Differences in the emotional adjustment and self concepts among institutionalized deliquent girls relative to the kinship system and homosexuality

• Main Author: Kalman, Barbara Anne
• Other Authors: Hendrickson, Donald E.
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Female juvenile delinquents.; Self-perception.; Homosexuality.
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/177205; http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/413824

The purpose of this study was to investigate the hypothesis that an ordinal relationship of adjustment and self concept existed among four groups of adolescent girls: (1) non institutionalized girls enrolled in a public high school; (2) institutionalized delinquent girls participating in a kinship system and homosexual behavior; (3) institutionalized delinquent girls participating in a kinship system, but not homosexual behavior; and (4) institutionalized delinquent girls not participating in a kinship system. Kinship involvement was defined as that role behavior accepted and exhibited by the girls representative of husband, wife, brother, sister, or other family member. Six sub hypotheses were presupposed and tested; three were related to adjustment and three, to self concept.One hundred twenty subjects participated in the study, thirty subjects being in each group. The ninety institutionalized girls were stratified on the basis of their behavior as judged by two of three persons: the institutional staff psychologist, the girls' assigned counselor, and the girls' housemother. The total sample ranged between fourteen and eighteen years of age.Adjustment was measured by the Total Adjustment score from the California Test of Personality, Secondary Level and the General Maladjustment and Personality Integration scores from the Tennessee Self Concept Scale, Clinical and Research Form (TSCS). The Total Positive score from the TSCS was utilized as the measure of self concept. All girls were tested during the spring of 1970.Data collected from the instruments were initially treated by a one-way analysis of variance. Utilizing the data computed, an analysis of orthogonal comparisons was applied to test the six hypotheses. An F test significant at the .05 level indicated rejection of the null hypotheses.Two of the six hypotheses were statistically significant. They indicated the noninstitutionalized adolescents were significantly better adjusted and evidenced higher self concepts than any of the institutionalized groups. No statistically significant differences were found among the institutionalized groups in adjustment or self concepts on the basis of the remaining hypotheses.In an effort to detect trends in the data and to determine which groups contributed most to the significant differences found, an analysis of orthogonal comparisons was applied to the subscales constituting the Total Positive and Total Adjustment scores. This was followed by the Scheffe test applied to those significant differences observed. A trend was observed for the institutionalized group participating in a kinship system and homosexual behavior to be significantly different in adjustment from the remaining institutionalized groups. No trend was observed on those subscales measuring self concept. Through further analysis, the kinship members involved in homosexual behavior were found to be significantly less adjusted than the remaining delinquent.groups. The kinship members not participating in homosexual behavior were found to evidence lower self concepts than any of the remaining delinquent groups.On the basis of the hypotheses tested, the general research hypothesis was only partially confirmed. An ordinal relationship among the four groups tested existed only as far as the differentiation between the non institutionalized and institutionalized groups were concerned. No ordinal relationship among the institutionalized groups was found to exist. Based on the post analysis findings, a reversed trend from the expected direction relative to adjustment was observed. The homosexually involved kinship members were significantly less adjusted than the other delinquent groups. No conclusion was drawn from the data relative to self concept. Suggestions for future research emanating from the results of the analyses conducted were offered.