What I wondered about was how you avoid bias. Like, when you're faced with a kid who doesn't 'bounce back', do you go looking for elements that might not be healthy, whereas with a kid that does, if you're not confronted with it, you would just assume that all is well? Do you exaggerate elements you might have let pass in a kid that does make it pass. I mean, there are all kinds of shots to call. Like, is all physical correction abuse, or do you define it as neutral when it is not frequent and stays within strict boundaries? When does harmless or even supportive teasing among kids become bullying?
What I'd say is that you do indeed need a set of identified behaviours, both positive and negative, and you need to define them in a way that allows for the greatest consistency in measurement. Then, you start shaving.
What these are, I don't really know. I do policy and law, not psychology ;-) Just wondering out loud how you guys deal with these problems.
How is truly objective data gathered? The researcher often has a hypothesis of what they want to learn - is that somehow being communicated to the subject of their study? And does this person figure out what the questions are about, and respond to this positively or negatively, based on their own bias? Are we getting the real information, or information based on what someone wants or doesn't want? Plus, it has been noted that kids are often more aware of their internal experience, but less aware of their behavior. Whereas adults are ware of a kids behaviors, but less aware of their internal experience. How do you reconcile that?
On top of all that, there are ethical challenges for anyone who wants to learn about how well a kid is doing. What does a researcher do if they find a kid has (or is) being mistreated, or living in an unsafe situation, etc. That's "easier" in the West, where there are child protection laws, but there are many countries where are no child protection laws or services (and I say "easier" in quotes, because it is not easy to have to call child protection authorities on a family...). One has to be very thorough and very careful before starting research, and very protective of anyone they are studying. Half the population is under the age of 18. Tanzania's future is NOW...join the 50% campaign!
Also cultural differences between researchers and African communities would skew interpretation of research findings unless a very comprehensive understanding of that particular community or culture was present through the design of the research.
And now my brain runs off to wonder if the local presence of many people who have experienced a similar trauma, in itself builds resilience?
Thanks for this diary Bob, I'm looking forward to the next one too. Ad astra per aspera
http://cfp.english.upenn.edu/archive/Theory/0703.html
Despite Cathy Caruth's claim in her landmark collection "Trauma: Explorations in Memory" that "trauma itself may provide the very link between cultures," trauma has been infrequently explored from cross-cultural and non-Western perspectives. This panel seeks to examine the relationship between trauma and culture, to explore and possibly critique the Eurocentric perspective of trauma studies, and to investigate the manner in which trauma reinvigorates psychoanalysis with the work of cultural critique. Paper topics might consider the following questions: How does culture theorize trauma? Do differentcultures and histories require different theories? What are the ethical problems involved in using European-originated theories for non-European or postcolonial traumatic histories? What are the ethics of cross-cultural comparisons of trauma?
Paper topics might consider the following questions:
How does culture theorize trauma? Do differentcultures and histories require different theories? What are the ethical problems involved in using European-originated theories for non-European or postcolonial traumatic histories? What are the ethics of cross-cultural comparisons of trauma?
neither I read the book.. so I do not have the foggiest idea about cross-cultural trauma... no frigging clue. But the danger of imposing ethnocentrics vision of traumas or looking for traumas in places where tehere is none always exist....
But no idea....
A pleasure I therefore claim to show, not how men think in myths, but how myths operate in men's minds without their being aware of the fact. Levi-Strauss, Claude
