Re: Cultural Issues in Safety

[Lisa Fontes <lfontes@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Notions of
safety may vary with the culture of the respondent. For a foster child
from one culture, exposure to a limited number of people might feel
safer, whereas a child from another culture might experience safety in
numbers; a child from one culture might feel safer when the police are
present, whereas a child from another might feel threatened by the
police presence. I know I have read something about this but I cannot
remember where. I DO not know of an objective measure that could help
you assess this, but I hope you will keep it in mind in designing your
instrument and analyzing the data. And of course, the ethnic identity
groups of the people doing the interviews might determine what and how
much the respondents say. I have written articles on cross-cultural
issues in family violence research. If there's interest I can send the
references.

Lisa Fontes, Ph.D.


adair fox wrote:
> 
> We are beginning a study involving in-person interviews with 6-12 year olds
> in California's foster care system. One domain of interest is children's
> "experience of safety," in their homes and their neighborhoods.  We are
> looking for objective measures that may account for the likelihood of
> injury, as well as more subjective measures (ones which assess children's
> perceptions, reasoning, or feelings). Any leads you can provide would be
> greatly appreciated.
> 
> Adair Fox, M.S.W.
> phone: 510-643-2586
> email:  adair@uclink4.berkeley.edu
> Child Welfare Research Center
> School of Social Welfare
> University of California at Berkeley