosen based on their potential for physical child abuse. A three-factor (2 x 3 x 2) design was used to assess the dependent variables. RESULTS: As expected, high-risk, relative to low-risk, mothers reported more hostile intent, stable and global attributions, aversiveness, annoyance, and use of power-assertion discipline. A risk group by type of transgression interaction was found for evaluation and indifference and a risk group by mitigating information interaction was found for evaluation of wrongness, internal attributions, and aversiveness. A risk by type of transgression by mitigating information interaction was found for global/specific attributions, aversiveness, and indifference toward child transgressions. CONCLUSIONS: Results support a social information processing model of child physical abuse, which suggests that high-risk, compared to low-risk, mothers process child-related information differently and use more power-assertive disciplinary techniques.     

深度信念以及信念和信仰的相对作用

“深度信念”是怀特海文稿中的关键概念。在怀特海有机哲学看来,动机、方法和意义是一个整体。他懂得要在深层次上探查人类追求意义及理解的倾向,进而揭示“追求”行为中的创造张力。深度信念就是这种深层次的动力。深度信念不同于各种各样起源于文化传统的信仰或偶发的信念,它不像后者那样可能失去。怀特海认为,在个人经验中,某一个信念的失去更可能是“无限性激励下的有限性”,是某种“超越的内在性”,“朝向更精美细致的结果”。深度信念促成了精神的冒险,是人类固化成就中不可抹去的最富锐气的因素,是人的呈现。     

Worker judgements of seriousness about and reporting of suspected child maltreatment.

OBJECTIVE: This study examined the relationship between judgements about the seriousness of incidents of suspected maltreatment and the reporting of those incidents. METHOD: Eighty-six graduate social work students were given 12 vignettes depicting problematic parental behaviors. Students were asked to rate each vignette according to how serious they perceived the parental behavior to be with "1" being "not serious" and "7" being "very serious." Students were also asked to indicate whether or not they would report the incident to child protective services. Data were analyzed by case and by individual. RESULTS: All 12 vignettes were serious with mean incident ratings ranging from a low of 6.0 to a high of 6.9. However, not all incidents were reported with similar frequency. Only incidents that were collectively very serious were reported by nearly all respondents (Spearman rank order correlation coefficient = .94). Among worker characteristics, the worker's judgement of seriousness was the only predictor of reporting. CONCLUSION: The results suggest that beginning human service workers are unsure of their legal responsibility to report suspected maltreatment. The results also point to a need for closer collaboration between mandated reporters and child protective services.     

The Coordination of Conflicting Social Goals: Differences between Rejected and Nonrejected Boys

In this study involving 58 fourth- and fifth-grade boys ranging in age from 9 to 12 years old, we examined whether aggressive, submissive, and "residual" rejected boys (i.e., rejected boys who are neither highly aggressive nor highly submissive) are less able than nonrejected boys to coordinate individual and relational goals in their social interaction strategies. Participants were read a series of short vignettes describing children in potentially conflictual interactions, and their ideas about handling these situations were coded according to the degree to which individual and relational goals were integrated. As predicted, aggressive rejected boys and "residual" rejected boys provided less integrated responses than nonrejected boys, and this was true regardless of whether automatic or reflective social reasoning processes were evoked. In contrast to our prediction, however, submissive rejected boys displayed no comparable goal coordination deficit. The implications of these findings for children's social competence are discussed.