This dissertation examines the contested terrain of family through qualitative analysis of child custody decisions. Legal parenthood was historically based on the heteronormative family ideal of a legally married monogamous heterosexual couple and their biogenetically related children. In the context of diverse family forms of the twenty-first century, however, courts struggle to draw the boundary lines of legal parenthood. Although previous research has examined the role of parental gender or sexual identity on child custody decisions, my research fills an important gap, as I analyze variations in gender, sexual identity, and path to parenthood for heterosexual, gay, lesbian, and bisexual mothers and fathers. Using the universe of state-level child custody decisions from 2003 to 2009, I created a unique data set in which I matched court cases involving gay and lesbian parents to cases in the same court and time period that involved heterosexual parents, resulting in 254 court decisions. This research design enabled me to illuminate how courts construct families and parents in the context of variations in parental gender, sexual identity, and path to parenthood. In addition, qualitative textual analysis demonstrates how the courts struggled to conceptualize family forms outside of heterosexual marriage and biogenetically related children. Indeed, biogenetics continue to remain central to legal constructions of parenthood. This research also reveals the continued legal regulation of family forms that deviate from the heteronormative ideal. Overall, this research elucidates larger questions about inequality, gender, sexuality, and family in the United States.

Researchers have traditionally evaluated success and achievement by examining prescribed constructs and their relationship to specific behaviors, performance skills, or cognitive abilities. The adolescents that have been studied were primarily from urban or metropolitan environments, and these studies did not factor in the influence of cultural context on variations in adolescent success strivings. This longitudinal investigation attempted to expand upon existing studies by not only focusing on a rural, southern high school sample, but also by allowing the students to generate their own criteria for defining success. A 12 category questionnaire, which was developed for this research project, and the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale for Children were administered on two occasions to the same group of subjects. The first study (T1) was conducted at middle adolescence, when participants were ninth graders; the second study (T2) was conducted at late adolescence during the twelfth grade. At T1, 149 students, ages 14-16 participated. Eighty were African American (AA); 54 were Caucasian (C). At T2, 152 students, ages 16-19 completed the assessment. Fifty-nine in this study were C and 75 were AA. At both T1 and T2, participants consistently identified three criteria when they generated their own success definitions: accomplishments/recognition, personal attributes and work/career. This was true across the variable of race though some variation was noted in comparison of gender-specific responses. The most frequently cited component of success, accomplishment/recognition, was described as setting and achieving goals being their best, working hard and achieving fame. Comparison of self-concept scores between T1 and T2 showed a significant increase in self-esteem across variables of race and gender. These data provide a profile of rural, southern adolescents viewed from a cultural and longitudinal perspective. The definitions generated by these adolescents can be valuable in the assessment of their success oriented behaviors. Further investigations of adolescents' perceptions of success can contribute to the development of plans and strategies for parents, educators and counselors to assist adolescents with their strivings for success.

Many couples get married hoping and believing their new relational commitment will last a lifetime. Unfortunately, however, this expectation sometimes goes unrealized. In our society, divorce rates are high and continue to climb due to a myriad of contributing factors. In regard to marriages directly connected to military culture and traditions, they not only grapple with managing the everyday stress and strain encapsulated in daily living, they also contend with military-related stressors that can also disrupt personal connections and derail marriages. In this study, the researcher will focus on the lived experience of Vietnam Combat Veteran Couples in long-term marriages diagnosed with PTSD. The goal of this study is to pinpoint some of the most-enduring yet integral aspects of intimacy having contributed to the long-term marriages of this population. The most-enduring and integral aspects within these relationships, in this population, has not been thoroughly studied. Moreover, this study will help to fill this gap in research by exploring the positive aspects found within the long-term marital relationships of Vietnam Combat Veteran Couples diagnosed with PTSD. The researcher will utilize a theoretical approach designed to work in concert with the multifaceted variances found within the premise of marriage itself; while also focusing on both the academic and practical sides of this phenomenon. The researcher will employ theme based interview questions in an attempt to examine the lived experience, as well as, the enduring and integral aspects associated with the longevity of these long-term marriages. Couple participants will be studied using the phenomenological method Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The results of which will guide the researcher in formulating discussions, conclusions, and recommendations for the future.

Parent involvement in political activities is a rare form of parent participation. Most parents who take an interest in schools become involved with their child's classroom, attend school functions and activities, assist with fundraisers, attend PTA meetings. As the process for funding public school education has become more difficult and as decisions about education become more political, some parents have reacted to that trend and have become involved in the politics themselves. Changes in laws and education funding formulas in Massachusetts over the last decade has caused parents to become more protective, more vigilant of the school budget process, and of the way politicians position themselves on school issues. This is the case study of six parents who have been involved in schools and community politics over a decade in Millville, a community in western Massachusetts. The population of Millville is mainly elderly and White, while the school population is more than seventy percent minority, the majority of whom are Puerto Ricans. This has caused a clash of culture, age, and priorities. The schools have become a political battleground, and with parents no strangers to those battles as they fight to protect the rights of children to an equitable education. The involvement of these parents has been directly influenced by the enactment of a tax limitation proposal known as Proposition 2 1/2. A document review reveals the nature of the political climate of the Commonwealth during the last decade as it influenced local and state decision making about public schools and the funding of them. This study explores for what reasons parents participate in parent involvement through governance activities; how the climate of the last decade has influenced the types of activities in which parents engage; why parents make governance activities their priority; how their earlier experiences in parent involvement were similar to or different from the types of activities they find themselves engaged in now; how their earlier impressions of their involvement different from the current climate for parental involvement; and what types of parent involvement, given the current political climate of the Commonwealth, are most important now.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the impact which changes in living environments (i.e., from homelessness, in a shelter unit, to the family's own dwelling unit) have on the academic achievement of school-age children. The study samples seven cases of public school children who were in grades 5 through 8, during the years 1988 to 1991. It compares the academic achievement scores of these children on the same standardized test during two points in their education: when they lived in a sheltered unit and when they returned to the family's own dwelling. The researcher hypothesized that homelessness adversely influences academic achievement in eight academic categories. The academic categories, as defined by the California Achievement Test, are: Word Analysis, Vocabulary, Comprehension, Spelling, Language Mechanics, Language Expression, Mathematics Computation, and Mathematics Concepts and Application. The case study technique is used along with pattern-matching (i.e., quasi-experimental) research methodology to compare and measure the achievement of children during the period in which they were classified as homeless. This study matched the academic achievement score to the norm academic achievement score in order to determine the impact of the homeless experience on each category listed on the California Achievement Test Battery. There were two possible outcomes for academic achievement--a positive performance or a negative performance. All scores over the district mean in each of the categories resulted in a positive, or increase in, performance and the conclusion that homelessness has "no effect" on academic achievement. Scores below the district mean for each of the categories resulted in a negative, or decrease in, performance and the conclusion that homelessness has "an effect" on academic achievement. The results of the study indicate that homelessness has an adverse effect on the academic achievement of school-age children. The study also suggests that if supportive educational services are not received while the school-age child is homeless, when he/she returns to living within a family unit, his/her academic achievement results on the standardized California Achievement Test would tend to show a negative deviation from the district mean.

This qualitative study focused on mothers who were sexually abused as children and whose children disclosed incest before turning eighteen. It describes the ways nine women between the ages of 30 and 49, who volunteered to be interviewed, discussed their history of multigenerational sexual abuse and its impact on their lives and their parenting. Semi-structured clinical interviews which took approximately two to three hours each, provided the data for the study. The interview questions were divided into three sections. The questions in the first section asked for the participant's ideas about the parenting relationship. The second section included questions about how she discovered and responded to the sexual abuse of her children. The third part asked for information about how her parents responded to her own childhood victimization, and for her ideas about multigenerational patterns of abuse. Each interview was adapted to be sensitive to the emotional needs and level of understanding of each participant. Embedded in the interview questions were two social-cognitive developmental assessments: one which looked for stages of self-understanding, and one which looked for levels of conceptualizations about the parenting relationship. A high level of correspondence was found between the results of the two assessments. The interviews were transcribed and then analyzed in two phases. The theme analysis is a summary of the major relevant content themes which emerged during the early combing of the data. Among these themes are participants' ideas about connections between childhood sexual victimization in their own lives and childhood incest in their children's lives, and their thoughts about breaking multigenerational patterns of abuse. The next phase, the developmental analysis, summarizes and demonstrates how each of the six themes was negotiated by participants at three different stages of social cognitive development. Many consistencies were found in the ways women at each developmental stage described their thoughts and ideas about abuse in both generations. The results speak to the usefulness of social cognitive developmental schemas in explaining and organizing the various ways mothers who are coping with multigenerational victimization make meaning of their experiences. They indicate a strong relationship between social cognitive development and how people understand, recover from, and change patterns of multigenerational sexual abuse in their families. The findings have implications for clinical practice. They suggest that clinicians attempting to facilitate recovery from sexual victimization might better meet the differing needs of clients when equipped with an understanding of the ways in which social cognition develops and has impact on the process.

It is known that families of children with disabilities need to be included in partnerships with schools to promote maximum benefit for the child. Schools need to find a way to promote these partnerships without severely impacting resources. Although television is sometimes perceived as the "enemy," perhaps it can serve as the medium through which the beneficial partnerships can be promoted. Perhaps it can simultaneously be utilized as the means for extending learning time for children. Television could become a beneficial teaching tool, for both parents and children. A series of three videotapes was prepared, including a "host family" and teachers on each. The "host family" read a story, depicted how a particular term or concept could be utilized while performing routine tasks, and presented how they had resolved an issue. The teachers introduced the families, targeted concepts and presentations, and provided music and additional books. A theme song, written and sung by a parent, was also included. Each tape was viewed by families from four Special Needs Preschool classes. The families represented both peer model and program children. The teachers were known to families from two of the classes. After viewing each of the tapes, parents responded to a questionnaire. Upon completion of the viewing, questionnaires were analyzed to determine if parents, children and siblings had viewed the tapes and how often, if follow-up activities had been attempted by them, and if the tapes were perceived as beneficial. Additionally, questionnaires were analyzed in order to determine if familiarity with performers or status as peer or program family affected responses. It was found that families did view the videotapes, many families attempted activities, and the tapes were perceived as very beneficial. Familiarity with performers made a positive difference, and both peer and program families responded favorably. Findings strongly indicate that videotapes can serve as a very beneficial tool, and they are especially effective when the child's teacher is one of the performers. Teachers and families should work cooperatively to prepare this highly effective Video Bridge.

Considering that approximately two-thirds of individuals who are released from prison are re-arrested at least once within three years following release (Langan and Levin 2002), any research that seeks to identify factors associated with successful reentry is certainly warranted. This dissertation investigates the role of family support for individuals who have been deemed serious and violent offenders and recently released from state prisons. Little research has sought to quantitatively measure the extent of the relationship between levels of family support and recidivism after controlling for other known predictors of reoffending. Prior research has largely relied on fairly small sample sizes, short follow-up periods post-release, basic bivariate analyses and inconsistent conceptualizations of family support (La Vigne, Visher and Castro 2004; Nelson, Deess and Allen 1999; Sullivan, Mino, Nelson and Pope 2002; Visher, La Vigne and Travis 2004b). As part of the evaluation of the Serious and Violent Offender Reentry Initiative (SVORI), 1,697 adult males and 357 adult females were interviewed 30 days prior to their release and then three, nine and 15 months following release. Using the data collected from these interviews, this dissertation explores the relationship between emotional family support and instrumental family support and four measures of reoffending: any self-reported criminal offending, any self-reported violent offending, any self-reported drug offending and whether any arrest occurred (using official records from the National Crime Information Center) during each of the post-release follow-up periods. Controlling for other known predictors of reoffending, logistic regression models are used to predict the likelihood of reoffending. Considering respondent attrition over successive interview waves, all analyses are conducted using listwise deletion as well as multiple imputation to handle missing data. Results generally reveal that emotional support is associated with a significant decrease in reoffending, while instrumental support is not significantly associated with reoffending. These findings have implications for correctional policies and programming, sentencing policies, post-release supervision policies and programming, criminological theory and future research. / Criminal Justice

This short-term longitudinal study investigated the effectiveness of an infant-based, family-focused intervention at birth, on patterns of mother-infant interactions, as well as on mothers' representations of their newborns and of themselves, four months after birth. The effectiveness of the Clinical Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (CLNBAS) (Nugent & Brazelton, 2000a), a new clinical adaptation of the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS) (Brazelton, 1973, 1984; Brazelton and Nugent, 1995), as a means of positively influencing the mother-infant relationship was examined. The objectives of this study were to determine the effectiveness of the CLNBAS intervention on mother-infant interaction, specifically, mothers' sensitive caring, and infants' cooperative responding, as measured by the CARE-Index (Crittenden 1981, 1988, 1998), and on mothers' representations of their babies, and their representation of themselves as mothers, as measured by the Maternal Representations Questionnaire (MRQ (Stern-Bruschwieler & Stern, 1998). This was the first controlled study using the CLNBAS. Results of the CARE-Index scoring of mother-infant play showed positive trends in mothers' sensitivity and babies' cooperativeness were associated with the CLNBAS intervention. A significant, strong relationship existed between mothers' sensitivity and babies' cooperativeness. An odds ration (OR) analysis was performed with CARE-Index scores. Receiving the intervention more than doubled the chance of a mother being sensitive, and it increased the chance of a baby being cooperative by approximately four times, which was significant. MRQ results showed mothers' scores of their representations of their babies and of themselves tended to be positive, and there was a general growth in this positiveness over the course of the study for both experimental and control mothers. The total range of MRQ scores was narrow across the three data collection periods. Correlations between mothers' MRQ scores of their babies and of themselves over the three time periods showed some significant though modest relationships. There were no significant differences in MRQ scores associated with the CLNBAS intervention. In sum, this study has shown the CLNBAS intervention to be effective in facilitating mothers' sensitivity with their babies, and babies' cooperativeness with their mothers.

Over 1,000,000 adolescent girls become pregnant each year, and nearly half of these girls give birth. Individuals between the ages of 20 and 29 account for nearly 20% of all documented AIDS cases. Given the long incubation period for the AIDS virus, many of these individuals were probably infected during sexual activity in adolescence. This exploratory research examined the predictive ability of demographic, developmental and personality variables on becoming sexually active, and on AIDS risk-taking and pregnancy risk-taking behavior in middle adolescence. A sample of 381 high school students (204 females, 177 males), age 14-18, from a town in Western Massachusetts completed a questionnaire. The majority of the sample (57%) reported having had sexual intercourse. Having a sexually active best friend, lower school achievement (GPA), lesser perceived parental support, and high sensation seeking needs were all associated with experience with sexual intercourse. Participants who initiated intercourse at a younger age, had higher sensation seeking needs, a sexual abuse history, and who were older were those who exhibited the highest levels of AIDS risk-taking behavior. Participants who were younger, who initiated sex earlier, and had a sexual abuse history were those most likely to exhibit pregnancy risk-taking behavior. Some significant gender differences were noted for factors influencing sexual risk-taking. Results provide further support for the effects of sexual abuse on adolescent development and sexuality. The findings suggest a need for education in middle and elementary school, and the importance of using peer-led intervention efforts.