Supporting On-going Research Studies in Family Studies

The Family Studies Initiative serves to promote and support research on families and family issues by:

Recent Publications in the Area of Family Studies:

Abstracts of recent publications are included here to provide more specific information about the types of research studies being conducted by BSU faculty members associated with the Family Studies Initiative. One abstract has been included for each member of the Advisory Board; a more complete listing of publications can be found by clicking on the highlighted author name.

  • Anooshian, L. J. (2003). Social isolation and rejection of homeless children. Journal of Children & Poverty, 9, 115-134.
  • In the context of accumulating evidence that social and emotional relationships in childhood are predictive of a variety of outcome measures, the present research focused on the social rejection and isolation of homeless children. Research measures were derived from structured interviews of both mothers and children in a mid-sized Northwestern city. Data analyses indicated that parenting and family measures were important mediators of the effects of economic distress on social rejection. Nevertheless, economic distress also appeared to contribute directly to social rejection, over and above any influences mediated by parenting. Additional analyses revealed that the correlates of children's social isolation differed depending on the extensiveness of their experiences with homelessness. For children with the most extensive experiences, social isolation was more related to emotional health (depression, social anxiety) than to parenting and family variables. Finally, measures of social isolation, rejection, and withdrawal were reliably correlated with general estimates of educational achievement, particularly for children who had experienced extensive homelessness. Overall, the results reinforced the need to focus on social relationships in designing diverse approaches to intervention with homeless children and their families.
     
  • Cynthia Clark, RN, MS, PhD
  • Dr. Clark is a Professor of Nursing at Boise State University. She teaches Nursing Leadership and Management, Professional Concepts of Health Care Delivery, and a multidisciplinary course on Adolescent Mental Health. Dr. Clark is also a consultant for issues relating to adolescent behavior and development. She holds two Bachelor of Science degrees, one in Nursing from Boise State University and the other a special major with an emphasis in Addiction Treatment and Recovery from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. She is a psychiatric nurse/therapist and has earned advanced certification in addiction counseling. She holds a Master of Science degree in Human Development and Family Studies from Colorado State University, a post-Master’s certificate in Nursing Leadership from Idaho State University, and an earned doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Idaho. Her current research is focused in tow areas; Incivility in Higher Education and Impaired Nursing Students.
  • Prior to her tenure at Boise State University, Dr. Clark held several management and administrative positions in a variety of mental health care organizations. She has done extensive research with adolescents, and has several publications in the area of teen suicide, adolescent violence, and substance abuse. Dr. Clark has published professionally on methods for faculty intervention with chemically impaired and mentally ill nursing students, as well as publishing a comprehensive study profiling addicted and mentally ill nurses in Idaho. Her principle body of research is in the area of incivility in higher education. She has published professionally and presented nationally on this topic.
     
  • McDonald, T.W. (2004). Program evaluation in a residential youth care facility: The case of Project PATCH. Residential Group Care Quarterly, 4, 6-9. (a PDF file)
  • Residential group care for at-risk youth is intended to facilitate the development of desirable personal and interactional skills, and to decrease the frequency of undesirable or maladaptive thoughts and behaviors. This article describes a program evaluation of a residential group care facility in Garden Valley, Idaho. The results of the study suggest that the program and its intervention are largely efficacious.


  •  Pritchard, M. E. (2004). Body satisfaction in male and female adolescents: Associations with parental behavior. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 99, 257-258.


    In a sample of 449 high school students, maternal smoking and maternal and paternal eating habits were significantly related to self-reported Body Satisfaction for girls, as measured by the Body Shape Questionnaire (Cooper, Taylor, Cooper, & Fairburn, 1987).  However, only paternal eating habits were significantly related to self-reported Body  Satisfaction for boys
  • Sanders, Cynthia K. (2004). Employment options for low-income women: Microenterprise versus the labor market. Social Work Research, 28(2), 83-92.
  • This study builds on research that examines the effects of microenterprise on poor women in the United States. Household income, income from the business, and poverty status were examined over time and comparisons were drawn among three groups of women: low-income women who participated in one of seven U.S. microenterprise assistance program; low-income self-employed women not attached to microenterprise assistance programs; and low-income women working but not self-employed. The findings cast doubt on the effectiveness of microenterprise assistance programs as an anti-poverty strategy in the United States. However, women in the three groups moved out of poverty at the same rate. Policy, program, and practice implications are discussed.

Sampling of Recent Convention Presentations, Convention Submissions, Upcoming Convention Presentations:

Family-oriented Research Interests and Research Projects of Members of the Family Studies Initiative Advisory Board:

  • Dr. Robin Allen (School of Social Work) has presented and published papers related to the impact of disability on children and their families and the nature of social work practice with this population.  Results of a qualitative study she undertook as a part of an interdisciplinary research team which involved completing in depth interviews with parents of children with disabilities were published in two journals Journal of Religion and Health and Journal of Social Work in Education.  She has presented papers on developing understanding of how social workers define and implement family centered services to families who have children with disabilities.  These qualitative studies explore the impact of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act on social work practice with this population.  This line of inquiry is directly related to her expertise in school social work; school social workers are typically involved in the assessment of and intervention with children with disabilities and their families. 
     
  • Dr. Linda Anooshian (Department of Psychology) in conducting analyses of several data bases to develop conceptual models of how diverse aspects of family poverty influence children's behavior problems as well as father involvement. She is working on a policy brief for Idaho KIDS COUNT to be entitled Stresses on Idaho Families: Nurturing Father Involvement.
     
  • Dr. Cynthia Clark (Department of Nursing), research interests in family studies are represented in extensive research with adolescents and publications in the areas of delinquency, adolescent violence, and substance abuse. Her current research interests include suicide prevention, substance abuse prevention, and "incivility" on college campuses. Her interests in family studies also guide her involvement with service learning and civic engagement on the Boise State University campus; her students are actively involved in community and neighborhood activities and clinical projects.
     
  • Dr. Diana Doumas (Department of Psychology), research interests in the area of family studies are reflected in past articles and book chapters on the transmission of aggressive behavior (child abuse and marital violence) through the generations, family therapy for substance abuse and marital violence, the conceptualization and assessment of marital relationships, and the relationship between work and marital functioning. Her current research program includes examining domestic violence from an adult attachment perspective.
      
  • Dr. Lynn Lubamersky (Department of History) adds both geographical breadth (Europe) and historical depth (to the early modern period, 1500-1800) to the family-oriented research interests of the Initiative; her research area is the study of the early modern family. She is currently working on the completion of a book, Women in Family Politics, on aristocratic women and their control of family politics in the early modern period. Her main thesis is that women wielded great power as the heads of family factions. They would not hold such political power again until the end of the twentieth century.

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  • Dr. Tedd McDonald's (Community and Environmental Health, Family Studies Initiative Steering Committee) research interests are related to mental health and life quality in children, adults and seniors. He is particularly interested in determining what factors most strongly predict mental health status and perceived life quality in members of vulnerable populations (e.g., seniors, people living in poverty), and then developing interventions to improve both. His past research has been broad-based and has focused on numerous populations. However, several of his current projects focus particularly on quality of life issues among senior citizens and on mental health access issues in rural and frontier regions of Idaho.

    Dr. Mary Pritchard (Department of Psychology) works both with the Boise State community as well as the community at large to examine risk factors of negative health behaviors. With the Boise State community, she is examining whether different factors predict disordered eating behavior in special populations (e.g., older adults, males, athletes), the role of personality in negative health behaviors, and predictors of obesity, anxiety, and depression. With the Boise community and beyond, she is examining risky health behaviors in high school students, causes of low health literacy, and health behaviors and risk factors in Native American families living on reservations in Idaho. In addition, she is working with Action for Healthy Kids, Idaho Chapter to educate school systems about appropriate nutrition and exercise guidelines for their students as well as local physicians’ offices and hospitals to develop health interventions for nutrition, physical activity, body image, and weight loss goals.   
     
  • Dr. Cynthia Sanders' (School of Social Work) research interests Initiative on social policy and poverty issues. Her recent work examined economic outcomes for poor participants of microenterprise assistance programs in the United States. Her current work focuses on social and economic development with low-income women, including employment and income, wealth accumulation and housing, and economic security. She is currently exploring the role of economic factors in domestic violence and evaluating an economic education program and Individual Development Account (matched savings) program targeted toward battered women.

    Dr. Laurel Traynowicz's (Department of Communication) teaching and research interests center on interpersonal and family communicative processes.  Though she is a perennial research methods instructor for BSU's Department of Communication and directs the college's undergraduate research initiative, Dr. Traynowicz has recently developed new courses in family communication, the social construction of family, communication in dying and grieving processes, and nearing death awareness.  Dr. Traynowicz's current research pertains to constructing identities of motherhood, facework in close relationships, and social support in close interpersonal and family contexts. 
     
  • Dr. Peter Wollheim's (Department of Communication) family-oriented research interests focus on adolescent suicide prevention as well as patterns of family inheritance and disinheritance. Dr. Wollheim serves as the executive director of Idaho Suicide Prevention Services as well as director of the Crisis Worker Preparation program at Boise State University-one of the few programs in the country that teaches support skills to volunteers assisting individuals dealing with crisis situations.

 

 

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