Families in trouble / Earl Lomon Koos.

  • Koos, Earl Lomon, 1905-1960.
Date:
1946
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Families in trouble / Earl Lomon Koos. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    6 Families in Trouble Since social research cannot create controlled family situations, it was possible only to recognize the probable existence of these negat¬ ing factors. Therefore, the study can best be said to have been con¬ cerned with a spatially random, though somewhat self-selected, group of low-income urban families. Eighty-one families were interviewed before the sixty-two which cooperated in the study were secured. The nineteen which refused were either antagonistic or indifferent. Twelve of the families refus¬ ing did so summarily, the others after some discussion. Only one of the nineteen was aggressively antagonistic. Much information was gained about these families in the course of the study. Since the fact of refusal is important in considering the fact of cooperation, the following material concerning the families which refused is included here. The aggressively antagonistic family (in which the father threat¬ ened to throw the investigator down the stairs) was one in which both parents had served jail terms for petty thievery. This family had nothing to do with any other family in the block. The three families which made no response to the investigator's opening statement were all considered to be a little queer by other families in the block. Being a little queer in this area meant that the family kept to itself and restricted the children's activities to the family circle. Of the seven families which refused to participate even after some discussion, four were later found to have been in one or another stage of trouble at the time of the interview. This withdrawal during trouble is discussed at length in a later chapter. The writer learned to know five of the twelve families which refused summarily. Without exception they expressed regret at not having been more cordial to the investigator, and their reasons throw light upon the attitudes of the low-income group toward the out¬ sider. We wanted to talk to you when you came to see us that time, but we both learned as kids that you don't talk to strangers—that