Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Farrell J. Webb / The current study was focused on the role Black grandmothers played in biraical (Black and White) racial socialization process of their grandchild or grandchildren. Racial socialization process where by the grandmothers engaged in a systemtic and deliberate attempt to ensure that their grandchildren develp an awareness and sensibilty toward their Black hertiage. There were several criteria the grandmothers had to meet. They included being born before 1975, ensuring that the grandmothers expereienced the post 70s Black pride movement. The grandmother also needed to have contact with the identified grandchild. Qualitative methods with a phenomenological lens were employed. The Black grandmothers are seen as the experts on their experiences, thus phenomenology allowed me to probe deeper into the experiences of these grandmothers and their reality. One-on-one interviews were conducted with the participants at the location and time of their choice. The results revealed the perspective and methods they exercised in racially socializing their biracial grandchildren. The participants had similar beliefs as it related to what their role in the racial socialization process was supposed to be. There were eight primary themes that emerged were community influence, spirituality, social adjustment, feelings toward “the other”, social perception, cultural indoctrination, grandma’s burden, and the road ahead. Although, each grandmother had a different journey their conclusions regarding the way to socialize their biracial grandchildren as Black was unanimous.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Family Studies and Human Services / Walter Schumm and Kristy Archuleta / Financial literacy has become a prominent topic of discussion since the latest economic downturn. Although many studies reveal that our youth’s financial literacy is low, no study to date provides an overview as to how our youth are learning financial literacy concepts. This dissertation seeks to explore how homeschooling families prepare their children to be financially literate. This study reviewed four sensitizing concepts: (a) communication, (b) engagement, (c) outside influences, and (d) parental perspectives based on the learning theory: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Twenty primary educators in homeschooling families from a variety of states were interviewed for this study. Out of the twenty participants, eight were classified in the elementary age group, five were classified in the middle school age, and seven were classified in the high school age. Each sensitizing concept was examined for each school age group. This exploratory study found that parents who homeschool tend to focus on three main topics of personal finance: debt or the avoidance of debt, savings, and budgeting. Little evidence suggests that parents help their children with the mechanics of these behaviors. There were three important findings extracted in this study. First, the results suggest that homeschooling parents need to become better prepared to teach their children about money, and second, that personal finance should be thought of as a core subject in the elementary age years in lieu of just a life skill. Finally, this study found that there is a large focus around personal finance topics in the elementary age years and the high school years, with little attention to personal finance behaviors for the middle school age group. The results of this study provide those entities that advocate improved financial literacy an understanding as to the “how” parents who homeschool prepare their kids to understand money.

<p> Foster youth in the United States who transition out of care have a difficult time transitioning into the world independently. In addition to emerging into adulthood the youth who are parenting during their transition are faced with even more significant barriers. As an attempt to guide those adolescent mothers transitioning out of care this curriculum is a tool to enhance their parenting skills, coping skills, and to increase their ability to overcome barriers as they transpire into the world of adulthood as parents. This curriculum will offer psychoeducation covering topics such as; stress management, coping, and parenting styles to assist in fulfilling adolescent mothers transitioning out of care to reach their full potential as individuals and as an adolescent mother. This curriculum will also include personal assessments, role-playing scenarios and other exercises for the participants to use to practice the concepts learned.</p>

In an attempt to explore how children relate to and explain the concept of suicide, three non-clinical male children, ranging in age from 3 to 5 years, were presented with children's stories adapted to include suicidal content. Following each storyreading session, children were asked to respond to questions designed to assess their understanding of five suicide components: evitability, motive, volition, nonfunctionality, and realization. / The results revealed that these children's understanding of suicide components, when compared to a mature definition of suicide, varied across age and fluctuated across stories. A major finding was that the use of suicide-related theme stories appeared to be a viable technique for assessing suicide concept in children. Children's responses to questions about suicide suggested that other variables may influence children's suicide concept understanding, including verbal ability, nonverbal expressiveness, emotional development, death-related experiences, and religious background. None of the children who participated in the study appeared to experience any severe anxiety in response to suicide story subject matter. The conclusion is that the use of stories as a technique for exploring suicide concept development in young children is warranted. Implications of the findings are discussed, and suggestions are offered for future research. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-05, Section: A, page: 1389. / Major Professor: Gary W. Peterson. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

The purpose of the present study was to develop the causal model that explains how personal and family characteristics influence the well-being of adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs). The causal model was developed based on the Moos model, family systems theory, coping theory, social learning theory, and social support theory. Eighty-four ACOAs were tested in order to examine the fit of the model to the data by path analysis with LISREL VII (Joreskog & Sorbom, 1989). Results of the study showed: (1) that ACOAs who are better able to perceive the availability of social resources tend to have lower emotional status; (2) that ACOAs who are better able to perceive the availability of social resources have a tendency to have better coping skills; (3) that ACOAs who have more appropriate coping skills tend to be better adjusted in life; and (4) that ACOAs who have higher emotional status have a tendency to be better adjusted in life. The finding relating to the negative relationship between the social supports and the ACOAs' emotional status was discussed as well as the practical implications of the study and future directions for research. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-04, Section: B, page: 1927. / Major Professor: Murray Krantz. / Thesis (D.Phil.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

This study examines the effects of various factors on diarrhea morbidity and mortality among infants/children in Bobo-Dioulasso, Burkina Faso. These factors have been grouped into two sets of variables: Those associated with the child's background and the environment in which it is living, and identified as background variables and those associated with the child per se, and identified as proximate variables. / Breaking from traditional approaches that focus on either death or disease processes, and examines the effects of either background or proximate variables, this dissertation, based on a conceptual framework developed by Mosley and Chen (1984), attempts to integrate the study of both morbidity and mortality by assessing the effects of both types of variables and focusing on the "survival process." / The data used for this study were recorded longitudinally by following a cohort of 8,491 births for the first twenty-four months of life. Therefore, event history techniques are used for analysis. Relationships are estimated between independent and dependent variables, through four logistic regression models. As a complement, qualitative data based on interviews of a sub-sample of 76 mothers are also analyzed. / The findings suggest, first, that both types of variables exhibit significant links to morbidity and mortality. Interestingly, these variables are differently related to these two phenomena. This implies that morbidity and mortality are related to different processes captured by the same variables. Second, reporting of morbidity events and selectivity in going to health centers among mothers seemed to be a problem in the study area. This suggests that the understanding of the implications of childhood diseases is not the same for all mothers. Third, it seems that the framework developed for this study is an improvement over that of Mosley and Chen because it is simpler and uses variables that are straightforward and easily measurable in LDCs. Furthermore, the results support the findings of past research on childhood survival and suggest new orientations for research and policy. Finally, the analysis of the qualitative data implies that there are traditional beliefs regarding childhood illnesses and treatment in the study area. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-08, Section: A, page: 3222. / Major Professor: Isaac W. Eberstein. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.

Using the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, this study examines its application to the treatment of traumatized victims and their families. The study's hypotheses focused on the role of stress and social support on the victim's quality of life as well as the families, as a consequence of the treatment. In addition, a control group was established to determine if traditional family therapy was more effective than the Twelve Step approach in ameliorating trauma symptoms. The study's participants consisted of 51 families identified as having one member suffering from traumatic stress. / The multiple regression analysis revealed that the victim's quality of life was improved as a result, through the intervening variables of stress and social support. It was also found to be effective in reducing family stress and indirectly then enhancing the family's quality of life. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-08, Section: A, page: 2590. / Major Professor: Mary W. Hicks. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This exploratory study examined the impact of family history on the recovery of alcoholic women, investigating differences between those who had been sober for at least two years and those who had at least one relapse and less than a year of abstinence. The impact of personal characteristics of the women, social support, and therapy for abuse upon recovery were also examined. / The study used a convenience sample of 157 subjects, with voluntary and anonymous participation, drawn from women alcoholics in the southeastern United States. The women completed a questionnaire using retrospective analysis and self-report data. / Multivariate analysis of covariance was used to examine the impact of individual, family, and socioeconomic factors upon recovery. Race, traumatic reactions, social support, and therapy for abuse were significant factors in differences between sober and relapsing women. Age, education, past physical abuse, and participation in Twelve Step groups, as covariates, did not significantly contribute to an understanding of the differences between the groups. / Sober and relapsing women were similar on measures of severity of addiction to alcohol, family of origin ritual, and parental chemical dependency. Although women in both groups reported a high incidence of family violence, relapsing women reported more traumatic reactions, operationalized as negative affect/cognitive schemata about self and the world; intrusiveness of thoughts, dreams, or feelings about traumatic events; and avoidance of stimuli associated with the traumatic event. / A combination of variables was found to accurately predict group membership, providing a means of identifying alcoholic women who are most vulnerable to relapse. Direct discriminant function analysis determined that the variables identified in the study accurately predict recovery, correctly classifying 94% of the cases. Differences between the groups on the tested variables accounted for 67% of the variance. Avoidance of stimuli associated with traumatic events, education, age, negative affect/cognitive schemata about self and the world, and counseling for abuse issues, in that order, made the greatest contributions to the analysis. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 55-11, Section: A, page: 3655. / Major Professor: Thomas A. Cornille. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1994.

This study examined the relations among the perception of family of origin health and individual psychological and psychosocial characteristics. Specifically, four characteristics were measured: self esteem, spiritual well-being, marital satisfaction, and perception of current family strengths. In addition, this study assessed the ability of self esteem, spiritual well-being, marital satisfaction, and perception of family strengths to be predictive of perception of family of origin health. Finally, this study assessed the ability of self esteem, spiritual well-being, marital satisfaction, and perception of family of origin health to be predictive of family strengths. / Symbolic interaction and General Systems Theory provided the theoretical framework for this research. A survey research design was utilized in which 126 married individuals (63 couples) responded to five survey instruments which included: the Family of Origin Scale, Rosenberg's Self Esteem Scale, the Spiritual Well-Being Scale, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, and the Family Strengths Scale. Analyses were conducted using step-wise multiple regressions, Pearson correlations, and t-tests. / Results indicated that self esteem and spiritual well-being can be used together with an accuracy rate of 15% of the known variance in the prediction of perception of family of origin health. Results also indicated that marital satisfaction and spiritual well-being can be used together with an accuracy rate of 28% of the known variance in the prediction of family strengths. / Additional analyses of the main variables (perception of family of origin health, self esteem, spiritual well-being, marital satisfaction, family strengths) for possible gender differences yielded significant differences only for spiritual well-being with females scoring higher than males. Additional analyses also revealed that no significant differences in spiritual well-being existed between females who participate in organized religion and those who do not. / These findings and implications for theory, research, and practice are presented. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 53-11, Section: A, page: 4098. / Major Professor: Mary Hicks. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1992.

The purpose of this study was to determine how relational communication changes over the life-span of couples comprising the cohorts of exclusive dating (6 or more months of exclusive dating), engaged, early married (married less than 5 years), middle married (5 to 19.11 years), and late married (20 or more years) dyads. The present study is the first to measure relational communication with both premarital and marital dyads, and to include couples with and without children. / A convenience sample of 130 couples, across the five cohorts, were administered a slightly modified version of The Marital Communication Inventory (MCI). The results revealed a significant difference in relational communication between the engaged and the middle married couples, and between the engaged and late married couples. The trend was high levels of communication in the engaged cohort, decreasing over the life-span, with the middle married group possessing the lowest level of communication. No differences between the genders were found within a cohort. However, the females in the engaged group evidenced both the highest and the lowest scores on the MCI. / While couples differed along the life-span, correlational data indicated that the longer the couple had been together, the more agreement existed on how they communicated as a couple. Suggestions are made for the practitioner/researcher to focus more on correlational analysis. Methodological concerns for continued research in this area are also discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-03, Section: A, page: 1095. / Major Professor: Curtis H. Krishef. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1993.