Orme, John G. and Buehler, Cheryl. "Foster Family Characteristics and Behavioral and Emotional Problems of Foster Children: A Narrative Review." Family Relations Vol. 50 No. 1 (Jan. 2001): 3-15.
The research done in this studies mainly looks at the growing amount of children being placed in foster children and what the effects, whether positive or negative, are on the child. The objective of the article is to review data and better link it to a large number of foster children and their families so it can "provide the best possible basis for practice with foster families and children." It looks at things such as the difference between parenting, home environment, martial functioning, demographic characteristics, temperament, parent's mental health, and social support for foster children and the general population.
This article was neatly organized to make it easiest to understand. It started off with a vague description about foster children trends since 1982. It then goes to give a description of what constitutes a foster child and their family and it looks at the positive and negative aspects that are generally associated with it. It then talks about the different groups that the information came from that they're going to look at to analyze. It then goes into a detailed description of each topic they looked at for the general population compared to the foster families and children. It also contained a well laid out table that shows how which characteristics were associated with each study they looked at.
The purpose of the literature review in this article is to analyze and better link the studies done on foster children and their families so it can provide the best basis for comparison to foster children cases now a days. It is to be used by practitioners who work with foster children and their families on a daily basis.
I don't think this article really violated any critical thinking guidelines. It was very unbiased and attempted to look at all interpretations. It also defined the problem right away and then examine all the evidence they could find. The only thing I would say that could have possibly been violated was be willing to ask questions. The article poses no questions for the reader or allows people to question what is being said. I am sure that in their research and the formulation of this article they did ask questions though so I don't really think that that is relevant.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Hi Marissa,
ReplyDeleteRead the article again for bias. Notice how the researchers (and previous research studies) define biological and foster families. Little attention is paid to variations in family structure and how that might affect behavioral and emotional problems of foster children.
The article was strong, however, in that the researchers noted where more research needed to be done in the field. They also provided the list of references that they had cited so that we could go back and read those studies for ourselves if we so choose.
Sincerely,
R. Wexelbaum