In the article”Characteristics of Foster Family Applicants Willing to Accept Hard-To-Place Children”, author Mary Ellen Cox delves into the topic of the foster care system in an attempt to address the problem of foster parents often being unwilling to accept such children, a trend which she argues jeopardizes the quality of care available to children searching for foster homes. To approach this problem, Cox designed her research to answer two questions: “what number of foster family applicants are willing to foster hard-to-place children?”, and “what type of applicants are willing to accept these children?”. Cox gathered several types of data, including demographic and organizational, from 153 applicants in pre-service training. Using a combination of questionnaires, interviews, and public and private records, she measured the presence of 11 different foster parent resources, as well as the willingness of applicants to accept different types of hard-to place children, such as abused children, siblings, or deprived children. Following the period of data collection, the author then used a data analysis to obtain results. Cox found a high number of applicants were willing to take hard-to-place children, 2/3 for most types. She also found that the amount of total resources was a good predictor of willingness, as was membership in a place of worship, or race.

As a whole, I thought the project was interesting, and had great merit. I particularly appreciated that Cox thought to look at different catagories of hard to place children, which was backed by the fact that the results often showed differences. For example, the high willingness of applicants to accept most types of these children did not extent to those with a tendency to set fires. The author did not give much detail on the method analysis, which I was dissapointed with, but in general the project was well done, and engaging to read about.

Cox, M. E.Characteristics of foster family applicants willing to accept hard-to-place foster children Available from Social Services Abstracts; Social Services Abstracts. (61464283; 200104915). Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/docview/61464283?accountid=14729

In the article “Conditions for Effective Children’s Participation, According to Children’s Voices”, the authors investigate the conditions that children’s participation in different settings, such as school, leisure, or student council, should fulfill. The multiple case study, spanning 6 different educational experiences, used information provided by children to developed 3 main categories found to make child participation more meaningful and authentic. These catagories were: 1) acknowledgement of the rights of childhood, 2) how the participation-based experience works, and 3) the role of educators.

To delve into their topic of child participation, the researchers focused on the question: “what conditions must be gaurunteed by children’s participation experiences in  order to be effective from the standpoint of the children participating in them?”. In order to answer this query, the authors collected data consisting primarily of the opinions and attitudes of children. This was done using focus groups of children ages 10 to 12 who were involved in the experiences. Then, the data was analyzed through the process of organizing it, coding it, and then using the process of data triangulation with the catagories of school, leisure, and community to obtain results. Interestingly, the results obtained from asking children their thoughts were similar to the results obtained by other projects on the same topic which did not do so.

I found the research project to be interesting and well done. I appreciated the idea behind the project as well, I feel that asking those involved in such participatory experiences about their ideas is a vital part of improving any such experiences. I also appreciated the attention to minimizing the range of the project age-wise, and by selecting equal numbers of each gender of participant, so as to ensure a better set of results. My only complaint is that the authors indicated they chose groups with shared cultural and social values, which I fear may have limited the range of the study too much, so that it might not be applicable to a broader range of individuals. Otherwise, I found the article to be engaging and the research to be commendable.

AGUD, I., Ana María, N. C., & Asun, L. B. (2014). Conditions for effective children’s participation, according to children’s voices. Revista De Cercetare Si Interventie Sociala, 46, 9-21. Retrieved from http://0-search.proquest.com.books.redlands.edu/docview/1665217576?accountid=14729

In her article “The Moment When It All Comes Together: Embodied Experiences In Ballet”, author Anna Aalten presents a critique of the one-sided analysis of the misogynist nature of ballet, in contrast to the history of research describing ballet as oppressive. She also attempts to make a contribution to a more embodied form of theory, discussing the ways in which ballet offers women the chance to transcend the discontinuity of body, mind, and emotions. To address these ideas, Aalten focuses on the topic of the “construction and representation of gender in social relations and body practices in ballet.” Her project attempts to answer the question “what is the relationship between the symbolic and material, between representations and embodiment in ballet?” To answer  this question, she collected a wide range of data, ranging from acta and reports of acts, to hidden social patterns. Aalten collected this data in a several ways. She observed different body practices during rehearsals and performances, and collected the life stories of female dancers through interviews. Though the specific type of data analysis method is not described in the article, Aalten clearly used some form of qualitative analysis to draw conclusions from her data. Her results were nuanced. Though the early data she collected seemed to confirm the idea of the stereotypical, oppressed role of women in ballet, her eventual conclusion was that the role of women was very complex, and while ballet did have oppressive elements it also provided a great number of opportunities for women. Personally, I found the research project to be interesting and thoughtful, but also felt it was less specific and detailed about the different parts of the project than i would have liked. Still I enjoyed reading about Aalten’s work, and appreciated her willingness to present her results as being complex, rather than attempting to demonstrate a clear-cut pattern.

The European Journal of Women’s Studies 11.3, August 2004, 263-276

In her research proposal “Social Support, Stress, and Adaptation in Immigrant Youth”, author Mary J. Levitt proposes a study to adress deficiencies in knowledge surrounding the adaptation of migrant students to the environment of US schools, particularly expressing concern in the lack of longitudinal data. To delve into the topic on the emotional, academic, and behavioral adaptation of immigrants, she proposes to endeavor to answer the research question: “Are higher levels of family stress and lower levels of social support associated with poor adjustment?”.  This question calls for a wide range of data. Levitt suggests she will collect demographic data, organizational data, and data from surveys and interviews, using data gathering methods ranging from in-depth interviews to the use of public and private records. To collect this data, Levitt explains she will take a random sample of 200 children, evenly divided between genders, from grades 3, 6, and 9. She will interview them at the beginning of the first year, at school in a private location, then make a follow up interview two years later. She will also collect academic performance indicators from school records, background information, and psychological and adaptation ratings from teachers. Following the three year period of collecting data, she proposes to use a multiple regression analysis to search for the answer to her research question.

I was impressed by the thurough nature of the proposal, especially as Levitt already had an idea of the size of the sample she would need, the duration of the study, and the specific evaluations she would ask the teachers to make, though I would be curious to see what, if any, changes she made when it came time to perform the actual study. I was also impressed with the extensive safeguards she specified in order to ensure that the confidentiality of participants would be maintained. The one concern which stood out to me, however, was Levitt’s proposal to give the students each an age- appropriate gift for participation. Though I am not an expert, I understand that researchers are not allowed to offer undue enticement to participants, and I cannot help but wonder if offering a gift for participation might fall within those parameters.

Mary J. Levitt, Florida International University

In “It’s Not How Much You Play, But How Much You Enjoy The Game: The Longitudinal Associations Between Adolescents’ Self-Esteem and the Frequency vs Enjoyment of Involvement In Sports”, authors Paul J.  C. Adachi and Teena Willoughby discuss the topic of the bidirectional associations in adolescent athletic involvement and self-esteem.  The two authors seek to answer two research questions:                                                     1) “Does self-esteem predict frequency in involvement in sports over time, or does the frequency of athletic involvement predict self-esteem?”.               2) “Is enjoyment of sports associated with self esteem?                                            To answer these questions, Adachi and Willoughby surveyed a group of 1492 high school aged adolescents repeatedly over the course of four years. The students would be given questionnaires by researchers in a classroom setting, and asked to respond to questions on their athletic involvement using a five-point scale. The results were then analyzed using an auto regressive cross-lagged model, which organized the data into a form from which conclusions could be drawn. Interestingly, the authors accounted for many factors in their research, including gender, parental education, and at risk backgrounds. Based on the results, Willoughby and Adachi came to the conclusion that higher self esteem results in higher involvement in sports, though the reverse is not true. They also found that higher self-esteem tends to result in greater enjoyment of athletic activity. Notably, neither of these results showed any significant variation by gender. The authors suggested that enjoyment may be more important than frequency when discussing involvement in sports.

I found the study to be interesting and well done. I especially appreciated the careful attention the researchers paid to the variables involved which might alter results. For example, when looking at the relationship between self-esteem and enjoyment, they were careful to control for frequency. My only complaint was that I would have appreciated if they looked more directly at the differences between frequency and enjoyment. Because the two ideas were evaluated in different questions, the comparison of the two seemed somewhat of an afterthought.

J. Youth Adolesence (2014) 43:137-145

In the article “Examining Masculine Gender Role Conflict and Stress in Relation to Religious Orientation and Spiritual Well-Being”, authors James R. Mahalik and Hugh D. Logan delve into the topic of  the intersection between gender roles and religion. More specifically, the two men wished to answer the research question: “Do gender role conflict and stress predict. Catholic seminarian an college age men’s religiosity and spiritual well-being?”. To answer this question, the researchers collected data in the form of surveys, asking 151 single, primarily Caucasian, Catholic men to fill out several tests. Of these men, 77 were seminarians, while the rest were not. Both groups were surveyed on the Gender Role Conflict Scale, the Gender Role Stress Scale, the Extrensic and Intrinsic Religious Orientation Scales, and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale. Mahalik and Logan analyzed the results of the surveys, and came to the conclusion that there are significant relationships between gender role conflict and stress and religiosity and well-being. Interestingly, however, these relationships were often manifested differently between nonseminarians and seminarians, with seminarians often fairing worse than nonseminarians when under a great deal of gender role stress and conflict.

I found the project to be very interesting, though I do agree with the authors’ sown assessment that the self-reported nature of the project, as well as the common answer of “not applicable”, may have somewhat skewed the data. I did appreciate that the numbers of seminarians and nonseminarians were nearly equal, and that both groups drew from a range of states. I would have liked to see a broader study on the topic, rather than one focusing on a single religious denomination, but understand that to do so would have required a much more extensive study. As a whole, I found the article to be interesting, and the arguement to be compelling.

Psychology of Men & Masculinity 2.1, Jan 2001, pgs. 24-33

Kerryn E. Bell’s article, “Gender and Gangs: A Quantitative Comparison”, discusses her investigation of the risk factors involved in gang membership. Using data taken from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) Bell seeks to answer the question: “are there gender differences in the risk factors associated with gand membership ?”. The data Bell took from the records of Add Health was collected from a national sample of children from grades 7 to 12, in the form of surveys, questionnaires, and in-home interviews. Using this data, Bell looked at neighborhood characteristics, parent-child relationship quality, family disadvantage, safety, and numerous other characteristics to see if they influenced the gang involvement of boys and girls differently. As a whole, she found little variation between how risk factors affected each gender. Interestingly, however, Bell did find differences for Hispanics and immigrants. Hispanic girls are far more likely to join a gang than boys, while first generation girls tend to be less likely than their male counterparts. It should also be noted that this quantitative research differed from qualitative work on the same subject in that it indicates neighborhood disadvantage has a minimal affect on gang membership.

As a whole, I found the article to be interesting and thorough. I was impressed that Bell was carful to use data taken from a national sample, and appreciated how she discussed minor variance between genders and gang-members vs non-members while still emphasizing that these differences were not pronounced enough to be concluded as the results of the study. However, she does admit that because the data is taken from schools, it does not include serious gang youth, meaning that the research must be considered in the light that it is based on incomplete data.

crime and Delinquency, Vol. 55, #3, July 2009, SAGE Publications

The article “Lethal and Other Serious Assalts: Disentangling Gender and Context” seeks to address a lack of contextualization of female offenders, specifically in the realm of assault on intimate partners. Authors Carol E. Jordan, James Clark, Adam Pritchard, and Richard Charnigo seek to answer the research question: ‘under what circumstances do females kill or seriously assalt their intimate partners, and do the stereotypes surrounding female intimate partner violence have legitimacy?’.  Jordan, Clark, Pritchard, and Charnigo utilize the data collection method of public and private records to answer this question, taking data from the institutional records of an unnamed state’s Department of Corrections. This data was used to compare male and female inmates incarcerated for the assalt or murder or their intimate partners based on a number of different characteristics, such as race, marital status, and substance abuse history. Notably, some people were intentionally excluded  from the data, such as DUI or child-assalt cases, due to the fear that they might alter the data. Personally, I found the research question to be rather broad, and that equal numbers of men and women should have been analyzed. However, I also felt that the study was both interesting and thoroughly researched, and that the various conclusions drawn from the project were well analyzed and succinctly laid out. I particularly thought many of the trends discovered were very interesting. For example, women tended to be more likely to have a history of victimization or mental health problems, be more educated, be married and with children, and be unemployed. In contrast, men were more likely to have a criminal record, to have been employed, and to be considered violent offenders. Yet the authors emphasize the complex nature of this type of violence, and that reducing these women to a single stereotype can be misleading.

Crime & Delinquency, vol. 58, number 3, May 2012