3.5: Family Research

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One of the largest social surveys taken in the United States has been the General Social Surveys collected almost every year since 1972. It has provided 27 national samples with over 50,000 survey takers and thousands of variables as of 2008. \({ }^4\) These large volumes of data and variables allow researchers to study the family at a scale that most could never attain if left to fund and collect the data for themselves.

In Great Britain the Family Resource Survey began in 1992 and has provided much needed insight into the needs and functioning of these families. \({ }^5\) In China, a U.S. team of researchers performed a survey research study called the National Health and Nutrition Survey. \({ }^6\) Numerous family and health data were collected for study. In Iraq, a medical family survey was conducted by the World Health Organization and Iraqi officials wherein over 9,000 households were surveyed. \({ }^7\) The focus here was on the ravages that the ongoing war had taken on families and social networks.

Clinical observation studies typically take place in counseling, medical, residential treatment settings, or community centers. Perhaps two of the most prominent clinical researchers of the family have been Judith Wallerstein and John Gottman. Dr. Wallerstein studied children of divorce over the course of 25 years and has made a thorough study of the impacts that divorce has had on these children and their adult marriages and life experiences. \({ }^8\)

Dr. Gottman studied couples in depth by videotaping them in clinically controlled apartments "love labs" where he observed their daily interaction patterns and carefully analyzed the footage of their interaction patterns. His research lead to the "Four Horsemen of Divorce" and the classification of four aspects of deeply troubled marriages: Defensiveness, Stonewalling, Criticism, and Contempt. \({ }^9\)

Participant observations are much less common than surveys and clinical studies. They basically are studies where the researcher lives in, belongs to, or participates in the very social familial experience that is being studied.

The National Survey of Families and Households was collected in the early 1990s where 13,000+ families were interviewed in depth for survey information. This massive data set now exists in electronic form and can be analyzed by anyone seeking to look at specific research questions that pertain to many different aspects of the family experience in the U.S. at that time. When a researcher analyzes existing data it is called secondary analysis. This would apply to a research examining any of the above mentioned surveys, the U.S. Census, or even the Population Reference Bureau's world data. \({ }^{10}\)

Finally, family members can be interviewed through in-depth qualitative interviews designed to capture the nuances of their experiences. This is what Dr. Judith Wallerstein did when she wrote the book, The Good Marriage (1995). She carefully interviewed 50 happily married couples that were considered by those around them to have a really good marriage. Her work was published in an era of family research that was flooded with studies about divorce and family dysfunction. The Good Marriage began a turn of events that made it more acceptable to study the positive functioning and side of family experiences in the U.S.

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Footnotes

4. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Social_Survey retrieved

5 February, 2010 5. http://www.natcen.ac.uk/ for family research studies online.

6. retrieved 5 Feb., 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_H...trition_Survey

7. see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Fa..._Health_Survey

8. see research-based books: The Good Marriage (1995 HM); Second Chances: 1996 HM); Surviving the Breakup (1996 HC); and the Unexpected Legacy of Divorce (2000H)

9. see research-based books: The Relationship Cure (2002 TRP); Why Marriages Succeed or Fail (1995 FP); Seven Principles (2007 TRP); and Ten Lessons to Transform Your Marriage (2007 TRP).

10. www.prb.org