Paul C. Rosenblatt

Qualitative Family Research

Qualitative family research requires in-depth and detailed information about family interactions and about the perceptions, understandings, and memories of family members. In qualitative family research, the persons being studied “speak” in words or through other symbols about family experiences and dynamics. There can be a special excitement that comes with the access to such privileged information and a heavy responsibility to present it respectfully in written reports.

Origins and effects of group ethnocentrism and nationalism

Sumner, who coined the word, described &dquo;ethnocentrism&dquo; as &dquo;this view of things in which one’s own group is the center of everything, and all others are scaled and rated with reference to it.... Each group nourishes its own pride and vanity, boasts itself superior, exalts its own divinities, and looks with contempt on outsiders. Each group thinks its own folkways the only right ones, and if it observes that other groups have other folkways, these excite its scorn&dquo;

Economic Vulnerability and Economic Stress in Farm Couples.

Spouses in 29 randomly sampled farm couples independently filled out questionnaires dealing with economic resources, economic losses in the past year, feelings of economic stress and patterns of blaming in the marriage. Agreement between spouses on the key measures of the study was good. Couples with greater economic vulnerability reported greater economic distress, although they tended to report experiencing less loss. Couples reporting greater economic distress reported greater blaming in the marriage. The economic problems of farm couples with greater economic vulnerability produce stress in these couples and increase the value for them of education and counseling services focused on relationship difficulties.

Television Watching and Family Tensions.

The relationship between amount of television watching and level of family tension was studied through interviews carried out in 64 Minneapolis households. Higher tension levels were found in families with high levels of television watching. Some of the effect may be due to frustrations stemming from television set operation. But the finding of a stronger relationship between television watching and number of conflicts, arguments, disagreements, or complaints over television in households with low population density suggests even more strongly that television set operation is used to prevent tense interaction, particularly in households that are so crowded that people cannot easily use spatial separation to control tense interaction.

Imagined Interactions and the Family.

Imagined interaction is a relatively neglected but seemingly important aspect of close relationships. In the present theoretical analysis, the forms and functions of imagined interaction are discussed. Imagined interaction aids in the clarification of thinking, in dealing with unfinished and emergent relationship business, in preparing for a possibly difficult interaction, and in dealing with opposing aspects of self. A therapist needs to be aware of such interactions and to know how to understand and use such interactions, including imagined interactions with the therapist.

After the Interview

This article is concerned with “after the interview,” a “strip” of time (Goffman 1974, p. 10) between the end of the formal interview and the culmination of leave-taking rituals. Although there is a considerable and growing literature on qualitative interviewing (Arksey and Knight 1999; Kvale 1996; Rubin and Rubin 1995; Weiss 1994), and some corridor talk about the meaning of “off the record” post-interview comments, this topic has received little attention in the published literature (but see DeSantis 1980 and Wenger 2001). And we think it is an important one, since it illuminates the interviewees interpretation of the interviewer and interview process, and highlights aspects of the meaning of the topic, and of the interviewer, to the respondent (which is, after all, the endpoint of the qualitative interviewing method). Further, the question of what constitutes after the interview throws into relief the question of what is an interview.

Divorce for childlessness and the regulation of adultery

Children are obviously important to people all over the world, especially in societies lacking in such inventions as life insurance and socialized medicine. Children may serve as insurance against personal disaster in old-age or infirmity; they may be the means to build useful alliances or to acquire greater wealth; they can be entertaining; they may be a source of status or a sign of virility or fertility; children often strengthen the bond of marriage, and for many people, children may be a source of meaning in life and a palliative for distressing cognitions about death. When a married couple proves to be childless, it is usllally a great blow to them and often to many people around them. Many societies have one or more practical means of coping with childlessness. These means include divorce for childlessness, adoption, fosterage, the taking of an additional spouse, the provision of an inseminator or childbearer who substitutes for the apparently infertile spouse, and various forms of trial marriage. Goody (1969) has discussed these in the context of his analysis of adoption. The present paper attempts to extend the list of common customs that cope with childlessness by examining the hypothesis that adultery regulations may provide an alternative for coping with childlessness. Where other means of coping with childlessness are undeveloped or difficult to employ, it is hypothesized, adultery of women will be dealt with mildly; whereas where other means of coping with childlessness are well-developed and easy to employ, adultery by women is more likely to be dealt with severely. Although adultery regulations may not be consciously related by the people in a society to the problems of childlessness, childlessness is so likely to be a disaster for the couple concerned and their kin, and the presence of

The Interplay of Family System and Business System in Family Farms During Economic Recession

The pursuit of family goals in intergenerational transfer may have increased the vulnerability of family farms to economic recession in the mid 1980s.

Confucian Family Values and Childless Couples in South Korea

The Korean family has long met Confucian values by producing children to maintain and support the paternal family line, but in South Koreas transition to a low birth rate, an increasing number of couples have remained childless. Have Confucian family values been abandoned? In this study, 103 young single South Koreans wrote protocols describing their thoughts about childless couples and having children. Most of them viewed childless couples negatively and said that they planned to have children of their own. Confucian values were clearly central in what students wrote about childlessness. The results suggest that the increase in voluntary childlessness does not mean that Confucian values have been abandoned by young South Koreans. Confucian family values seem to remain primary, but they may be reinterpreted or reluctantly violated because economic and other circumstances make it difficult or impossible to meet those values in the South Korean context.

Territoriality and Privacy in Married and Unmarried Cohabiting Couples

Summary Territoriality and having a place within the residence for being alone were studied among coresiding married and unmarried couples. It was assumed that commitment to a long-term relationship is necessary before a coresiding couple develops territoriality. Hence, married couples were predicted to have greater territoriality than unmarried couples. It was further assumed that cohabiting individuals would need backstage regions and symbols of separateness and that American marriage norms oppose physical separateness for married persons. Hence, it was predicted that unmarried persons would be more likely to have places within the residence for being alone. Both predictions were supported. Additional analyses are reported comparing married persons with and without a history of premarital cohabitation. These analyses suggest that couples who cohabited premaritally retained a comparatively low level of territoriality after marrying.