The problem of this study is to (1) determine the amount of peer acceptance existing among a group of delinquent girls committed to the Texas State Training School for Girls and (2) to determine the relationships between peer acceptance and some other variables.

There seems to be common agreement among practitioners and researchers in Criminal Justice that youth who are abused often become participants in the juvenile justice system. The current literature finds considerable evidence to support this position. However, some questions concerning the relationship between child abuse and juvenile delinquency remain. Specifically, how direct, or casual, is the link between the two? Are different groups of youth, such as Hispanic famales uniquely affected?

When juveniles are defined by society as delinquent they are frequently institutionalized. These institutions are referred to as reform schools, correctional institutions or schools, residential care facilities, treatment centers, or variations of the above. They are state sponsored or privately sponsored. Whatever name is on the sign by the front door, each institution is in the business of "people changing." The excellence of an inanimate product can be measured, weighed, checked, and reproduced; but an altered person is more difficult to measure. If one is in the business of people-changing, it seems important to see if one is in fact changing people. This study of post institutional adjustment in one privately sponsored girl's residential care facility is an attempt to look at change in a group of released girls measured in the scale devised by the study group).

While men do indeed construct self-validating and often peculiar interpretations of the realities of their world the simple fact that these views become consensually shared doctrines of experience does not protect them from the revisionism of historical scrutiny. These perceptions of the world become retrospectively altered as developing bodies of knowledge reject them as being clearly deceptive or anachronistic. The concept of psychopathology, distinguished historically under many rubrics, has not been immune to these same processes of modification, nor has it ever been free of the diverse irrationalities which men of all ages have constructed to explain the etiology and treatment of deviant behavior. Historically, consideration of atypical behavior all reflect attempts to explain dysfunction utilizing existing systems of belief and knowledge. For example, primitive and ancient societies advanced quasi-theoretical frameworks that stressed either external causation (e.g., spirit intervention, sorcery, demonic possession, lunacy, bewitchment) or personal causation (e.g., loss of soul, breach of taboo, object intrusion, brain disease). Of course, retrospective evaluation of these explanatory devices have found them to be woefully impoverished. With the advent of science these archaic beliefs were found to be incompatible with a rational view of the world where all events had logical and determinable causes. Moreover, with the development of the medical model of disease, aberrant behavior, of a functional nature, could be explained and treated in the same systematic manner as that which had an organic basis. While the "new view" still distinguished between external and internal causation of psychopathology, it radically redefined explanatory concepts and apparently located dynamics of the disease process within the individual. The classic psychiatric/psychological approach has (and continues to) stressed the description and classification of pathological signs and symptoms and when etiology was considered, illness was accounted for more often than not by such intra-psychic factors as anxiety, stress, breakdown of defense mechanisms and ego strength. Current theories of psychopathology have not been quite as oblivious to the effects of the individual's environment in the production and maintenance of both functional and organic illness. Nor can they be, for the last two decades have witnessed a growing awareness of the purely sociological aspects of pathological processes--processes which had hitherto been assigned only to individual defects. Research in the social epidemology of mental illness has established the importance of numerous sociological variables including ecological and socioeconomic status factors,personal and social characteristics, and culture-specificfactors. It is now commonly recognized that the environment of the individual plays a crucial role in determining the characteristics and course of pathological processes.

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

published_or_final_version / Social Work / Master / Master of Social Work

Current research on girls and delinquency has brought to awareness the often stressful and traumatic lives of girls. Furthermore, the last three decades have seen an increase in the proportion of girls entering the Juvenile Justice System and an increase in the proportion of girl’s court ordered to attend military structured treatment programs. Developed with boys in mind, many researchers in the area of female delinquency believe that military structured treatment programs are less effectiveness for girls. Thus, the goal of the current study is to consider the experience of girls in a military structured residential treatment facility. Additionally, this study sought to answer the following questions posed by the administrative personnel of this program: 1) Why do staff members report more difficulties when working with the girls? 2) Why are girls more emotionally labile than boys? 3) What changes can be made to the program to increase girls’ success in the program? Participants in this study were referred to a military structured residential treatment program. At the time of the study, four girls, ages 14 to 16, participated in the study. In addition to the girls’ participation, staff members including drill instructors, program officers, teachers, health professionals, and administrative staff participated in the study. The current study utilized an ethnographic approach to explore and identify information that may be useful in better understanding the research questions. The Listening Guide Method (Brown & Gilligan, 1992) was utilized to conduct a narrative analysis of the interviews with both the girls and staff members. Results demonstrated that while in the program, services provided were uneven in both scope and quality. For example, lack of training among staff members resulted in missed opportunities to teach the girls necessary skills that would enable them to tolerate emotional distress while in the program and at home. In order to better meet the needs of the girls, it is recommended that this program strive to integrate both military and therapeutic programming, and educate and train all its staff members in the delivery of gender-responsive programming. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of History, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [20-31]).

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