Need Help with Study on Children's Behavior

[Research09]

Views on Children’s Behavior and Personal Experiences- Online Survey

Seeking White or African-American adults with a child 12 years of age or younger.

The purpose of this research project is to better understand how people view children’s behavior. This study is being conducted at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

In this study, you will be asked to complete a series of survey questions. You will be asked to answer questions about your background, personal experiences, and perceptions of childhood behavior. In total, the entire study should take approximately 30 minutes to complete.

To participate in this online survey please go to:


http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228VTCJX6H7

[Devaskyla]

[green betty]

I find it hard to believe that a credible academic would use the term "white" in this context (much less capitalize it). You know "white" is a social construction, don't you? Do you perhaps mean "European American"? That would be a more appropriate analogue to "African American".

[green betty]

Wow, I just took that survey and can't believe how poorly it was designed. Talk about gross oversimplifications. And again, a thorough lack of understanding about the concept of race. I strongly recommend the author read Learning to be White by Thandeka, do some hard thinking, and try again.

[Polliwog]

Done.

[Ruthla]

I also think this survey was very poorly written. There weren't even any options for "what race are you" other than black or white! What about people of Asian, Native American, or Middle Eastern descent? What about those of mixed backgrounds?

[Polliwog]

According to the OP, this study is only for white or African American parents. Why, I don't have a clue.

I did the study because I like to help out students and because I'm someone who had undiagnosed ADHD when I was a kid. The more info out there, the better.

[EnviroBecca]

Green Betty wrote:

I find it hard to believe that a credible academic would use the term "white" in this context (much less capitalize it). You know "white" is a social construction, don't you? Do you perhaps mean "European American"? That would be a more appropriate analogue to "African American".

I know!!! I work in social science research, and my boss is a credible academic who thoroughly deserves his excellent reputation because he's very concerned about accuracy and considering all possible interpretations of almost everything...but when it comes to race, not only does he use the term "white" (still widely used in published research these days) or even "Caucasian" , but he insists on categorizing all our research participants as "white" or "African American" and doing so by assigning Asians to the "white" category and Latinos, Native Americans, and all mixed-race people (even if they're mixed white and Asian!) to the "African American" category, AND he never provides any justification for doing it this way! Not only does it irritate me every single time it comes up, but I'm astounded that reviewers (the people who decide whether or not to publish our papers) never call him on it! : I mean, it's true that the vast majority of our participants are either European American or African American and none of the other groups (or even all the other groups added together) is large enough to analyze on its own, but I'd rather just exclude all the "other"s from racial analyses or at least have a REASON based on research to categorize them the way we do.

BethNC wrote:

According to the OP, this study is only for white or African American parents. Why, I don't have a clue.

It's to minimize variation. A lot of statistical tests work better when you compare only two groups. IMO, saying at the outset that you're only studying European American and African American parents is a LOT better than collecting data from everybody and then assigning them a race.

I noticed the survey asked the race of myself, my child's teacher, and my child's doctor, but it didn't ask the race OF MY CHILD! I hope they're not assuming that the child of a "white" parent and the child of an African American parent are different races--they could be the same mix of races. In fact, those two participants could be the two parents of the same child!

Did anybody else notice that in some of the questions, some answer choices were in a smaller font than others? Maybe what they're REALLY studying is whether people are more likely to choose the bigger options! Or maybe it's just my computer....

[green betty]

Lol, Envirobecca! I hope you're right. I can believe that a college student came up with this study, but not that a professor approved it. Did you notice that the author also conflated race with ethnicity?

I am so tempted to send this young woman a big pile of books--the aforementioned Learning to Be White, Black Skin, White Masks, and How the Irish Became White come to mind.

Then again, this study makes just as many thought-free assumptions about ADHD as it does about race. How about kids who have those behaviors at school but not in other settings? If a square peg doesn't fit in a round hole, is shaving off the edges the appropriate response?

[EnviroBecca]

Yeah, I thought it was funny how the one kid profiled had EXACTLY the symptoms listed in the DSM for ADHD and just happened to have ALL of them. Very unsubtle and unimaginative. I'd guess that either this is a student project that won't be reviewed by the prof until it's completed, or it's a student project for a huge class where the prof takes just a quick glance at each project and okays anything that has a hypothesis. Some of my student projects were in both of those categories, and I did learn some things including what was wrong with my study design , but it would've been irresponsible to publish the findings.

I've been trying to read Learning to Be White for about 6 months, but I find a lot of it hard to take. I do know some people whose racial identity is all about shame like she says, but not all white people are like that, and most who are are older than I am. But I totally get what she's saying about whiteness being perceived as the default option and as an absence of ethnicity. I resent it because I feel "mixed"--I'm half British, one-fourth German, and one-fourth Yiddish, and those branches of my family are very different from one another--but all those are considered "white" on forms, as if all the colorful details of my heritage are just erased or painted over. :