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

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that an ordinal relationship of adjustment and self concept existed among four groups of adolescent girls: (1) non institutionalized girls enrolled in a public high school; (2) institutionalized delinquent girls participating in a kinship system and homosexual behavior; (3) institutionalized delinquent girls participating in a kinship system, but not homosexual behavior; and (4) institutionalized delinquent girls not participating in a kinship system. Kinship involvement was defined as that role behavior accepted and exhibited by the girls representative of husband, wife, brother, sister, or other family member. Six sub hypotheses were presupposed and tested; three were related to adjustment and three, to self concept.One hundred twenty subjects participated in the study, thirty subjects being in each group. The ninety institutionalized girls were stratified on the basis of their behavior as judged by two of three persons: the institutional staff psychologist, the girls' assigned counselor, and the girls' housemother. The total sample ranged between fourteen and eighteen years of age.Adjustment was measured by the Total Adjustment score from the California Test of Personality, Secondary Level and the General Maladjustment and Personality Integration scores from the Tennessee Self Concept Scale, Clinical and Research Form (TSCS). The Total Positive score from the TSCS was utilized as the measure of self concept. All girls were tested during the spring of 1970.Data collected from the instruments were initially treated by a one-way analysis of variance. Utilizing the data computed, an analysis of orthogonal comparisons was applied to test the six hypotheses. An F test significant at the .05 level indicated rejection of the null hypotheses.Two of the six hypotheses were statistically significant. They indicated the noninstitutionalized adolescents were significantly better adjusted and evidenced higher self concepts than any of the institutionalized groups. No statistically significant differences were found among the institutionalized groups in adjustment or self concepts on the basis of the remaining hypotheses.In an effort to detect trends in the data and to determine which groups contributed most to the significant differences found, an analysis of orthogonal comparisons was applied to the subscales constituting the Total Positive and Total Adjustment scores. This was followed by the Scheffe test applied to those significant differences observed. A trend was observed for the institutionalized group participating in a kinship system and homosexual behavior to be significantly different in adjustment from the remaining institutionalized groups. No trend was observed on those subscales measuring self concept. Through further analysis, the kinship members involved in homosexual behavior were found to be significantly less adjusted than the remaining delinquent.groups. The kinship members not participating in homosexual behavior were found to evidence lower self concepts than any of the remaining delinquent groups.On the basis of the hypotheses tested, the general research hypothesis was only partially confirmed. An ordinal relationship among the four groups tested existed only as far as the differentiation between the non institutionalized and institutionalized groups were concerned. No ordinal relationship among the institutionalized groups was found to exist. Based on the post analysis findings, a reversed trend from the expected direction relative to adjustment was observed. The homosexually involved kinship members were significantly less adjusted than the other delinquent groups. No conclusion was drawn from the data relative to self concept. Suggestions for future research emanating from the results of the analyses conducted were offered.

No description available.

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences. / Department of Sociology

Typescript (photocopy) / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

This thesis attempts to problematize a collective silence around the concept of race that developed in a Research Methodology English 510 course taught by Dr. Gradin, the Director of Writing at Portland State University, during the Fall quarter of 1995. The members of ENG 510 created a qualitative research protocol that was intended to create knowledge about the literacy needs of juvenile offenders. This was done in partnership with the Juvenile Rights Project, a non-profit advocate for juveniles in the Multnomah county courts, and with Portland Youth Redirection, a program that offers detention alternatives to juvenile offenders. The research was supported by a community-based Learn & Serve Grant through Portland State University's Center for Academic Excellence. I argue that our methods, critical self-reflection and interviews with youth, became fundamentally flawed when we allowed gender issues to displace the more difficult discussion around race. This displacement resulted in a rejection of the concept of self- reflexivity, thereby reproducing a self-serving racist power hierarchy which qualitative research explicitly means to expose. I approach this issue through a critique of Enlightenment philosophy set within the framework of a post-modern theory that denies the truth claims of universalizing metanarratives. The thesis analyses and reflects on theory, class dynamics, and interviews in the field. It also includes quotes from exchanges and spontaneous conversations with youth, juvenile counselors, and class members. Recommendations for further research include highly self-reflexive discussions on the role of race, class, and gender in the researchers' agendas and in their interactions with youth, as well as possible ways to ground the research more strongly and with more visible continuity in a communityrelated context. Here, Portland State University's Writing Center could serve as a nexus.

Teaching incarcerated adolescents can be challenging for teachers to gain students' attention while strengthening their character as part of their rehabilitation and re-socilizaton process.