Measuring the Effectiveness of Experiential Date Nights: A Qualitative Study

ABSTRACT

This qualitative study examines the experience of 13 couples who attended a relationship education date night in two metropolitan areas in a western state. The intent of these date nights was to reach audiences that may not attend traditional classroom relationship education. Reasons for, benefits of attending, and impacts were explored with participants. Findings indicate that most participants had fun and enjoyed spending time together, learned qualities and skills of healthy relationships, and had positive learning experiences with other couples. Additionally, although most individuals’ reason for attending was to have fun, most experienced a positive impact on their relationships after the event, such as improved communication, increase in affection and gratitude, or spending more time together. This finding may indicate that regardless of the reasons for attending, it is possible to create an environment for learning relationship skills that can, and most likely will, extend beyond the night of the event and could potentially lead to long-term positive impacts in relationships. Based on findings and existing research, activity-based relationship education, such as date nights, needs to be taken seriously as a model for couple education and considered as part of a well-rounded approach to relationship education.     

Synergists and Qualities Salient to Low-Income Parents' Positive Assessment of Marital Health

Researchers sought low-income couples who considered their marriages to be “good or very good” to inform the process of how individuals and their partners establish and maintain a healthy marriage under significant financial limitations. Twenty married parents participated in semistructured interviews that sought their insights into backgrounds and antecedents that impacted their own and their partners' development and current positive marital assessment. Analysis using grounded theory methods generated a model that posits synergists enhancing the development of qualities that contributed to spouses' positive assessments. The four synergists were sensitizing experiences, a partner-as-rescuer mind-set, acute parental influences, and religious influences. The four requisite high-priority qualities associated with these synergists were love, commitment, appreciation, and child-centeredness.     

Ethnicity and Farm Entry Behavior

Abstract The persistence of ethnic traits in both the visible agricultural landscape and the practices of established farmers in the United States has been well documented but not unchallenged. One limitation of most studies is that they have focused on relatively special populations of farmers who could be expected to have unusually strong ethnic identity. It has not been clear that ethnic background could serve as a useful variable in explaining variation in farmers' behavior in the general farm population. The present study examines the role of ethnicity in a large random sample of recent entrants into dairy farming in Wisconsin. In particular, we provide some confirmation that the farm operator's ethnic identity can be linked to differences in entry paths, current farm characteristics, and cultural beliefs in our sample. We also suggest that ethnicity plays a stronger role in affecting the resources and opportunities available to young farmers than the strategic decisions made to employ these assets.     

The debate over low fertility in the popular press: A cross-national comparison, 1998–1999

Aspects of below-replacement fertility have long been debated among professional demographers. This paper describes the corresponding popular debate about low fertility by analyzing 437 newspaper and magazine articles from eleven developed countries during 1998 and 1999. Despite the diversity in the national debates due to different socioeconomic, political and demographic backgrounds, our study finds important commonalties in the way low fertility is debated: First, countries emphasize consequences and potential interventions rather than causes in their popular debates over low fertility. Second, our study reveals that the popular press discusses low fertility as a serious concern with mostly negative implications, despite the fact that many of the causes of low fertility are associated with social and economic progress. Third, the variety of issues and perspectives revealed in the popular debate, while cohesive in general ways, invites a role for demographers in informing an accurate public discussion of low fertility, which will help form the most appropriate policy outcomes.     

Developing an objective approach to assessing allegations of sexual abuse

The decision to prosecute in a case of alleged child sexual abuse is a function of whether it is in the child's and the public's interest and whether the case is likely to be successful. This in turn rests largely upon what the child says during a joint investigative interview, the adequacy of that interview in terms of whether it meets the necessary legal requirements and whether other evidence is available, and the weight given to it. This paper describes an approach to evaluating what a child says during the interview which has been used widely in Europe to aid the decision-making process of teams and courts in their dealings with allegations of child sexual abuse. It is concluded that despite a number of methodological problems with the technique, known as statement validity analysis, joint investigating teams and the Crown Prosecution Service are likely to find it of assistance in clarifying their decision-making concerning children's evidence and, in particular, whether it is likely to be sufficiently strong to succeed within our current legal framework.     

A new ranked set sample estimator of variance

Summary. We develop an unbiased estimator of the variance of a population based on a ranked set sample. We show that this new estimator is better than estimating the variance based on a simple random sample and more efficient than the estimator based on a ranked set sample proposed by Stokes. Also, a test to determine the effectiveness of the judgment ordering process is proposed.     

The sexual abuse of children by strangers: its extent,nature and victims' characteristics

This paper reports a school‐based questionnaire survey conducted among 2420 children aged nine to 16 years. It examines the extent of stranger abuse, its nature and the characteristics of victims. The research contains complex messages in terms of the ‘seriousness’ of stranger abuse and identifies a number of challenges to understanding this phenomenon. It highlights the need for much more sophistication in debates over, and policy and practice responses to, stranger abuse. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.