Toni Schindler Zimmerman

Images of Couples and Families in Disney Feature-Length Animated Films

Media have the potential to serve as sources of information regarding couples and families for many children. One of the more popular forms of childrens media is the Disney animated featurelength movie. To date, no research has examined images of couples and families in a wide sampling of Disney feature-length animated films. This study was designed to identify themes about couples and families portrayed in 26 Disney animated classics and recently released movies. In general, four overarching themes were identified: (a) family relationships are a strong priority, (b) families are diverse, but the diversity is often simplified, (c) fathers are elevated, while mothers are marginalized, and (d) couple relationships are created by “love at first sight,” are easily maintained, and are often characterized by gender-based power differentials. Clinical implications for family professionals are addressed.

Intimate Partnership: Foundation to the Successful Balance of Family and Work.

Researchers have begun documenting the adaptive strategies of dualearner couples in balancing family and work. This line of research provides therapists and dual-earners with research-based strategies for effective work-family balance. Data for this study were drawn primarily from interviews with 47 middle-class, dual-earner couples with children, who perceive themselves as successful in balancing family and work. The majority of these couples stated that striving for marital partnership or equality is an integral strategy to their success. This article details how these couples practiced marital partnership in ways that supported effective work-family balance; their descriptions clustered into six general partnership themes: shared housework, mutual and active involvement in childcare, joint decision-making, equal access to and influence over finances, value placed on both partners work/life goals, and shared emotion work. Both quantitative and qualitative data indicated that these successful couples equally share housework and emotion work. Wives tend to perform slightly more childcare and to be primarily responsible for organizing family life. Wives perceive that husbands careers are slightly more prioritized. Clinical applications for therapists working with dual-earner couples are offered.

Marital equality and satisfaction in stay-at-home mother and stay-at-home father families

Two recent studies have focused on marital equality and satisfaction in couples where one of the spouses stays at home full-time with the children and the other spouse works full-time outside of the home. One study looked at couples with a stay-at-home mother/career father while the other study examined couples with a stay-at-home father/career mother. Similarities as well as differences emerged between the two samples when comparing the experiences of these couples. In general, couples in both arrangements shared positive feelings about their marriages, although the mothers across both samples reported higher levels of stress and exhaustion than fathers.

Resilient Response to Battering

Spouse abuse remains an important social problem. Recent research has begun to explore resiliency in a variety of areas: Why, despite harsh life circumstances, do some people survive and later thrive after experiencing trauma? What are the processes associated with a successful departure from abuse? The authors worked with a local shelter to identify three groups of women: (a) those currently at the shelter; (b) those who had been away from an abusive relationship for at least one year; and (c) those who were identified by shelter staff as having demonstrated a resilient response to battering, and compared experiences and recommendations between groups and discuss clinical and service implications.

Solution-focused couples therapy groups: an empirical study

The professional literature contains numerous theoretical and case study articles regarding the development and use of solution-focused therapy. However, as with many models of systems-oriented therapy in use with couples, very little has been subjected to empirical investigation. This project was designed to make a contribution to the empirical literature regarding the effectiveness of solution-focused therapy in use with couples’ groups. This study utilized pre-test comparisons of treatment and comparison groups, and examined pre- to post-test changes in the scores of the treatment group couples. Twenty-three treatment group couples participated in a six-week solution-focused couples therapy (SFCT) group. A separate group of thirteen couples served as a comparison group. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) was used to assess changes in the couples’ relationships. Scores on the Marital Status Inventory (MSI), as a pre-test measure indicating the couples’ likelihood of divorce, indicated no significant differences between groups. The remaining analyses revealed significant improvement in DAS scores. Self-reports from the couples involved indicate improvement in a variety of areas after completing the six-week solution-focused couples group therapy process.

A Feminist Analysis of Popular Music: Power Over, Objectification of, and Violence Against Women

Abstract A qualitative content analysis was conducted on lyrics to identify predominant themes in popular music. The songs for analysis were determined by “The Hot 100” list generated by Billboard Chart Research Services. Feminist and cognitive social learning theories provided a foundation to identify themes. Power over, objectification of, and violence against women was the overall framework that emerged from the lyrics. Within this framework, six themes were identified: men and power, sex as top priority for males, objectification of women, sexual violence, women defined by having a man, and women as not valuing themselves. These themes send gender and relationship messages to music listeners, who are predominantly adolescents. As marriage and family therapists, we can utilize these deconstructed lyrical messages to teach clients about power socialization and its negative effects on relationships.

Client gender as a process variable in marriage and family therapy : Are women clients interrupted more than men clients ?

Influenced by language and therapeutic discourse as well as the feminist critique of marriage and family therapy, the authors conducted research to evaluate conversational power in marriage and family therapy. Research on interruptions has received the most empirical attention, so the authors examined videotaped therapy sessions to see if women clients were interrupted more than men clients. This strategy integrated scholarship on gender and conversation into research on marriage and family therapy process. Multivariate analysis of variance was used to examine the different treatment of women and men clients; gender of therapist was used as a control variable. Results indicated that marriage and family doctoral students interrupted women clients three times more than men clients.

Images of Gender, Race, Age, and Sexual Orientation in Disney Feature-Length AnimatedFilms

Abstract The Disney Corporation is one of the largest media companies in the world. Disneys full-length animated films have been a popular form of childrens entertainment for more than 60 years. No research to date has examined the portrayals of the organizing societal principles of gender, race, age, and sexual orientation across a wide sample of these films. This study examines the portrayal of these organizing principles in a sample of 26 full-length animated Disney films. Findings indicate that gender, racial, and cultural stereotypes have persisted over time in Disney films. Few examples of positive portrayals emerged, but were increasingly common in later films. Marginalized groups were portrayed negatively, rarely, or not at all. Clinical implications for therapists are provided.

The Weave of Gender and Culture in the Tapestry of a Family Therapy Training Program

Summary Family therapy training programs are being challenged to ensure that future generations of family therapists are proficient in addressing gender, culture, and social justice issues in their practice of therapy. To address this challenge, MFT program faculty must fully integrate the organizing principles of gender and culture throughout every aspect of the curricula. This article describes specific ways that the faculty members in a marriage and family therapy training program weave gender and culture throughout the tapestry of a training program. It provides specific, concrete, and transferable strategies, activities, ideas, and resources for integrating gender and culture in family therapy courses, supervision, research, service, and clinical environments.

Preschool Children's Classification Skills and a Multicultural Education Intervention To Promote Acceptance of Ethnic Diversity

Abstract Previous studies on the ethnic awareness of young children have identified a developmental sequence of ethnic understanding based on cognitive-developmental theories. The present study extends earlier findings by using measures that include classification tasks. Nineteen preschool participants were randomly assigned either to an intervention group or a control group. The children were pre-tested to obtain a baseline measure of their classification skills (i.e., classified by age, gender, race/ethnicity). Following the pre-test measures, children in the experimental group participated in an eight-week intervention program designed to reduce racial/ethnic stereotyping. Increases in classification skills were observed in the experimental group at post-test. Upon conclusion of the eight-week intervention, children in the experimental group were less likely to sort photo cards by race/ethnicity and more likely to sort them by gender and age. These results suggest that interventions for preschoolers can expand young childrens ability to classify individuals on multiple dimensions (i.e., age, gender, race/ethnicity).