Leah Schreiner and Professor Shirley Klein, Home and Family Living

Family scholar Kerry Daly (2003) explains the need to examine aspects of everyday family activities that he describes as negative spaces. Two of these areas are time and space. The time and the space in which families do their work contribute to, and is the essence of, a family living environment. Aird (2002) also argues for the importance of everyday activities in the home and calls upon mothers and fathers to “create, protect, and defend the physical, emotional, and spiritual spaces” for the development of children. This study reports the development of an initial Home and Family Living Analysis (HFL-A) with specific emphasis placed on studying the family meal environment (FME). This inventory assesses how the structure, technology, and design of the FME interact and contribute to or detract from healthy family and spiritual relationships. It is similar to the H. O. M. E. Inventory (Caldwell and Bradley, 1984), which has been the basis of numerous scholarly articles about the simulation and support of the home environment to child development.

I participated in a team of students and professors who conducted research on the home. We led student groups in home research visits. Students from the Home and Family Living 100 course helped our HFL-A staff group collect the data. There were three parts to this study that are explained in the following paragraph.

First, we walked through the public areas of established and emerging family homes (kitchen, dining area, family and living room, game or play room, laundry room, and/or great room) and documented different aspects of the physical environment using notes, videotape, and digital photos. Emerging families are young married couples with at least one pre-school child. Established families are married couples with at least one child under 12 and at least one teenager living at home. Second, researchers interviewed each family member separately. Family members were asked how various aspects of the home and everyday family activities related to family relationships. These interviews lasted about 45-90 minutes and were tape-recorded and transcribed verbatim. I participated in many family interviews and found this to be one of my favorite parts of the HFL-A because of my interaction one on one with the family members. Finally, we observed and videotaped the family as they participated in an everyday family activity (e.g., family mealtime, family recreational activity, family devotional, etc.). Family members were then asked to comment on the meaning of these activities. I was amazed at the homes we were able to observe. The family meal environments that they created strengthened their family lives.

Established families were given four questionnaire packets, one for each parent and two for adolescents or children. Emerging families were given two questionnaire packets, one for the husband and one for the wife. The packets included questions about family demographics, brief surveys about different parts of family life including family worship, recreation, family mealtime, work, and clothing and a brief self-scoring questionnaire called the Family Profile II, an assessment of family strength. The family mealtime questionnaire included 13 questions. I have learned that research tool development takes many tries to get the right balance of questions and that we still have more work to do in this part of the HFL-A.

After collecting the data, I had several students assist me by copying information that we gathered on the FME and color-coding it for specific themes. Coding the information helped me to realize that there is still more work to be done with our data; moreover, I found that this is one of my weak areas of academia.

From this experience, I have learned more about the work involved in graduate studies, the research activities and course construction professors lead, the creation of a textbook, the presentation of research at conferences, and the dynamics involved in the development of a research tool. The HFL-A research is similar to graduate work and has opened the door to prepare me for further studies. I participated in the development of surveys and interview questions, the collection of data on family living through interviews and observation, and the analyzing of the information gathered. I gained a better understanding of the work of a professor. Working with them gave me opportunities to learn how to create a course from conceptualizing to actually producing a workable text, how to outline a textbook keeping focused on spiritually prompted objectives, how to write more academically, and how to draft a research proposal amongst other things. As I near graduation I am grateful for this opportunity to grow both spiritually and academically. I know that working on the HFL-A team better prepared me for my future family life and for further education and employment.

References

• Daley, K. (Nov. 2003). Family theory verses the theories families live by. Journal of Marriage and Family, 771-784.
• Aird, E. G. (2002), On rekindling a spirit of “home training”: A mother’s notes from the front. In S. A. Hewlett, N. Rankin, & C. West (Eds.). In Taking parenting public: The case for a new social movement. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 13-28
• Bradley, R. H. & Caldwell, B. M. (1984). The HOME inventory and family demographics. Developmental Psychology, 315-320.
• Lee, T. R. (1997). The family profile II: A self-scored brief family assessment tool. Psychological Reports. 81, 467-477.