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The influence of family interaction patterns on attachment in middle childhood

The purpose of this study was twofold, 1) to assess and compare the family interaction patterns of families who home educate and those who send their children to public schools and 2) to determine the influence of family cohesion on the self-exposure and self-containment balance of children in middle childhood. In Phase I, 20 home schooled and 20 public schooled families were administered Faces III to assess their family interaction patterns. In Phase II, one child in each family was administered the Separation Anxiety Test to assess their overall emotional openness.

Chi-square analyses were used to determine the differences in the level of mothers' scores on cohesion and adaptability between the home schooled and public schooled groups. Four separate T-tests were conducted to compare the means of the two groups for the perceived and ideal cohesion and the perceived and ideal adaptability scores. Discrepancy scores, differences between husbands' and wives' ideal and perceived scores for family interaction, were also compared for the two groups. None of the comparisons between the groups were found to be statistically significant.

For Phase II, a series of separate-variance T-tests were conducted to determine differences between children from balanced and extreme families and between the home and public schooled children on the overall emotional openness score. No significant differences were found in any of the comparisons.

In general, the findings did not support the notion that families who home educated their children represented closed systems and that such closure in family functioning was dysfunctional. / M.S.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/90941
Date January 1986
CreatorsHoskins, Winifred Anne
ContributorsFamily and Child Development
PublisherVirginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Source SetsVirginia Tech Theses and Dissertation
Languageen_US
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis, Text
Formatviii, 86 leaves, application/pdf, application/pdf
RightsIn Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
RelationOCLC# 14400493

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