Laura S. Abrams

Sampling ‘Hard to Reach’ Populations in Qualitative Research: The Case of Incarcerated Youth

Sampling is an integral component of all research designs. Several qualitative research texts offer practical guides on how to theorize, recruit, and retain a sample to fulfill the aims of a given study. However, there is far less published discussion among qualitative researchers about sampling ‘hard to reach’ populations such as transient youth and young adults, homeless people, IV drug users, sex workers, and incarcerated, institutionalized, or cognitively impaired individuals. In this article, the author presents an overview of qualitative sampling, including its underlying assumptions, major methodological traditions, common characteristics, and standards of assessment. Next, the article identifies several challenges related to sampling hard to reach populations that are of particular relevance for qualitative research. Drawing on an example of a longitudinal qualitative study of incarcerated youth, these challenges are then discussed in relation to the assessment of ‘quality’ in qualitative research.

Barriers to Service Use for Postpartum Depression Symptoms Among Low-Income Ethnic Minority Mothers in the United States

The risks of untreated postpartum depression (PPD) in the United States are higher among low-income ethnic minority mothers. However, research has not adequately investigated barriers to formal help seeking for PPD symptoms among this vulnerable population. We used convenience and purposive sampling strategies to recruit mothers experiencing past-year (the year prior to interview) PPD symptoms (n = 14), community key informants (n = 11), and service providers (n = 12) to participate in focus groups and individual interviews. A grounded theory analysis of these nested perspectives revealed individual, community, and provider-level barriers operating at various stages of the help-seeking process: thinking about symptoms, seeking advice, and rejecting formal care. Although mothers overwhelmingly recommended “talking it out” for other mothers with PPD, an array of attitudinal and instrumental barriers led mothers to choose self-help practices in lieu of formal mental health care.

Disrupting the Logic of Home-School Relations Parent Involvement Strategies and Practices of Inclusion and Exclusion

Through in-depth interviews with 10 mothers from diverse ethnocultural and socioeconomic groups the authors explore issues of parent roles, access to power, and practices of inclusion and exclusion at an urban elementary school that is undergoing comprehensive school reform. They apply a theory of social and cultural reproduction to assess the potential for school reformstrategies to disrupt traditional patterns of parent marginalization within public schools. The analysis suggests that school interventions seeking to change established practices and ideologies concerning parent involvement can become contested terrain, mediating power relations between parent groups and exposing competing needs and concerns about children’s education.

Sociocultural Variations in the Body Image Perceptions of Urban Adolescent Females.

This study investigated the influences of ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and ethnic peer group composition on awareness and internalization of socially sanctioned standards of appearance using the Sociocultural Attitudes Towards Appearance Questionnaire (SATAQ). The researchers surveyed a convenience sample of 208 adolescent females at an ethnically diverse urban high school. Statistical analyses found that ethnicity influenced awareness of socially sanctioned standards of appearance but the effects of ethnicity varied by level of caregiver educational attainment. Ethnicity and caregiver educational attainment together accounted for variance in the internalization of these standards. Moreover, African American girls with ethnically heterogeneous peer groups had significantly higher awareness and internalization scores than those without mixed friends. These findings highlight the importance of multiple ecological factors in assessing risk for disturbed body image and eating disorders. Ethnicity remains an important predictor of disturbed body image but should be treated as a dynamic, rather than a fixed risk factor.

From Corrections to Community: Youth Offenders' Perceptions of the Challenges of Transition.

Abstract Empirical research suggests that the first few months of community reentry are a critical time period for youth offenders to establish routines and support systems that can reduce the likelihood of recidivism. However, little is known about youths perceptions of the various challenges involved in their transition or their coping strategies. This study analyzes a series of 27 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 10 youth who were released from a 12-month therapeutic correctional institution in Minnesota. Participants accurately predicted that “old friends and influences” would present their greatest challenge. However, “selective involvement” with these old friends and influences helped some of the offenders avoid falling back into old patterns or becoming re-incarcerated during the first several months back in the community. The author draws upon this in-depth qualitative data to pose implications for juvenile transition programming and for future research.

The Nature and Usefulness of Qualitative Social Work Research Some Thoughts and an Invitation to Dialogue

In this commentary, the authors respond to challenges that Denzin’s article poses. (See Denzin, this issue.) We draw upon our own experiences as qualitative social work researchers to reflect upon several issues, such as personal connections with research participants; the match between qualitative approaches and the complexities of practice; the roles of values such as social justice and empowerment; the centrality of theories; and the benefits of methodological pluralism. We agree with Denzin that social work has applied feminist, emancipatory, and culturally-based pluralistic values and frames of reference and that qualitative research can implement these values. To fully realize what qualitative approaches offer, however, members of the discipline must contend with obstacles related to opportunities for graduate training and for funding of qualitative research. We invite social workers and friends of social work to engage in dialogue about the nature and usefulness of qualitative research to social work.

Planning for School Change School-Community Collaboration in a Full-Service Elementary School

Contemporary school reform strategies require extensive school-community collaboration, yet the actualization of this goal is very difficult to achieve. Social class and cultural barriers often impede the development of cooperative relationships between school staff, parents, and other community members. In this qualitative study of a planning year for a full-service elementary school, the authors discuss conflicts and tensions that emerged between various groups of participants as well as avenues for coalition and cooperation. A year of field observation and interviews with 21 school staff and 14 community members form the basis for recommendations for successful school-community collaborations in urban schools.

MAKING MEN INTO DADS Fatherhood, the State, and Welfare Reform

Recent revisions in child support and paternity establishment legislation enacted under the 1996 welfare reform act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), significantly alter the American welfare states relationship to mens fathering. Through a critical review of prior research and social service literature, the authors argue that PRWORA actively constructs fatherhood not only through state policies that maintain males as “breadwinners” but also through state-sponsored social service programs that seek to influence mens identities as fathers. PRWORAs policies and their accompanying discourses simultaneously reproduce and undermine gender hierarchy yet tacitly maintain structural race and class inequalities.

Informal Social Support Among Returning Young Offenders: A Metasynthesis of the Literature

Informal social support has long been touted as a key to success for young offenders, but little empirical work has concretized these benefits. This article explores the dynamics of informal social support for returning young offenders (ages 14-24), particularly in the context of peers and family members. The authors use a metasynthesis methodology to examine 13 qualitative articles and dissertations published in the United States from 1998 through 2010. Analysis of these texts found two major themes related to informal support from peers and family members. Young offenders “walked a fine line” with their peers, who provided not only a sense of belonging and possibly a route to material assistance but also temptations and opportunities to reengage with criminal activity. Family members provided the supports and comforts of “the ties that bind” but with potentially unrealistic expectations and reenactment of old roles and negative dynamics. Through this metasynthesis, the authors forge an understanding of informal social support that complicates its presumed benefits for the reentry of young offenders.

Maternal Identity Negotiations Among Low-Income Women With Symptoms of Postpartum Depression

In this study, we used a constructivist grounded theory approach to explore maternal identity negotiations among low-income ethnic minority mothers with postpartum depression (PPD) symptoms. Nineteen mothers were recruited from Women, Infant, and Children clinics located in two coastal cities in the United States to participate in in-depth interviews. Constant comparative analysis revealed that mothers experienced their PPD symptoms and poverty as evidence of maternal failure, but also drew on discourses of maternal self-sacrifice, engagement with their children, and pleasure in mothering to construct a positive sense of self. To negotiate these conflicting versions of self, mothers positively appraised their own mothering in relation to stigmatized “others” and framed their depression as a foreign entity, one that stood outside of a core, authentic sense of self. Through our consideration of the intersecting contexts of poverty and postpartum depressive symptoms, this article adds to the literature on PPD and mothering.