Re: Intergenerational Transmission -- Not

[Roy W Wilson <rwwst6+@xxxxxxxx>]

Sharon,
	At the risk of encouraging what could end up as conceptual wild
goose chase (pardon the technical jargon :-)), I wonder if a bit of
analysis of a 2-way contingency table (artificial data) might help. Work
by Raymond Boudon suggests that, while the reasoning of your students (and
some colleagues) may be erroneous, it is not without reasons - which
perhaps accounts for its resistance. I'm cherishing the thought that
examples might be more effective than the methodological moral nostrums
I've given out in the past. I'd be very interested to hear what you try
and whether it seems to work.

Roy Wilson, Teaching Fellow
Social Foundations of Education
http://www.pitt.edu/~admps/fnd-d.html (Course syllabus)
University of Pittsburgh
Department of Administrative and Policy Studies
rwwst6@pitt.edu (Email address)

On Mon, 5 Apr 1999, Sharon Carnahan wrote:

> I am lecturing this week in Developmental Psychology class about child
> abuse.  I am having trouble getting the concept of intergenerational
> trasmission across to my class.  They can't seem to get the idea that
> while many adults who abuse children were themselves abused, many abused
> children grow up to be successful parents without abusing their
> children.
> 
> Can anyone recommend an effective tool, set of questions, classroom or
> workshop exercise, or concise set of numbers, to help my students get
> this?
> 
> (Not sure all that many of us professionals get it either, come to think
> of it!)
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Sharon Carnahan, Ph.D.
> Rollins College
>