Introductory Sociology Biltong Pdf Merge
Page 381IntroductionChild maltreatment is a devastating social problem in American society. In 1990, over 2 million cases of child abuse and neglect were reported to social service agencies. In the period 1979 through 1988, about 2,000 child deaths (ages 0-17) were recorded annually as a result of abuse and neglect (McClain et al., 1993), and an additional 160,000 cases resulted in serious injuries in 1990 alone (Daro and McCurdy, 1991).
However tragic and sensational, the counts of deaths and serious injuries provide limited insight into the pervasive long-term social, behavioral, and cognitive consequences of child abuse and neglect. Reports of child maltreatment alone also reveal little about the interactions among individuals, families, communities, and society that lead to such incidents.American society has not yet recognized the complex origins or the profound consequences of child victimization. The services required for children who have been abused or neglected, including medical care, family counseling, foster care, and specialized education, are expensive and are often subsidized by governmental funds. The General Accounting Office (1991) has estimated that these services cost more than $500 million annually. Equally disturbing, research suggests that child maltreatment cases are highly related to social problems such as juvenile delinquency, substance abuse, and violence, which require additional services and severely affect the quality of life for many American families. Page 39The Importance Of Child Maltreatment ResearchThe challenges of conducting research in the field of child maltreatment are enormous. Although we understand comparatively little about the causes, definitions, treatment, and prevention of child abuse and neglect, we do know enough to recognize that the origins and consequences of child victimization are not confined to the months or years in which reported incidents actually occurred.
For those who survive, the long-term consequences of child maltreatment appear to be more damaging to victims and their families, and more costly for society, than the immediate or acute injuries themselves. Yet little is invested in understanding the factors that predispose, mitigate, or prevent the behavioral and social consequences of child maltreatment.The panel has identified five key reasons why child maltreatment research should be viewed as a central nexus of more comprehensive research activity.1.Research on child maltreatment can provide scientific information that will help with the solution of a broad range of individual and social disorders. Research in this field is demonstrating that experiences with child abuse and neglect are a major component of many child and adult mental and behavioral disorders, including delayed development, poor academic performance, delinquency, depression, alcoholism, substance abuse, deviant sexual behaviors, and domestic and criminal violence.Many forms of child abuse and neglect are treatable and avoidable, and many severe consequences of child maltreatment can be diminished with proper attention and assistance. Research on child abuse and neglect provides an opportunity for society to address, and ultimately prevent, a range of individual and social disorders that impair the health and quality of life of millions of America's children as well as their families and communities.2.Research on child maltreatment can provide insights and knowledge that can directly benefit victims of child abuse and neglect and their families.
Individuals who have been victimized as a result of child maltreatment deserve to have research efforts dedicated to their experience, in the same manner as our society invests in scientific research for burn victims, victims of genetic or infectious diseases, or those who are subjected to other forms of trauma. Yet the families of child abuse and neglect victims are often not active in social and political organizations. Unable to speak for themselves or employ paid representatives to promote their interests, they have been discounted and overlooked in the process of determining what social problems deserve public resources and attention from the American research community.3.Research on child maltreatment can reduce long-term economic costs associated with treating the consequences of child maltreatment.
Page 40in areas such as mental health services, foster care, juvenile delinquency, and family violence.Economic issues must also be considered in evaluating long-term treatment costs and loss of earnings associated with the consequences of child victimization. One analysis cited by the General Accounting Office that used prevalence and treatment rates generated from multiple studies (Daro, 1988) calculated potential fiscal costs resulting from child abuse estimates as follows: (1) Assuming a 20 percent delinquency rate among adolescent abuse victims, requiring an average of 2 years in a correctional institution, the public cost of their incarceration would be more than $14.8 million. (2) If 1 percent of severely abused children suffer permanent disabilities, the annual cost of community services (estimated at $13 per day) for treating developmentally disabled children would increase by $1.1 million. (3) The future lost productivity of severely abused children is $658-1300 million annually, if their impairments limit their potential earnings by only 5-10 percent.4.Research on child maltreatment can provide empirical evidence to improve the quality of many legal and organizational decisions that have broad-based social implications. Government officials, judges, legislators, social service personnel, child welfare advocates, and others make hundreds of crucial decisions each day about the lives and futures of child victims and their offenders.
These decisions include the selection of cases of suspected child abuse and neglect for investigation and determinations about which children should remain with families in which abuse has occurred. Individuals making such decisions will benefit from informed guidance on the effectiveness and consequences of various social interventions that address child maltreatment. Such guidance can evolve from research on the outcomes of alternative responses to reports of child abuse and neglect, results of therapeutic and social service interventions, and cost-effectiveness studies. Page 41cial welfare, and criminal violence. Although no specific theory about the causes of child abuse and neglect has been substantially replicated across studies, significant progress has been gained in the past few decades in identifying the dimensions of complex phenomena that contribute to the origins of child maltreatment.Efforts to improve the quality of research on any group of children are dependent on the value that society assigns to the potential inherent in young lives.
Although more adults are available in American society today as service providers to care for children than was the case in 1960, a disturbing number of recent reports have concluded that American children are in trouble (Fuchs and Reklis, 1992; National Commission on Children, 1991; Children's Defense Fund, 1991).Efforts to encourage greater investments in research on children will be futile unless broader structural and social issues can be addressed within our society. Research on general problems of violence, substance addiction, social inequality, unemployment, poor education, and the treatment of children in the social services system is incomplete without attention to child maltreatment issues. Research on child maltreatment can play a key role in informing major social policy decisions concerning the services that should be made available to children, especially children in families or neighborhoods that experience significant stress and violence.As a nation, we already have developed laws and regulatory approaches to reduce and prevent childhood injuries and deaths through actions such as restricting hot water temperatures and requiring mandatory child restraints in automobiles.
These important precedents suggest how research on risk factors can provide informed guidance for social efforts to protect all of America's children in both familial and other settings.Not only has our society invested relatively little in research on children, but we also have invested even less in research on children whose families are characterized by multiple problems, such as poverty, substance abuse, violence, welfare dependency, and child maltreatment. In part, this slower development is influenced by the complexities of research on major social problems. But the state of research on this topic could be advanced more rapidly with increased investment of funds. In the competition for scarce research funds, the underinvestment in child maltreatment research needs to be understood in the context of bias, prejudice, and the lack of a clear political constituency for children in general and disadvantaged children in particular (Children's Defense Fund, 1991; National Commission on Children, 1991). Factors such as racism, ethnic discrimination, sexism, class bias, institutional and professional jealousies, and social inequities influence the development of our national research agenda (Bell, 1992, Huston, 1991).The evolving research agenda has also struggled with limitations im. Page 42posed by attempting to transfer the results of sample-specific studies to diverse groups of individuals. The roles of culture, ethnic values, and economic factors pervade the development of parenting practices and family dynamics.
In setting a research agenda for this field, ethnic diversity and multiple cultural perspectives are essential to improve the quality of the research program and to overcome systematic biases that have restricted its development.Researchers must address ethical and legal issues that present unique obligations and dilemmas regarding selection of subjects, provision of services, and disclosure of data. For example, researchers who discover an undetected incident of child abuse in the course of an interview are required by state laws to disclose the identities of the victim and offender(s), if known, to appropriate child welfare officials. These mandatory reporting requirements, adopted in the interests of protecting children, may actually cause long-term damage to children by restricting the scope of research studies and discouraging scientists from developing the knowledge base necessary to guide social interventions.Substantial efforts are now required to reach beyond the limitations of current knowledge and to gain new insights that can improve the quality of social service efforts and public policy decisions affecting the health and welfare of abused and neglected children and their families. Most important, collaborative long-term research ventures are necessary to diminish social, professional, and institutional prejudices that have restricted the development of a comprehensive knowledge base that can improve understanding of, and response to, child maltreatment. Dimensions Of Child Abuse And NeglectThe human dimensions of child maltreatment are enormous and tragic.
Page 43The results of these efforts have been inconsistent and uneven. In addressing aspects of each new revelation of abuse or each promising new intervention, research efforts often have become diffuse, fragmented, specific, and narrow. What is lacking is a coordinated approach and a general conceptual framework that can add new depth to our understanding of child maltreatment. A coordinated approach can accommodate diverse perspectives while providing direction and guidance in establishing research priorities and synthesizing research knowledge. Organizational mechanisms are also needed to facilitate the application and integration of research on child maltreatment in related areas such as child development, family violence, substance abuse, and juvenile delinquency.Child maltreatment is not a new problem, yet concerted service, research, and policy attention toward it is just beginning. Although isolated studies of child maltreatment appeared in the medical and sociological literature in the first half of the twentieth century, the publication of 'The Battered Child Syndrome' by C.
Henry Kempe and associates (1962) is generally considered the first definitive paper in the field in the United States. The efforts of Kempe and others to publicize disturbing medical experience with child abuse and neglect led to the passage of the first Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act in 1974 (P.L. Page 44abuse, (2) sexual abuse, (3) neglect, and (4) emotional maltreatment. Each category covers a range of behaviors, as discussed in Chapter 2.These four categories have become the focus of separate studies of incidence and prevalence, etiology, prevention, consequences, and treatment, with uneven development of research within each area and poor integration of knowledge across areas. Page 45nities, schools, hospitals, churches, youth associations, the media, and other social structures that provide services for children. Such groups and organizations present special intervention opportunities to reduce the scale and scope of the problem of child maltreatment, but their activities are often poorly documented and uncoordinated. Page 46criteria.
Given the early stage of development of this field of research, the panel believes that even weak studies contain some useful information, especially when they suggest clinical insights, a new perspective, or a point of departure from commonly held assumptions. Page 47competence and adjustment that are not a function of social class and circumstances.By contrast, the vast and burgeoning literature on child abuse and neglect is applied research concerned largely with the adverse effects of personal and social pathology on children. The research is often derived from very small samples selected by clinicians and case workers. Research is generally cross-sectional, and almost without exception the samples use impoverished families characterized by multiple problems, including substance abuse, unemployment, transient housing, and so forth. Until recently, researchers demonstrated little regard for incorporating appropriate ethnic and cultural variables in comparison and control groups. In the past decade, significant improvements have occurred in the development of child maltreatment research, but key problems remain in the area of definitions, study designs, and the use of instrumentation.As the nature of research on child abuse and neglect has evolved over time, scientists and practitioners have likewise changed.
The psychopathologic model of child maltreatment has been expanded to include models that stress the interactions of individual, family, neighborhood, and larger social systems. The role of ethnic and cultural issues are acquiring an emerging importance in formulating parent-child and family-community relationships.
Earlier simplistic conceptionalizations of perpetrator-victim relationships are evolving into multiple-focus research projects that examine antecedents in family histories, current situational relationships, ecological and neighborhood issues, and interactional qualities of relationships between parent-child and offender-victim. In addition, emphases in treatment, social service, and legal programs combine aspects of both law enforcement and therapy, reflecting an international trend away from punishment, toward assistance, for families in trouble. Charge To The PanelThe commissioner of the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services requested that the National Academy of Sciences convene a study panel to undertake a comprehensive examination of the theoretical and pragmatic research needs in the area of child maltreatment. The Panel on Research on Child Abuse and Neglect was asked specifically to:.Review and assess research on child abuse and neglect, encompassing work funded by the Administration for Children, Youth, and Families and other known sources under public and private auspices;.Identify research that provides knowledge relevant to the field; and.Recommend research priorities for the next decade, including new. Page 48areas of research that should be funded by public and private agencies and suggestions regarding fields that are no longer a priority for funding.The report resulting from this study provides recommendations for allocating existing research funds and also suggests funding mechanisms and topic areas to which new resources could be allocated or enhanced resources could be redirected. By focusing this report on research priorities and the needs of the research community, the panel's efforts were distinguished from related activities, such as the reports of the U.S.
Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, which concentrate on the policy issues in the field of child maltreatment.The request for recommendations for research priorities recognizes that existing studies on child maltreatment require careful evaluation to improve the evolution of the field and to build appropriate levels of human and financial resources for these complex research problems. Through this review, the panel has examined the strengths and weaknesses of past research and identified areas of knowledge that represent the greatest promise for advancing understanding of, and dealing more effectively with, the problem of child maltreatment.In conducting this review, the panel has recognized the special status of studies of child maltreatment. The experience of child abuse or neglect from any perspective, including victim, perpetrator, professional, or witness, elicits strong emotions that may distort the design, interpretation, or support of empirical studies. The role of the media in dramatizing selected cases of child maltreatment has increased public awareness, but it has also produced a climate in which scientific objectivity may be sacrificed in the name of urgency or humane service. Many concerned citizens, legislators, child advocates, and others think we already know enough to address the root causes of child maltreatment.
Critical evaluations of treatment and prevention services are not supported due to both a lack of funding and a lack of appreciation for the role that scientific analysis can play in improving the quality of existing services and identifying new opportunities for interventions. The existing research base is small in volume and spread over a wide variety of topics. The contrast between the importance of the problem and the difficulty of approaching it has encouraged the panel to proceed carefully, thoroughly distinguishing suppositions from facts when they appear.Research on child maltreatment is at a crossroadswe are now in a position to merge this research field with others to incorporate multiple perspectives, broaden research samples, and focus on fundamental issues that have the potential to strengthen, reform, or replace existing public policy and social programs. We have arrived at a point where we can. Page 49recognize the complex interplay of forces in the origins and consequences of child abuse and neglect. We also recognize the limitations of our knowledge about the effects of different forms of social interventions (e.g., home visitations, foster care, family treatment programs) for changing the developmental pathways of abuse victims and their families. The Importance Of A Child-Oriented FrameworkThe field of child maltreatment studies has often divided research into the types of child maltreatment under consideration (such as physical and sexual abuse, child neglect, and emotional maltreatment).
Within each category, researchers and practitioners have examined underlying causes or etiology, consequences, forms of treatment or other interventions, and prevention programs. Each category has developed its own typology and framework of reference terms, and researchers within each category often publish in separate journals and attend separate professional meetings.Over a decade ago, the National Research Council Committee on Child Development Research and Public Policy published a report titled Services for Children: An Agenda for Research (1981). Commenting on the development of various government services for children, the report noted that observations of children's needs were increasingly distorted by the 'unmanageably complex, expensive, and confusing' categorical service structure that had produced fragmented and sometimes contradictory programs to address child health and nutrition requirements (p. The committee concluded that the actual experiences of children and their families in different segments of society and the conditions of their homes, neighborhoods, and communities needed more systematic study.
The report further noted that we need to learn more about who are the important people in children's lives, including parents, siblings, extended family, friends, and caretakers outside the family, and what these people do for children, when, and where.These same conclusions can be applied to studies of child maltreatment. Our panel considered, but did not endorse, a framework that would emphasize differences in the categories of child abuse or neglect.
We also considered a framework that would highlight differences in the current system of detecting, investigating, or responding to child maltreatment. In contrast to conceptualizing this report in terms of categories of maltreatment or responses of the social system to child maltreatment, the panel presents a child-oriented research agenda that emphasizes the importance of knowing more about the backgrounds and experiences of developing children and their families, within a broader social context that includes their friends, neighborhoods, and communities. This framework stresses the importance of knowing more about the qualitative differences between children who suffer episodic experiences of abuse or neglect and those for whom mal. Page 50treatment is a chronic part of their lives. And this approach highlights the need to know more about circumstances that affect the consequences, and therefore the treatment, of child maltreatment, especially circumstances that may be affected by family, cultural, or ethnic factors that often remain hidden in small, isolated studies. An Ecological Developmental PerspectiveThe panel has adopted an ecological developmental perspective to examine factors in the child, family, or society that can exacerbate or mitigate the incidence and destructive consequences of child maltreatment. In the panel's view, this perspective reflects the understanding that development is a process involving transactions between the growing child and the social environment or ecology in which development takes place.
Positive and negative factors merit attention in shaping a research agenda on child maltreatment. We have adopted a perspective that recognizes that dysfunctional families are often part of a dysfunctional environment.The relevance of child maltreatment research to child development studies and other research fields is only now being examined. New methodologies and new theories of child maltreatment that incorporate a developmental perspective can provide opportunities for researchers to consider the interaction of multiple factors, rather than focusing on single causes or short-term effects. What is required is the mobilization of new structures of support and resources to concentrate research efforts on significant areas that offer the greatest promise of improving our understanding of, and our responses to, child abuse and neglect.Our report extends beyond what is, to what could be, in a society that fosters healthy development in children and families. We cannot simply build a research agenda for the existing social system; we need to develop one that independently challenges the system to adapt to new perspectives, new insights, and new discoveries.The fundamental theme of the report is the recognition that research efforts to address child maltreatment should be enhanced and incorporated into a long-term plan to improve the quality of children's lives and the lives of their families. By placing maltreatment within the framework of healthy development, for example, we can identify unique sources of intervention for infants, preschool children, school-age children, and adolescents.Each stage of development presents challenges that must be resolved in order for a child to achieve productive forms of thinking, perceiving, and behaving as an adult.
The special needs of a newborn infant significantly differ from those of a toddler or preschool child. Children in the early years of elementary school have different skills and distinct experiential levels from those of preadolescent years. Adolescent boys and girls demon. Page 51strate a range of awkward and exploratory behaviors as they acquire basic social skills necessary to move forward into adult life.
Most important, developmental research has identified the significant influences of family, schools, peers, neighborhoods, and the broader society in supporting or constricting child development.Understanding the phenomenon of child abuse and neglect within a developmental perspective poses special challenges. As noted earlier, research literature on child abuse and neglect is generally organized by the category or type of maltreatment; integrated efforts have not yet been achieved. For example, research has not yet compared and contrasted the causes of physical and sexual abuse of a preschool child or the differences between emotional maltreatment of toddlers and adolescents, although all these examples fall within the domain of child maltreatment. A broader conceptual framework for research will elicit data that can facilitate such comparative analyses.By placing research in the framework of factors that foster healthy development, the ecological developmental perspective can enhance understanding of the research agenda for child abuse and neglect. The developmental perspective can improve the quality of treatment and prevention programs, which often focus on particular groups, such as young mothers who demonstrate risk factors for abuse of newborns, or sexual offenders who molest children.
There has been little effort to cut across the categorical lines established within these studies to understand points of convergence or divergence in studies on child abuse and neglect.The ecological developmental perspective can also improve our understanding of the consequences of child abuse and neglect, which may occur with increased or diminished intensity over a developmental cycle, or in different settings such as the family or the school. Initial effects may be easily identified and addressed if the abuse is detected early in the child's development, and medical and psychological services are available for the victim and the family.
Undetected incidents, or childhood experiences discovered later in adult life, require different forms of treatment and intervention. In many cases, incidents of abuse and neglect may go undetected and unreported, yet the child victim may display aggression, delinquency, substance addiction, or other problem behaviors that stimulate responses within the social system.Finally, an ecological developmental perspective can enhance intervention and prevention programs by identifying different requirements and potential effects for different age groups. Children at separate stages of their developmental cycle have special coping mechanisms that present barriers toand opportunities forthe treatment and prevention of child abuse and neglect. Intervention programs need to consider the extent to which children may have already experienced some form of maltreatment in order to. Page 52evaluate successful outcomes.
In addition, the perspective facilitates evaluation of which settings are the most promising locus for interventions. Previous ReportsA series of national reports associated with the health and welfare of children have been published in the past decade, many of which have identified the issue of child abuse and neglect as one that deserves sustained attention and creative programmatic solutions. In their 1991 report, Beyond Rhetoric, the National Commission on Children noted that the fragmentation of social services has resulted in the nation's children being served on the basis of their most obvious condition or problem rather than being served on the basis of multiple needs. Although the needs of these children are often the same and are often broader than the mission of any single agency emotionally disturbed children are often served by the mental health system, delinquent children by the juvenile justice system, and abused or neglected children by the protective services system (National Commission on Children, 1991). In their report, the commission called for the protection of abused and neglected children through more comprehensive child protective services, with a strong emphasis on efforts to keep children with their families or to provide permanent placement for those removed from their homes.In setting health goals for the year 2000, the Public Health Service recognized the problem of child maltreatment and recommended improvements in reporting and diagnostic services, and prevention and educational interventions (U.S. Public Health Service, 1990). For example, the report, Health People 2000, described the four types of child maltreatment and recommended that the rising incidence (identified as 25.2 per 1,000 in 1986) should be reversed to less than 25.2 in the year 2000.
These public health targets are stated as reversing increasing trends rather than achieving specific reductions because of difficulties in obtaining valid and reliable measures of child maltreatment. The report also included recommendations to expand the implementation of state level review systems for unexplained child deaths, and to increase the number of states in which at least 50 percent of children who are victims of physical or sexual abuse receive appropriate treatment and follow-up evaluations as a means of breaking the intergenerational cycle of abuse.The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect issued reports in 1990 and 1991 which include national policy and research recommendations. The 1991 report presented a range of research options for action, highlighting the following priorities (U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1991:110-113). Page 54Although the pathogenic model remains popular among the general public in explaining the sources of child maltreatment, it is limited by its primary focus on risk and protective factors within the individual. Research investigators now recognize that individual behaviors are often influenced by factors in the family, community, and society as a whole.
Elements from these systems are now being integrated into more complex theories that analyze the roles of interacting risk and protective factors to explain and understand the phenomena associated with child maltreatment.In the past, research on child abuse and neglect has developed within a categorical framework that classifies the research by the type of maltreatment typically as reported in administrative records. Although the quality of research within different categories of child abuse and neglect is uneven and problems of definitions, data collection, and study design continue to characterize much research in this field, the panel concluded that enough progress has been achieved to integrate the four categories of maltreatment into a child-oriented framework that could analyze the similarities and differences of research findings. Rather than encouraging the continuation of a categorical approach that would separate research on physical or sexual abuse, for example, the panel sought to develop for research sponsors and the research community a set of priorities that would foster the integration of scientific findings, encourage the development of comparative analyses, and also distinguish key research themes in such areas as identification, incidence, etiology, prevention, consequences, and treatment.
This approach recognizes the need for the construction of collaborative, long-term efforts between public and private research sponsors and research investigators to strengthen the knowledge base, to integrate studies that have evolved for different types of child maltreatment, and eventually to reduce the problem of child maltreatment. This approach also highlights the connections that need to be made between research on the causes and the prevention of child maltreatment, for the more we learn about the origins of child abuse and neglect, the more effective we can be in seeking to prevent it. Page 55Human resources, instrumentation, and research infrastructure (Chapter 8)Ethical and legal issue in child maltreatment research (Chapter 9)Each chapter includes key research recommendations within the topic under review. The final chapter of the report (Chapter 10) establishes a framework of research priorities derived by the panel from these recommendations. The four main categories identified within this frameworkresearch on the nature and scope of child maltreatment; research on the origins and consequences of child maltreatment; research on the strengths and limitations of existing interventions; and the need for a science policy for child maltreatment researchprovide the priorities that the panel has selected as the most important to address in the decade ahead.
The panel received an anecdotal report, for example, that one federal research agency systematically changed titles of its research awards over a decade ago, replacing phrases such as child abuse with references to maternal and child health care, after political sensitivities developed regarding the appropriateness of its research program in this area. ReferencesBell, D.A.1992 Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism.
New York: Basic Books.Children's Defense Fund1991 The State of America's Children. Washington, DC: The Children's Defense Fund.Daro, D.1988 Confronting Child Abuse: Research for Effective Program Design. New York: The Free Press, Macmillan. Cited in the General Accounting Office, 1992. Child Abuse: Prevention Programs Need Greater Emphasis.
GAO/HRD-92-99.Daro, D., and K. McCurdy1991 Current Trends in Child Abuse Reporting and Fatalities: The Results of the 1990 Annual Fifty State Survey.
Chicago: National Committee for Prevention of Child Abuse.Fuchs, V.R., and D.M. Reklis1992 America's children: Economic perspectives and policy options. Science 255:41-46.General Accounting Office1991 Child Abuse Prevention: Status of the Challenge Grant Program.
Washington, DC.Huston, A.C., ed.1991 Children in Poverty: Child Development and Public Policy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Kempe, C.H., F.N. Silverman, B. Droegemueller, and H.R.
Silver1962 The battered child syndrome. Journal of the American Medical Association 181(1): 17-24. Page 56McClain, P.W., J.J. Froehlke, and B.G. Ewigman1993 Estimates of fatal child abuse and neglect, United States, 1979 through 1988.
Pediatrics 91(2):338-343.National Commission on Children1991 Beyond Rhetoric: A New American Agenda for Children and Families. Washington, DC: U.S.
Government Printing Office.National Research Council1981 Services for Children: An Agenda for Research. Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education.
Washington, DC: National Academy Press.U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse and Neglect1990 Child Abuse and Neglect: Critical First Steps in Response to a National Emergency. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. August.1991 Creating Caring Communities.
Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.U.S. Public Health Service1990 Violent and abusive behavior. 226-247 (Chapter 7) in Healthy People 2000 Report. Washington, DC: U.S.
Introductory Sociology Biltong Pdf Merge Pdf
Department of Health and Human Services.
When sociologists apply the sociological perspective and begin to ask questions, no topic is off limits. Every aspect of human behavior is a source of possible investigation. Sociologists question the world that humans have created and live in. They notice patterns of behavior as people move through that world.
Introductory Sociology Biltong Pdf Merger
Using sociological methods and systematic research within the framework of the scientific method and a scholarly interpretive perspective, sociologists have discovered workplace patterns that have transformed industries, family patterns that have enlightened family members, and education patterns that have aided structural changes in classrooms.The crime during a full moon discussion put forth a few loosely stated opinions. If the human behaviors around those claims were tested systematically, a police officer, for example, could write a report and offer the findings to sociologists and the world in general. The new perspective could help people understand themselves and their neighbors and help people make better decisions about their lives.
It might seem strange to use scientific practices to study social trends, but, as we shall see, it’s extremely helpful to rely on systematic approaches that research methods provide.Sociologists often begin the research process by asking a question about how or why things happen in this world. It might be a unique question about a new trend or an old question about a common aspect of life. Once the sociologist forms the question, he or she proceeds through an in-depth process to answer it. In deciding how to design that process, the researcher may adopt a scientific approach or an interpretive framework. The following sections describe these approaches to knowledge. The Scientific MethodSociologists make use of tried and true methods of research, such as experiments, surveys, and field research. But humans and their social interactions are so diverse that these interactions can seem impossible to chart or explain.
It might seem that science is about discoveries and chemical reactions or about proving ideas right or wrong rather than about exploring the nuances of human behavior.However, this is exactly why scientific models work for studying human behavior. A scientific process of research establishes parameters that help make sure results are objective and accurate. Scientific methods provide limitations and boundaries that focus a study and organize its results.The scientific method involves developing and testing theories about the world based on empirical evidence. It is defined by its commitment to systematic observation of the empirical world and strives to be objective, critical, skeptical, and logical. It involves a series of prescribed steps that have been established over centuries of scholarship.The scientific method is an essential tool in research.But just because sociological studies use scientific methods does not make the results less human. Sociological topics are not reduced to right or wrong facts. In this field, results of studies tend to provide people with access to knowledge they did not have before—knowledge of other cultures, knowledge of rituals and beliefs, or knowledge of trends and attitudes.
No matter what research approach they use, researchers want to maximize the study’s reliability, which refers to how likely research results are to be replicated if the study is reproduced. Reliability increases the likelihood that what happens to one person will happen to all people in a group. Researchers also strive for validity, which refers to how well the study measures what it was designed to measure. Returning to the crime rate during a full moon topic, reliability of a study would reflect how well the resulting experience represents the average adult crime rate during a full moon. Validity would ensure that the study’s design accurately examined what it was designed to study, so an exploration of adult criminal behaviors during a full moon should address that issue and not veer into other age groups’ crimes, for example.In general, sociologists tackle questions about the role of social characteristics in outcomes. For example, how do different communities fare in terms of psychological well-being, community cohesiveness, range of vocation, wealth, crime rates, and so on? Are communities functioning smoothly?
Sociologists look between the cracks to discover obstacles to meeting basic human needs. They might study environmental influences and patterns of behavior that lead to crime, substance abuse, divorce, poverty, unplanned pregnancies, or illness. And, because sociological studies are not all focused on negative behaviors or challenging situations, researchers might study vacation trends, healthy eating habits, neighborhood organizations, higher education patterns, games, parks, and exercise habits.Sociologists can use the scientific method not only to collect but also to interpret and analyze the data. They deliberately apply scientific logic and objectivity. They are interested in—but not attached to—the results. They work outside of their own political or social agendas. This doesn’t mean researchers do not have their own personalities, complete with preferences and opinions.
But sociologists deliberately use the scientific method to maintain as much objectivity, focus, and consistency as possible in a particular study.With its systematic approach, the scientific method has proven useful in shaping sociological studies. The scientific method provides a systematic, organized series of steps that help ensure objectivity and consistency in exploring a social problem. They provide the means for accuracy, reliability, and validity. In the end, the scientific method provides a shared basis for discussion and analysis (Merton 1963).Typically, the scientific method starts with these steps—1) ask a question, 2) research existing sources, 3) formulate a hypothesis—described below.
Ask a QuestionThe first step of the scientific method is to ask a question, describe a problem, and identify the specific area of interest. The topic should be narrow enough to study within a geography and time frame. “Are societies capable of sustained happiness?” would be too vague. The question should also be broad enough to have universal merit. “What do personal hygiene habits reveal about the values of students at XYZ High School?” would be too narrow.
That said, happiness and hygiene are worthy topics to study. Sociologists do not rule out any topic, but would strive to frame these questions in better research terms.That is why sociologists are careful to define their terms. In a hygiene study, for instance, hygiene could be defined as “personal habits to maintain physical appearance (as opposed to health),” and a researcher might ask, “How do differing personal hygiene habits reflect the cultural value placed on appearance?” When forming these basic research questions, sociologists develop an operational definition, that is, they define the concept in terms of the physical or concrete steps it takes to objectively measure it. The operational definition identifies an observable condition of the concept. By operationalizing a variable of the concept, all researchers can collect data in a systematic or replicable manner.The operational definition must be valid, appropriate, and meaningful. And it must be reliable, meaning that results will be close to uniform when tested on more than one person. For example, “good drivers” might be defined in many ways: those who use their turn signals, those who don’t speed, or those who courteously allow others to merge.
But these driving behaviors could be interpreted differently by different researchers and could be difficult to measure. Alternatively, “a driver who has never received a traffic violation” is a specific description that will lead researchers to obtain the same information, so it is an effective operational definition. Research Existing SourcesThe next step researchers undertake is to conduct background research through aliterature review, which is a review of any existing similar or related studies.
A visit to the library and a thorough online search will uncover existing research about the topic of study. This step helps researchers gain a broad understanding of work previously conducted on the topic at hand and enables them to position their own research to build on prior knowledge. Researchers—including student researchers—are responsible for correctly citing existing sources they use in a study or that inform their work.
While it is fine to borrow previously published material (as long as it enhances a unique viewpoint), it must be referenced properly and never plagiarized.To study hygiene and its value in a particular society, a researcher might sort through existing research and unearth studies about child-rearing, vanity, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and cultural attitudes toward beauty. It’s important to sift through this information and determine what is relevant.
Using existing sources educates researchers and helps refine and improve studies' designs. Formulate a HypothesisA hypothesis is an assumption about how two or more variables are related; it makes a conjectural statement about the relationship between those variables. In sociology, the hypothesis will often predict how one form of human behavior influences another. In research, independent variables are the cause of the change. The dependent variableis the effect, or thing that is changed.For example, in a basic study, the researcher would establish one form of human behavior as the independent variable and observe the influence it has on a dependent variable. How does gender (the independent variable) affect rate of income (the dependent variable)? How does one’s religion (the independent variable) affect family size (the dependent variable)?
How is social class (the dependent variable) affected by level of education (the independent variable)?Examples of Dependent and Independent VariablesTypically, the independent variable causes the dependent variable to change in some way. Interpretive FrameworkWhile many sociologists rely on the scientific method as a research approach, others operate from an interpretive framework. While systematic, this approach doesn’t follow the hypothesis-testing model that seeks to find generalizable results. Instead, an interpretive framework, sometimes referred to as an interpretive perspective, seeks to understand social worlds from the point of view of participants, which leads to in-depth knowledge.Interpretive research is generally more descriptive or narrative in its findings. Rather than formulating a hypothesis and method for testing it, an interpretive researcher will develop approaches to explore the topic at hand that may involve a significant amount of direct observation or interaction with subjects.
This type of researcher also learns as he or she proceeds and sometimes adjusts the research methods or processes midway to optimize findings as they evolve. SummaryUsing the scientific method, a researcher conducts a study in five phases: asking a question, researching existing sources, formulating a hypothesis, conducting a study, and drawing conclusions.
The scientific method is useful in that it provides a clear method of organizing a study. Some sociologists conduct research through an interpretive framework rather than employing the scientific method.Scientific sociological studies often observe relationships between variables. Researchers study how one variable changes another. Prior to conducting a study, researchers are careful to apply operational definitions to their terms and to establish dependent and independent variables. Section QuizA measurement is considered if it actually measures what it is intended to measure, according to the topic of the study.
reliable. sociological. valid. quantitativeAnswerCSociological studies test relationships in which change in one causes change in another. test subject. behavior. variable.
operational definitionAnswersCIn a study, a group of ten-year-old boys are fed doughnuts every morning for a week and then weighed to see how much weight they gained. Which factor is the dependent variable?. The doughnuts. The boys. The duration of a week. The weight gainedAnswersDWhich statement provides the best operational definition of “childhood obesity”?.
Children who eat unhealthy foods and spend too much time watching television and playing video games. A distressing trend that can lead to health issues including type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Body weight at least 20 percent higher than a healthy weight for a child of that height. The tendency of children today to weigh more than children of earlier generationsAnswersC.
Short AnswerWrite down the first three steps of the scientific method. Think of a broad topic that you are interested in and which would make a good sociological study—for example, ethnic diversity in a college, homecoming rituals, athletic scholarships, or teen driving. Now, take that topic through the first steps of the process. For each step, write a few sentences or a paragraph: 1) Ask a question about the topic. 2) Do some research and write down the titles of some articles or books you’d want to read about the topic. 3) Formulate a hypothesis.
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