LEARNING ACTIVITY D ASSIGNMENT
12
Forgiveness Education With Adult Learners
Catherine T. Coyle
Robert D. Enright
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Moral issues always have enjoyed a place within the research tradition of educational psychology. We see this in the early work on children’s cheating behavior and honesty in the classroom (Harthshorne & May, 1928), in Kohlberg’s interventions on adolescents’ understanding of justice (Kohlberg, 1986), and in the resurgent interest in character education (Lickona, 1991). A new area within the study of moral development is forgiveness.
Although forgiveness has been discussed by theologians and philosophers for centuries, it has only recently been the focus of educational psychology researchers and clinicians. Fitzgibbons (1986) and Veenstra (1992) suggested that forgiveness has been virtually ignored by educators and psychotherapists because of the perception that it is a theological, rather than a psychological issue. The recent increase in attention given to the topic of forgiveness would imply that this perception is changing, as evidenced in psychological theory (Enright, Eastin, Golden, Sarinopoulos, & Freedman, 1992; Enright & the Human Development Study Group, 1991b; Linn & Linn, 1978; Smedes, 1984), practice (Brandsma, 1982; Enright & the Human Development Study Group, 1991a; Fitzgibbons, 1986; Hope, 1987; Worthington & DiBlasio, 1990), and research (Al-Mabuk, Enright, & Cardis, 1995; Coyle & Enright, in press; Enright, Santos, & Al-Mabuk, 1989; Freedman & Enright, 1995, 1996; Hebl & Enright, 1993; Hepp-Dax, 1996; Trainer, 1981).
Forgiveness may be defined as an interpersonal process whereby one individual, who was hurt by another’s injustice, chooses to abandon resentment rather than to retaliate. Forgiveness occurs when the injured party chooses to “view the wrongdoer with compassion, benevolence, and love” while recognizing that he or she, by the unjust actions, has abandoned the right to these moral gifts (North, 1987, p. 502). Interpersonal forgiveness implies forgiveness occurring between two individuals rather than between groups or between a person and an object or event (such as a flood or tornado).
This definition of forgiveness may be further elaborated by looking at how forgiveness is expressed in the affective, cognitive, and behavioral realms. As the individual moves toward forgiveness, he or she begins to bear or face the psychological pain and to experience more positive emotions such as empathy and compassion toward the offender (Cunningham, 1985; Droll, 1984; Kiel, 1986; North, 1987; Richards, 1988). The offender comes to be viewed as an equal when the injured party recognizes his or her own need for forgiveness in the past (Cunningham, 1985; Smedes, 1984). Finally, although genuine forgiveness does not necessitate reconciliation, there is at least a decrease in negative behaviors and a willingness to enter into a relationship with the offender (Augsburger, 1981; Smedes, 1984). Actual reconciliation may well depend more on the trustworthiness of the offender than on the desires of the injured.
Genuine forgiveness may occur without any apology or even recognition of wrongdoing on the part of the offender. Forgiveness is an internal process that transforms the forgiver and also may transform the one forgiven, if the offender is able to receive forgiveness as a gift.
Forgiveness is a complex process that may be misconstrued without an adequate understanding of the difference between genuine forgiveness and pseudoforgiveness. Pardoning, condoning, forgetting, and/or denial are not legitimate aspects of forgiveness; each of these may either prevent genuine forgiveness from occurring or result in pseudoforgiveness. Pardoning implies releasing a person from the legal penalties of an offense, but one may forgive another for a criminal injury even while our judicial system enforces its penalties. Condoning suggests that the injured somehow justifies the offense committed, in which case forgiveness would seem to be a moot point (Kolnai, 1973–1974). Veenstra (1992) also noted that “overlooking, excusing, and condoning are theoretically not really forms of forgiveness. In all of these the injuring person has done nothing wrong. There is no need for forgiveness if there has been no wrongdoing” (p. 166).
Forgiveness certainly is not forgetting and as Smedes (1984) so aptly observed, “forgetting, in fact, may be a dangerous way to escape the inner surgery of the heart that we call forgiving” (p. 60). Denial also may be a means of avoiding both pain and the effort involved in moving toward forgiveness. Denial, taken to the extreme, may even result in a reaction formation in which the injured believes he or she has forgiven but, in fact, is unable to consciously recognize his or her own anger (Hunter, 1978). One must recognize and own the hurt and negative emotions experienced following an injury before one can begin to contemplate true forgiveness (Fitzgibbons, 1986). Pseudoforgiveness may occur when the injured person claims to have forgiven but has been motivated by “the intention of proving and aggravating the beneficiary’s wickedness” (Kolnai, 1973–1974, p. 104). A similar form of pseudoforgiveness has been described by Augsburger (1981) and Cunningham (1985) in which the injured party claims to have forgiven but now holds him or herself to be morally superior to the offender.
Philosophical Objections to Forgiveness
Although the topic has received positive attention lately, forgiveness has been and continues to be controversial. Nietzsche (1887) argued that forgiveness is an expression of weakness. One could counter this argument with an explanation of the difference between genuine and pseudoforgiveness. Whereas pseudoforgiveness may occur as a result of fear and weakness, genuine forgiveness requires strength and courage. North (1987) pointed out that the act of forgiveness “should not be confused with timidity or moral feebleness” (p. 507).
Lewis (1980) contended that forgiveness may hinder social justice by fostering too lenient an attitude toward criminals. As discussed previously, pardon should not be confused with forgiveness. It is quite possible to forgive an offender who must still pay a legal price when a law has been violated. Following a similar line of reasoning, Lauritzen (1987) claimed that forgiveness hinders personal justice and may actually perpetuate injustice. He concluded that in that regard forgiveness may be immoral. However, genuine forgiveness requires that first one have an appreciation of justice. The individual who chooses to genuinely forgive is not denying justice so much as he or she is recognizing mercy. One also needs to recall that forgiveness does not demand reconciliation. The forgiver is not necessarily blindly trusting the offender when he or she decides to forgive.
Others have suggested that forgiveness may cause the offender to feel inferior to the one offended (Droll, 1984; O’Shaughnessy, 1967). This criticism ignores the motives operant in genuine forgiveness (i.e., benevolence and moral love) and defines forgiveness in terms of the offended’s response to it. As Enright et al. (1991 b) stated, “A gift rejected does not detract from the fact that it is a gift given” (p. 133).
Haber (1991) argued that forgiveness is indicative of a lack of self-respect and that resentment would be a more moral and appropriate response to injury. Once again, referring back to the definition of genuine forgiveness, we see that resentment is a very human and legitimate reaction to an injury. In fact, anger and resentment must be recognized before one can move beyond them to the point of forgiveness. However, clinicians (Brandsma, 1982; Fitzgibbons, 1986) have pointed out that it is unresolved anger rather than forgiveness that hurts the self. One could argue, then, that it is respect of self and of others that motivates one to forgive.
Criticisms seem to be based on a lack of distinction between genuine forgiveness and pseudoforgiveness. Whereas some authors have criticized forgiveness, others support its worth on both philosophical and psychological grounds. We turn to the possible psychological benefits of forgiving next.
Psychological Benefits of Forgiveness
Clinicians report psychological benefits when a person forgives someone who hurt him or her. Fitzgibbons (1986) believed that forgiveness brings freedom from guilt, fear, anxiety, the control of others and anger. It also may prevent the misdirection of anger in future relationships. Freedom, as a benefit of forgiveness, has been addressed by Benson (1992). She contended, “One of the most serious consequences of lacking forgiveness is that we become bonded to those we need to forgive…. [S]etting others free, means setting oneself free, because resentment is really a form of attachment” (p. 77).
Hunter (1978) suggested that the process of forgiveness leads to an acceptance of “previously unacknowledged impulses, particularly aggressive ones” (p. 173) in both the self and others. Gartner (1988) added that the inability to forgive is indicative of the primitive defense of splitting. The ability to forgive, on the other hand, implies an acceptance of human beings as having both good and bad qualities.
Many believe that the process of forgiveness brings healing to relationships. McAllister (1983) argued that clients who choose not to forgive “are injuring themselves, for they are not allowing themselves to have the kinds of relationships that people need to have” (p. 55). Hope (1987) spoke of the usefulness of forgiveness for clients who have been hurt during childhood by neglectful or abusive families. Flanigan (1987) viewed forgiveness as bringing restoration to families dealing with alcoholism and Worthington and DiBlasio (1990) discussed the healing power of forgiveness within marital relationships. Bergin (1988) suggested that the “absorption of pain” entailed in true forgiveness prevents “the process of transmitting pain from generation to generation” (p. 29). In this sense, then, forgiveness may not only benefit current relationships, but future ones as well. Cotroneo (1982), in discussing how forgiveness can be used to heal past relationships, suggested that forgiveness can and does take place even when those who hurt us are deceased and unavailable.
All of the preceding observations are based on clinical impressions, a valuable tool for gauging a client’s progress. Empirical work is needed to supplement the observations if the science of forgiveness studies is to advance. As a first step toward empirical investigation, a psychological model describing how people forgive was developed. We present this model next as prelude to a summary of scientific studies based on the model.
A Psychological Process Model of Forgiveness
Enright and the Human Development Study Group (1996) have proposed a process model of forgiveness based on the previously described definition of forgiveness. This model integrates the cognitive, affective, and behavioral aspects of forgiveness and incorporates 20 psychological variables. This is a refinement of the original process model described in Enright et al. (1991b) which contained 17 variables. As the model has been tested and discussed, it was decided to add four additional variables to the original model and combine two of the original variables into one. Referring to Table 12.1, the most recent additions are units 10, 16, 18 and 19. The current 20 units of the process model are briefly described.
Initially, the injured party examines the defense mechanisms employed to protect oneself from pain (1). This may, in turn, lead to the confrontation of anger (2) and an awareness of shame and/or embarrassment (3). Next, the injured one may become aware that he or she is devoting excessive amounts of energy to the situation (4), followed by an awareness of cognitive rehearsal, in which he or she may replay the events over and over in his or her mind (5). As the injured person compares his or her own situation to that of the offender (6), he or she may come to realize that he or she has been permanently changed by the injury (7). The injured person may experience an alteration in his or her view of justice, sometimes becoming more cynical or bitter in general (8).
Depending on the degree of awareness of these personal responses to hurt, the injured one may feel a need to seek some sort of resolution (9). At this point, forgiveness may be considered as one of many alternatives (10). If the injured party chooses to at least explore forgiveness as an option, then he or she may make a commitment to forgive the offender (11). To carry out this commitment, the injured one engages in refraining, viewing the offender in context (12). This often occurs in our programs by asking at least three questions of the offended person about the offender: (a) What was it like for the person as he or she grew up? Did the person come from a home where there was conflict or even abuse? (b) What was happening in the person’s life at the time you were hurt? (c) Can you see the person as a member of the human community? These questions are not posed to excuse or condone, but to help the offended person to see a vulnerable human being. This understanding, then, makes possible the development of empathy toward the offender (13). Following empathy, compassion may emerge toward the offender (14). As the injustice is accepted, there may be an awareness that forgiveness requires the absorption or acceptance of the pain resulting from the injury (15).
As the injured person progresses in forgiveness, he or she may find meaning in the hurtful event (16). As an example, an incest survivor found that she became a more compassionate person toward people who were in emotional pain or distress because of the emotional pain she had to endure. During this process of working toward forgiveness, the injured party may come to realize that he or she has needed forgiveness from others (17) and that he or she is not alone in the experience of suffering (18). The injured person may even discover a new purpose in life because of the injury (19). As an example here, sometimes a person who has been physically or sexually abused wishes to counsel others hurt in similar ways. Finally, as one moves closer to genuine forgiveness, one may become aware of a decrease in negative feelings and perhaps an increase in positive feelings toward the offender and experience an internal, emotional release (20). Regarding this process model, Enright et al. (1996) acknowledged that this is not a rigid steplike sequence, but instead is a flexible set of processes with feedback and feed-forward loops. In other words, there is room for a great deal of individual variation within this model.
TABLE 12.1
Processes Involved in Forgiving
Uncovering Phase
1. Examination of psychological defenses.
2. Confrontation of anger; the point is to release, not harbor, the anger.
3. Admittance of shame, when this is appropriate.
4. Awareness of depleted emotional energy.
5. Awareness of cognitive rehersal.
6. Insight that the injured party may be comparing self with the injurer.
7. Realization that oneself may be permanently and adversely changed by the injury.
8. Insight into a possibly altered “just world” view.
Decision Phase
9. A change of heart/conversion/new insights that old resolution strategies are not working.
10. Willingness to consider forgiveness as an option.
11. Committment to forgive the offender.
Work Phase
12. Reframing, through role taking, who the wrongdoer is by viewing him or her in context.
13. Empathy toward the offender.
14. Compassion toward the offender.
15. Acceptance/absorption of the pain.
Deepening Phase
16. Finding meaning for self and others in the suffering and in the forgiveness process.
17. Realization that self has needed others’ forgiveness in the past.
18. Insight that one is not alone (universality, support).
19. Realization that self may have a new purpose in life because of the injury.
20. Awareness of decreased negative affect and, perhaps, incerased positive affect, if this begins to emerge, toward the injurer; awareness of internal, emotional release.
Note: This table is based on Enright and the Human Development Study Group (1991).
EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH ON FORGIVING
Four studies are described. The first involves elderly women, the second includes male and female college students emotionally hurt by parents, the third focuses on adult female survivors of incest, and the final study involves men hurt by the abortion decision of their partner.
Forgiveness With Elderly Females
Hebl and Enright (1993) utilized a forgiveness intervention with 24 elderly females. The goal of the intervention was to facilitate forgiveness of a specific offender. All participants were at least 65 years of age with a mean age of 74.5 years. Of this group, 37% were married and 63% were widowed or divorced. Based on a screening survey, 21% of these participants were dealing with family problems, 12.5% with in-law problems, 50% with friendship conflicts, and 16.5% with other interpersonal situations requiring forgiveness.
Testing and Instruments. At pretest, three measures (self-esteem, depression, and anxiety) were administered in a group format. These and a forgiveness measure were administered at posttest. The rationale for withholding the forgiveness measure until posttest was to avoid test effects on the posttest and to avoid having control group participants focus on forgiveness during their discussions. The administrator of both the pre- and posttests was not aware of the research hypotheses.
The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory (Coopersmith, 1981), the Beck Depression Inventory (Beck, Ward, Mendelson, Mock, & Erbaugh, 1961), and the Spielberger State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Gorsuch, Lushene, Vagg, & Jacobs, 1983) were employed in this research.
The forgiveness measure, the Psychological Profile of Forgiveness Scale, was developed by Enright and seven graduate students. It is a 30-item scale intended to measure forgiveness in terms of the absence of negative emotions, thoughts, and behaviors and the presence of positive emotions, thoughts, and behaviors toward the person who hurt the respondent. Each of these six categories is represented by five items on the scale and each item is rated on a 4-point Likert scale. Thus, the potential range of scores is 30–120 with higher scores indicative of greater forgiveness. The word forgiveness is not used anywhere on the scale.
Intervention Procedure. The 24 participants were randomly assigned to either a treatment or control group. Each group met for 1-hour sessions once per week for a total of 8 weeks. The same male educator conducted both experimental and control groups to provide for an equivalent level of competence with both groups and also to equalize the two groups’ perceptions of the group leader. All group sessions were audiotaped and the educator was rated by two experienced therapists for his fidelity in following the designated program in each group. The raters, who were blind to the hypotheses of this study, independently determined that the intervener was faithful to the respective group’s intervention goals.
Experimental Sessions. The educator utilized a manual that followed the units of the process model (Table 12.1). One week prior to each session, the group members were given an outline of the specific topic and questions for reflection. During each session, 25–30 minutes were spent on a presentation and summary of the topic. Then a short period of quiet time (5–7 minutes) was allowed for members to reflect on the questions. Next, the experimental group was randomly divided into two smaller groups for a 20 minute discussion of questions related to the topic. Following this, a member from each of the subgroups reported on her group’s discussion.
The first session dealt with defining forgiveness. Genuine forgiveness was differentiated from pseudoforgiveness. In addition, there was discussion of the psychological defenses we sometimes employ after experiencing a deep hurt (see Unit 1 in Table 12.1). In Session 2, issues of anger specific to the one who hurt each participant were addressed. Questions such as these were the focus: How deeply are you hurt by the person? How intense is your anger right now? Session 3 focused on the complications of anger that can increase one’s emotional discomfort (Units 3–8 of Table 12.1). Session 4 dealt with the issue of committing to forgive the offender. A commitment to forgive, in essence, is the decision not to seek revenge on the person when an opportunity arises.
Reframing, empathy, and compassion constituted Session 5. The person was asked to step inside the offender’s shoes and to see, if possible, a vulnerable person. In Session 6, the person was asked to reflect upon the times she needed to be forgiven by others. This was done to increase a sense of forgiving; if one has needed others’ forgiveness, perhaps this will spur the person to consider an act of forgiving now. The seventh session concerned the issues of bearing the pain. As we bear pain, we tend not to pass it onto others via displacement. At the last session, the educator and group members focused on the entire forgiveness journey and discussed the remaining units.
The control group also met weekly, but discussed pertinent social issues, such as health care for the elderly, rather than forgiveness.
Results and Discussion. The experimental group compared with the control group demonstrated greater gain that was statistically significant on the Psychological Profile of Forgiveness Scale, as well as on four of the six subscales. This was observed as a decrease in negative affect and negative thoughts and an increase in positive affect and positive behavior toward the offender. Both the experimental and control groups evidenced significant reductions in trait-anxiety and psychological depression.
This was the first empirically based publication to demonstrate that an educator can help participants to forgive someone who has hurt them. The participants evidenced less anger and negative thoughts toward their offenders as well as more love and greater willingness to reach out and help them. The gains were observed after an intervention that was only 8 weeks in duration.
The fact that both the experimental and control groups demonstrated significant reductions in depression and state-anxiety needs to be addressed. The experimental and control groups’ mean scores for depression were 8.46 and 12.09 at pretest, and 6.15 and 9.27 at posttest. On the trait-anxiety scale, the experimental group’s mean score was 39.09 at pretest and 25.77 at posttest. The control group demonstrated a pretest mean of 44.91 and 40.0 at posttest. It is possible that the act of participating in a group was itself therapeutic for these individuals regardless of which group they attended. It also may be that the control participants experienced psychological benefit from choosing to discuss topics that they, themselves, deemed to be socially relevant. Nonetheless, whereas both groups decreased in depression and anxiety, only the experimental group demonstrated a significant increase in forgiveness.
One might argue that replication with other educators/facilitators would be valuable to control for the influence of the group leader. One also might suggest that replication with other populations is necessary to generalize findings. The intervention that follows addresses these concerns.
Forgiveness With College Students Emotionally Hurt by a Parent
Al-Mabuk et al. (1995) described two studies in which a forgiveness intervention was used with parentally love-deprived college students. By love-deprivation, we mean a situation in which one parent seemed to be emotionally absent as the participant was growing up. Only the second study is described here. The sample was comprised of 45 college students attending a midwestern university. These 45 students were randomly selected from a sample of 120 students who had each scored at least 1 standard deviation above the mean on a screening measure used to assess parental love-deprivation.
Testing and Instruments. Measures similar to Hebl and Enright (1993) were used here, with the addition of a Hope Scale (to assess optimism toward one’s future) and an Attitude Toward Mother/Father (to assess change in one’s view of the parent who may have been emotionally distant to the participant when he or she was growing up). All scales were given at both pre- and posttests, except for self-esteem and depression, which were given at posttest only.
Intervention Procedure. Participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control groups and were blocked on gender of the participant. The experimental group was comprised of 18 women and 6 men whereas the control group included 11 women and 10 men. (Three of the control participants had missing data and were excluded from the analysis.) Six sessions covering the 17 units of the original forgiveness model comprised the educational program for the experimental group. Each group met once per week.
Experimental Sessions. To guide the group sessions, the group leader wrote and used a manual which focused on most units of the process model (see Table 12.1). This manual was not shared with the participants. Procedures similar to Hebl and Enright (1993) were employed, but over six workshop sessions rather than eight. In the first session, participants were given an overview of the workshop and details on the meaning of forgiveness. Session 2 dealt with anger and the complications as seen in the earlier units of Table 12.1. Sessions 3–5 concerned the issues of commitment to forgive (as in Hebl and Enright), and reframing, empathy, and compassion toward the parent. The latter themes were reconsidered in Session 6 as a bridge to issues of absorbing the pain. The student, by bearing the pain, had the opportunity to stop any cycles of revenge that may be occurring between parent and child and to improve the functioning of the family system. The student’s own failings with others served to motivate his or her forgiving. The session ended with the exploration of the student’s affective state and whether forgiveness, no matter how subtle, was beginning to emerge toward the parent.
The control group took part in a human relations program and covered one topic per session. Examples of topics are these: leadership skills, two-way communication, self-discovery, and person perception skills.
Results and Discussion. All but one of the measures administered at pre-and posttest demonstrated statistical significance. On the Psychological Profile of Forgiveness Scale and the Hope Scale, the experimental participants demonstrated significant gains compared with the control group. On both the Attitude Toward Mother/Father and the Trait Anxiety Scale the experimental group evidenced a significant improvement in attitude toward parents and a significant reduction in general anxiety compared with the control group. Only state anxiety showed no significant difference observed between the experimental and control groups. Regarding the two measures used only at posttest, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory, the experimental group evidenced significantly greater self-esteem compared to the control group following intervention. No significant differences were observed between the two groups on psychological depression. Of the 24 experimental participants, 23 chose to sign a commitment-to-forgive contract at posttest. Only 10 of the 21 control group members chose to do so.
The results provide evidence for the effectiveness of the process model with an educational program. The experimental participants showed general and positive movement toward psychological well-being. This improvement was particularly pronounced on the Attitude Toward Father Scale, the Hope Scale and the Psychological Profile of Forgiveness Scale. The experimental group’s posttest means on those measures were, respectively, 18.4 (range = 0–100), 121 (range = 30–150), and 101.5 (range = 30–120). These are high group means relative to the potential range of scores for each instrument.
Although no significant difference was observed between the two groups on depression, it should be noted that both groups were nondepressed. The potential range of scores on the Beck Depression Inventory is 0–63. The posttest means of the experimental and control groups were, respectively, 4.58 and 7.1.
Forgiveness With Adult Incest Survivors
Freedman and Enright (1995, 1996) utilized a forgiveness education program with adult female incest survivors from a city in the Midwest. All participants had experienced sexual abuse during childhood. The sample consisted of 12 women, 50% of whom were abused by their fathers, 8% by a step-father, 16% by a brother, 12% by a grandfather, and 8% by an uncle. The age range of the participants was 24–52 with a mean age of 36 years. Their average level of education was 15 years and all participants were White. Three of the participants were married, five were single, and four were divorced. The average age of onset of the abuse was 6.3 years and the average duration was slightly less than 6 years (range = 6 months to 12 years). The nature of the abuse was as follows: 42% of the women experienced intercourse, 17% fondling and oral-genital contact, and 42% fondling only.
Instruments. Both a screening interview and a crisis symptom checklist were given to all potential participants. Respondents who reported sexual abuse involving contact by a male relative and who also reported no sexual abuse in the past 2 years were deemed eligible for this study. In addition, respondents had to demonstrate psychological difficulty as assessed by the screening interview, crisis symptom checklist, and pretest measures.
To measure forgiveness, the Psychological Profile of Forgiveness Scale was again chosen. As in the other studies, the following scales were given: the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, the Beck Depression Inventory, the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory, and the Hope Scale.
In addition to these instruments, the authors (Freedman & Enright, 1995, 1996) developed the Self-Report Forgiveness Measure specifically for this study. This measure was used to assess whether the research participants had genuinely forgiven their offenders. Three definitions of forgiveness were presented to the participants and they were asked to read them. Participants were then asked to answer five questions to assess their feelings toward their offenders in terms of the definitions of forgiveness provided. If a participant claimed that she had forgiven her offender and the rationale behind her decision was valid, then she was judged to have genuinely forgiven and the intervention was stopped at that point. In other words, this was a criterion-referenced intervention without a set time limit for any participant.
Design. The participants were matched as closely as possible on the following variables: nature of the abuse, abuser, current age, education, and socioeconomic status. One participant of each pair was randomly assigned to the experimental group and the other participant was assigned to the control group. The experimental participant received the intervention immediately and the control participant waited for treatment until her matched pair had completed the intervention. None of the participants was aware that the goal of the program was to forgive her offender until the first intervention session.
Testing Procedure. Each participant received three rounds of pretests and each round was given at 2 week intervals. The instruments were given in randomized order at each administration to prevent order effects. The triple assessment was employed to increase the reliability of the pretest data. Scores were averaged to obtain a single pretest average score.
Following this pretest, the experimental participants began the intervention program. The educator worked with the participant until she indicated that she had forgiven her offender. At that time, the educator administered the Self-Report Forgiveness Measure to verify that the participant had forgiven the offender. Following this verification, the participant was given the posttest measures. Again, a triple assessment procedure was used with three rounds of posttests given at 2 week intervals. When an experimental participant reached criterion and was administered the posttest, the same testing procedure was used with the matched control participant. Following this, the control participant began the intervention program and upon reaching criterion, both she and her matched pair received a second posttest. This second posttest involved only one administration of the measures.
Intervention Procedure. Whereas the experimental participants embarked on the intervention immediately after the pretest, the control participants simply waited until it was time for them to begin the program. During this waiting period, the educator contacted the control participants monthly. The topic of forgiveness was not mentioned until the participants actually began the program. Participants met with the educator on a weekly basis for 60-minute sessions. Each of the participants was given a manual upon beginning the actual intervention. This manual described the 17 units of the original forgiveness process model. All of these units were covered during the intervention, but each session focused on only one unit at a time. Some participants spent more time on certain units than others, particularly if the unit had personal relevance. Each participant worked through the forgiveness process at her own pace and the range of time it took for the entire sample to reach criterion was 10–16 months with the average length being 14.3 months.
After an experimental participant reached criterion by indicating that she had forgiven her offender and providing a valid rationale as measured by the self-report scale, both she and her matched control participant were administered the three rounds of posttest measures. The matched control participant then began the intervention, which involved the same procedures used with the experimental participants.
Sessions were randomly audiotaped and rated according to a checklist consisting of the 17 units or psychological variables. Graduate students who were unfamiliar with the intervention listened to a random selection of the taped sessions and identified the specific unit being discussed in the session. Agreement between raters was 88% over 30 tapes.
Results and Discussion. Data were analyzed according to four comparisons of interest. These are discussed individually. The first comparison looked at the change from pretest to posttest one in each of the groups. It was expected that the experimental group would demonstrate significantly more change because these participants had experienced the intervention during this period whereas the control group had simply been waiting. Statistical significance was found on all of the measures except for self-esteem. In terms of the forgiveness subscales, the experimental group demonstrated significantly greater positive affect and positive cognition and significantly decreased negative thoughts and behavior toward the perpetrator. In other words, following the intervention, the experimental participants demonstrated significant increases in forgiveness and hope and significant reductions in anxiety and depression when compared to the matched control participants who had not yet received the intervention.
In comparison 2, the change within the control group from pretest to posttest 1 (before intervention) was compared with the control group change from posttest 1 to posttest 2 (after intervention). As expected, the change within the control group from posttest 1 to posttest 2 (following intervention) was significantly greater than that observed prior to intervention. Statistical significance was obtained on all five measures indicating that the control-group-turned-experimental benefited with increased forgiveness, hope, and self-esteem and decreased anxiety and depression. As in the first comparison, significant differences were observed on both total forgiveness and subscale scores with increased positive thoughts and affect and decreased negative thoughts and behavior.
Comparison 3 examined the change between the experimental group and the control-group-turned-experimental after both had taken part in the program. Hypotheses were supported with no significant differences observed between the two groups indicating similar effects experienced by both groups. The last comparison looked at the change in the experimental group from pretest to posttest 2 versus the change in the control-group-turned-experimental from posttest 1 to posttest 2. No significant differences were found, indicating that the experimental participants had maintained psychological benefits 1 year after completing the intervention.
This study supports the usefulness of a forgiveness intervention for adult female incest survivors. The study also supports an important finding of the previous study, that positive psychological benefits accompany forgiveness. Experimental participants who forgave experienced greater hope and a decrease in anxiety and depression. The control-group-turned-experimental experienced an increase in self-esteem as well. Both groups of participants experienced moderate depression and higher than average anxiety prior to intervention and no depression and average levels of anxiety compared to normative groups after intervention.
An important outcome of this study was the maintenance of positive treatment effects for at least 1 year after intervention. In other words, the statistically significant increases in hope and forgiveness and decreases in anxiety and depression were still evident 12 months after the experimental group finished the program. In addition, the authors noted that comments from the participants were indicative of increased confidence, which enabled the women to make healthy changes (e.g., ending an unhealthy relationship) and to take risks (e.g., return to school, open a business).
Forgiveness With Men Hurt by the Abortion Decision of Their Partner
Coyle & Enright (in press) tested the efficacy of a forgiveness intervention with postabortion men. The sample consisted of 10 adult males who identified themselves as having been hurt by a personal abortion experience. The participants ranged in age from 21 to 43 with a mean of 28.3 years. All of the participants were from a midwestern city and all were single upon starting the program. Eight of the participants were White, one was Pakistani, and one was biracial (White and African American). Six participants identified themselves as Christian, one as Muslim, and three as agnostic. The average length of time since the abortion was 6 years (range = 6 months to 22 years). Five of the men were opposed to their partner’s abortion from the time they learned of the pregnancies. One of the men was supportive of the abortion initially and one was not told of the abortion until months after the procedure. The rest of the men described themselves as feeling confused or ambivalent at the time the decision to abort was made.
Instruments. Potential participants were given a structured interview to validate their perception of the abortion as a painful and unfair experience and to ensure they could identify one other person they blamed (and felt anger toward) other than themselves. Four other measures were given: forgiveness, anger, anxiety, and grief.
The forgiveness measure employed in this study was the Enright Forgiveness Inventory (EFI; Subkoviak et al., 1992, 1995) and is a refinement of the Psychological Profile of Forgiveness Scale. The measure contains 60 items.
To measure anger, the Spielberger State Anger Inventory was given (Spielberger, Jacobs, Russell, & Crane, 1983). The State Anxiety Inventory also was utilized in this study. The short version of the Perinatal Grief Scale (Potvin, Lasker, & Toedter, 1989) was employed to assess grief.
Design. The 10 participants were randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group. The experimental participants began the intervention immediately after pretest whereas the control participants entered into a 12-week waiting period after pretest. Following the wait time, the controls had the opportunity to participate in the intervention.
Testing Procedure. All participants received three rounds of the pretests at 1-week intervals, similar to the Freedman and Enright (1996) study. The measures were administered in random order. Following the triple administration of pretests, the experimental participant(s) began the 12-week intervention program whereas the control participant(s) entered into a 12-week waiting period. After the intervention was completed for the experimental participant(s), and/or 12-weeks had elapsed for the control participant(s), the instruments were again administered, in random order, three times at 1-week intervals (this is posttest 1). Following the completion of posttest 1, the control-turned-experimental participant(s) received the intervention. After concluding the program, they were again given the measures, in random order, three times at 1 week intervals (this is posttest 2). The experimental participant(s) also received a follow-up administration of the measures 12-weeks after completion of the intervention (posttest 2). For each testing period, the three scores for each measure were averaged to provide one mean score per measure.
Intervention Procedure. The 12-week intervention program consisted of once-per-week sessions each lasting 90 minutes. The educator met with the participants on an individual basis in this program. The intervention was based on the 20 units of the forgiveness process model described in Table 12.1 as well as on five specific areas that have been identified as being problematic for postabortion men. These problem areas included: anger, helplessness, guilt, relationships, and grief. The intervention addressed each of these problems individually and then related the problem to forgiveness. More specifically, forgiveness was offered as a healthy alternative to the negative emotion or problem being experienced. The first session focused on defining genuine forgiveness and ascertaining the participant’s thoughts about forgiveness. The participant also was asked if he had struggled with self-forgiveness and if so, to indicate on a 5-point Likert scale the degree to which he believed he had forgiven himself. The next 10 sessions focused on the five problem areas with 2 sessions devoted to each. Forgiveness was discussed at each session and related to the problem area.
As an example, consider the sessions on helplessness. Many of the men reported that they felt powerless over the abortion decision. The educator helped the participant to vent anger that he had no control over the partner’s ultimate decision. His bitterness was acknowledged and explored. Forgiveness as an alternative to bitterness was examined. The educator reiterated that forgiveness is an act of his own choosing, an active choice that does not leave him helpless. Bearing the pain he feels is also an active, courageous step, signifying strength rather than weakness. The educator pointed out the incompatibility between the active and courageous act of forgiving and the passive approach that constitutes helplessness. Genuine forgiveness, which sets another person free, was contrasted with pseudoforgive-ness, which sometimes tends toward controlling the other.
Throughout the sessions, the participant was questioned concerning his thoughts about forgiveness to evaluate progress and to determine the need for working further on a specific issue. At the final session, the focus was entirely on forgiveness. The basic aspects of the process were reviewed. At this last session, the participant again was asked to indicate the degree to which he believed he had forgiven himself.
Results and Discussion. Four comparisons were made. The first examined the mean change among experimental participants from pretest to posttest 1 (after they had received the intervention) compared with the control participants from pretest to posttest 1 (after they had completed 12-weeks of wait time). It was hypothesized that the experimental group would demonstrate significantly greater increases on forgiveness and significant reductions in anger, anxiety, and grief compared to the control group who had not yet received the intervention. All expectations were realized. The experimental group evidenced significantly greater total forgiveness and this finding held across five of the six EFI subscales. Only on the positive behavior subscale was no significant difference found between the experimental and control participants.
In the second comparison, which examined the mean change scores on each dependent variable between the control group and itself as the control-group-turned-experimental, the mean change scores obtained from pretest to posttest one (before treatment) were compared with the mean change scores obtained from posttest 1 to posttest 2 (after treatment). It was hypothesized that the control participants would demonstrate significant, positive change toward psychological health from posttest 1 to posttest 2 during which time this group experienced the intervention. Significant differences were found on all but the anger scale. The control-group-turned-experimental evidenced significant increases on total forgiveness scores and on four of the EFI subscales. Only on the positive and negative behavior subscales were no significant differences observed. On the measures of anxiety, grief, and all grief subscales, the control-group-turned-experimental demonstrated significant reductions after the intervention. On the measure of anger, the control participants did not evidence a significant difference between the pretest to posttest 1 change and the posttest 1 to posttest 2 change. However, when actual mean scores rather than mean change scores were analyzed, a significant difference was found and the control-group-turned-experimental demonstrated significantly less anger at posttest 2 than at posttest 1.
The third comparison looked at the mean change scores of the experimental group after intervention versus those of the control group after intervention. The hypothesis was that no significant differences would be observed because both groups had now experienced the same intervention. In fact, no significant differences were found on any of the dependent measures.
The fourth and final comparison examined the experimental group’s change from pretest to posttest 2 vs. the control-group-turned-experimental change from posttest 1 to posttest 2. Again, the hypothesis was that no significant differences would be observed indicating that the experimental participants maintained the treatment effects over at least 12 weeks. No significant differences were found on any of the dependent measures confirming expectations.
A nonparametric analysis was utilized to determine if the eight participants in this study who claimed to be having trouble forgiving themselves had experienced improvement. Evidence was found to indicate a significant improvement in self-forgiveness.
The findings seem to support the efficacy of this particular educational intervention. Both groups evidenced significant gains on total forgiveness scores following treatment and the experimental group maintained its gains 12 weeks after treatment. Although significant change was not observed on the behavior subscales, it should be noted that none of the participants was still in a relationship with their partner and so the possibility of engaging in any behavior with them was quite limited. This finding also may highlight the distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation. Following the intervention, both groups evidenced reductions in anger, anxiety, and grief in addition to their significant gains in forgiveness. These findings add support to previous research.
SOME FINAL REFLECTIONS
In reviewing the applied research studies on forgiveness, we see an emerging pattern. All studies showed that participants who wish to forgive can be taught to do so. This occurs regardless of the age of the sample. Young adults in college and the elderly were able to forgive someone who hurt them deeply. Regardless of the presenting problem—incest, parental love-deprivation, abortion—the participants were able to forgive. This pattern provides a solid foundation for the further development of educational programs with the process model that fosters forgiveness.
Evidence suggests that genuine forgiveness can bring psychological healing. Yet, this is not always the case. The elderly did not change more than the control group on most dependent variables. However, in the study with the elderly, it was not the case that the participants failed to improve on psychological indicators. The lack of statistical significance is attributed to the pattern that both experimental and control groups benefited from their respective interventions. In other words, forgiveness is not the only pathway to psychological healing.
We believe that forgiveness offers a substantial opportunity for psychological healing when we examine the findings with parentally love-deprived college students, incest survivors, and men hurt by the abortion decisions of their partner. No other programs than forgiveness have demonstrated such powerful healing effects, some of which endured for over a year following intervention. In other words, the long-neglected area of forgiveness deserves a voice at the table when the agenda is psychological healing from deep hurt.
We recommend that future educators consider the length of the programs. The incest survivors required over a year for each to evidence psychological healing. We say this because each participant had the opportunity to stop the intervention whenever she felt she had forgiven. Most needed about 14 months. In contrast, the college students were able to improve psychologically after 6 weeks. It is unclear whether this is a function of the presenting problem, the different learning environments (after all, the college students were in an atmosphere of learning when they signed up for the forgiveness program), age, or an interaction of some of these. Only future research may shed light on this.
Many of the problems that people bring to moral education or therapy involve deep, personal and unjust hurt. Perhaps more educators and therapists will consider using a forgiveness intervention to foster healing. They may discover that those going through such interventions not only are healed of past injury, but also can deal with future hurts in a more healthy way.
In the future, replications of the research described here will add validity to present findings. We hope that future research will involve other populations than those already studied, allowing for an examination of generalization. The studies described here focused on one type of forgiveness—interpersonal. However, the struggle to forgive one’s self and to receive forgiveness from another are familiar human struggles and need to be investigated. There are numerous situations in which we struggle concurrently with self-forgiveness and other-forgiveness. The various possible interactions among giving forgiveness, receiving forgiveness, and self-forgiveness only recently have been the concern of theorists (Enright et al., 1996). Translating the theory into educational programs for adults is the next step.
13
Contributions of Parent Education to Adult Development
Lee Shumow
Northern Illinois University
The value of marriage is not that adults produce children, but that children produce adults.
—DeVries(1954)
High societal expectations, limited social support, and poor preparation for the parenting role combine to make modern parenthood an exceedingly complex task (LeMasters & DeFrain, 1989). Nevertheless, despite medical advances that allow for individual choice in childbearing and demographic changes that press against it, parenthood remains a role undertaken by most adults in contemporary U.S. society (Neal, Groat, & Wicks, 1989). Parents identify childrearing as their most powerful learning experience (Belenky, Clinchy, Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986); however, most research on parents (except studies on the transition to parenthood) focuses on unidirectional effects of parents on children (Bell, 1968; Goodnow & Collins, 1990). In this chapter, I examine indicators of psychosocial development among parents of school-age children as they participate in a parent education program affiliated with their children’s school.
Erik Erikson’s seminal theory of life-span development predicts reciprocal developmental influences between generations living together in organized cultural settings: “[I]ndividual’s life stages are ‘intertwining,’ cogwheeling with the stages of others which move him along as he moves them” (Erikson, 1964, p. 114). According to Erikson, adults learn and develop as a result of endeavoring to generate competent “new beings as well as to create new ideas” (Erikson, 1985, p. 67). For parents, generativity may be attained by teaching and caring for their offspring in a way that promotes children’s cultural competence (Erikson, 1964). Erikson called attention to the fact that technology, whether traditional or innovative, plays a major part in defining competence within cultures. For children in contemporary Western culture, success in school, particularly in logical-mathematical thinking (Davis & Hersch, 1981; Gardner, 1985), represents a hallmark of competence. Parent participation in furthering their children’s mathematical education, therefore, offers a highly specific, culturally appropriate context for observing ideas, satisfaction, knowledge, and teaching skill that indicate generative development among adults.
Parent Roles in Generating Children’s Competence
What does it mean for parents to generate competence in their children? Consistent with Erikson’s (1964) observation that psychosocially healthy parents strive to support their children’s development, parents of elementary school children are usually, at least tacitly, expected to share the responsibility of education with teachers (Becker & Epstein, 1982). Parent contributions to children’s academic competence include providing children learning experiences, assisting with homework, and monitoring children’s progress (Hamner & Turner, 1990; Scott-Jones, 1984). According to Erikson, participation in such activities should provide developmental opportunities for both parents and children.
Scholars disagree, however, as to whether the parents today make adequate commitments and contributions to their children’s schooling. On the one hand, James Coleman (1987) argued that, due to demographic changes that have overburdened adults with other responsibilities and worries, parents today provide their children far less academic support than have parents in the past. Reports of declining test scores and increasing academic problems among youth seem to support his view (Applebee, Langer, & Mullis, 1986; Dossey, Mullis, Lindquist, & Chambers, 1988). On the other hand, research indicates that a vast majority of parents report that they could and should do more to assist their children with learning activities at home and would do so if teachers provided direction and guidance (Epstein, 1986). Peressini (1995) reported that although parents from a national sample wanted to be involved with their children’s mathematics education, they worried about being unfamiliar and inexperienced with reform approaches to instruction. These viewpoints collectively suggest that parents seek to be generative, yet may need additional education to support their children’s mathematical success. Parents in this rapidly changing society can no longer depend on their own educational background as a model for guiding their children’s education as could parents in more traditional societies.
The primary purpose of the study reported here is to describe and follow parent’s development as they participated in a program designed to actively engage them in their children’s mathematics learning. Unfortunately, schools rarely consider parents as learners (Berger, 1991). Because parents rate mathematics as the subject they most need information about (White, Jones, Aeby, & Benson, 1996), the parent education and involvement program utilized in the study described herein focused on mathematics. The program was developed by two educational psychologists (Lehrer & Shumow, 1997; Shumow, 1995) with careful attention to adult learners’ needs. Newsletters were designed and sent home because parents prefer to read about parenting issues on their own schedule rather than attend classes (Riley, 1989). Text and graphics were also an efficient way to describe models of children’s development. Moreover, printed material containing information about school activities may improve parent attitudes about their children’s schools (Kroth, 1989). Specially designed homework for parents to do with their children accompanied the newsletters. This homework provided examples of the development described in the text and opportunities for both observation of children’s development and active teaching experience. Thus, parents received information that enabled them to place their own children within the developmental framework provided. Reading the newsletters and doing homework with their children was expected to enhance parent’s knowledge of their children, change their attitudes, and facilitate their teaching effectiveness—all indicators of psychosocial generativity.
Erikson’s theory predicts that parents develop new ideas, teaching skills, and personal satisfaction as a result of contributing to their children’s cognitive competence. An earlier study (Lehrer & Shumow, 1997) positively associated parent participation in the parent education program with gains in children’s competence, suggesting possible changes in parent’s development, for example, their ideas, knowledge, and teaching effectiveness. The current study tracks parent ideas as well as their satisfaction in helping their children. I expected that learning about their child’s development would enable parents to become more effective teachers. Consequently, both parent knowledge about their child’s mathematical development and parent’s teaching effectiveness also were followed over the course of their participation in the parent education program.
Parent Ideas
Parental ideas, especially those about mathematics (e.g., knowledge of child development, expectations, and attributions), have been widely studied; however, the prior research is limited in at least three ways. First, the studies lack ecological validity because they do not focus on issues or definitions expressed by parents engaged in raising children. Questions about whether research is actually meaningful to parents led scholars to suggest that researchers provide parents greater latitude in defining their own ideas (McGuire, 1986; Miller, 1988). Second, beliefs are typically measured at only one time implying that beliefs are static, a view not uniformly endorsed by developmentalists (Goodnow, 1988). Furthermore, those studies that addressed the possibility of change rarely followed the same individuals longitudinally; rather, they compared groups with varying experience (Cooke, 1991; Matusov & Rogoff, 1996) or introduced a time dimension such as asking about whether parents hold similar attitudes for older or younger children (Dix, Ruble, Grusec, & Nixon, 1986). Third, in terms of studies on mathematics beliefs, almost all prior studies on parent beliefs about mathematics focus on traditional mathematics despite major policy initiatives by the U.S. Department of Education (1994), the National Science Foundation (1996), and the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (1989) seeking to radically reform mathematics instruction. My study addresses these three limitations.
Ideas shared by parents when they are given the opportunity to comment openly on their experience with their children provide a window into parents’ views about their roles, their knowledge about children’s mathematical competence, and their personal satisfaction with helping their children. In a prior study (Lehrer & Shumow, 1997), parents evaluated reform mathematics practices in response to viewing videotaped vignettes of children in classrooms before any attempts were made to educate them about their children’s mathematical development. Overall, although a majority of parents expressed openness to considering reform practices, they often stated that the reform practices should be supplemented with traditional instruction in order to ensure learning.
Little is known about parents’ ideas about their role in educational reforms or in children’s mathematical education. Whether these ideas change as parents learn and gain experience working with their children is an open question. Accordingly, I examined how parents defined their role in mathematics education reforms and whether and how these ideas changed as they received information and gained experience interacting with their children. Some recent evidence suggests plasticity in parent’s ideas related to their involvement with educational reforms. Matusov and Rogoff (1996) observed parent practices consonant with progressive educational philosophy, comparing parents with longer tenure as volunteers in an “innovative” elementary school with parent volunteers who were “newcomers.” They concluded that parents gained new ideas as a result of their experiences in the school. Parents whose children’s teachers involved them in home activities also rated themselves as having greater knowledge about the school program than parents of children whose teachers did not (Epstein, 1986).
Other evidence suggests stability in parents’ ideas about education and child development. Parents in some communities rebelled against progressive constructivist educational reforms after informally learning about them, preferring a return to the traditional instruction with which they were familiar (Dillon, 1990; Dow, 1991). Moreover, Cohen (1981) observed that mothers accepted constructivist ideas only temporarily while their children were in preschool and Goodnow, Cashmore, Cotton, and Knight (1984) found that parent beliefs favoring traditional education remained stable despite a school initiative to inform them about developmentally appropriate expectations. Thus, if the mathematics reform program conflicts with stable beliefs, parents may hold to their prior beliefs and resist changing views that are likely to be consistent with their own experience in traditional classrooms (Graue & Smith, 1995; Reineke, 1996).
Stability in thought also may be promoted by social agreement (Turner, 1985; Turner & Oakes, 1986) about valid educational approaches. Twenty-five percent of the parents interviewed in a belief study conducted prior to instituting parent education spontaneously indicated that parents actively monitored children learning and that concerns about the math program were being discussed in the community (Shumow, 1995). One parent said: “I have some neighbors that are, you know, against this sort of thing. Because I don’t think they can, my neighbors don’t understand intuitively what they are trying to teach ’em … They want to see an empirical grade point … and look, they say, ‘he [the child] can’t add’ … which is where the system will fall apart, where you can’t prove it to the parents.” Such statements suggested that at least some parents in the community had strong attitudes and misperceptions about the reforms and that they were discussing their concerns among themselves. Following parents’ ideas as they participate in a program to involve them with their children’s learning will expand the static view of parent beliefs about children’s learning currently prevalent in the literature. Active involvement and learning by parents was expected to result in attitude changes.
Parent Knowledge About Children’s Development and Teaching Skill
Teaching is an essential aspect of generativity. The second purpose of this study was to investigate whether parents gained knowledge about their child’s development and whether learning about children’s development paralleled increases in teaching effectiveness. In prior work on parent participation in mathematics (Lehrer & Shumow, 1997), parents were observed to assist their children with mathematics homework using directive practices highly consonant with traditional instruction. Research on mathematics reform indicates that as teachers learn about the development of children’s mathematical reasoning they become more facilitative of children’s reasoning and less directive (Fennema, Franke, Carpenter, & Carey, 1992). This suggests that as parents gain new knowledge and attitudes, they also will change the assistance they provide children. This conjecture is consistent with Cooke’s (1991) findings that parental knowledge about child development is associated positively with child-focused teaching.
THE STUDY
Participants
A total of 35 parents, 29 mothers and 6 fathers, whose children (n = 18 girls; n = 17 boys) attended two second-grade classrooms implementing educational reforms participated in the parent education study. Parents were recruited by a letter requesting their participation and by a brief presentation during the fall classroom open-house. Four parents, two from each classroom, declined. In addition, two mothers dropped out due to changes in life circumstances that occurred after they had agreed to participate in the research study. The classrooms were located in neighboring elementary schools from a community in the Midwest. Fourteen percent of the children in the schools received lunch subsidies from the federal government. Parent educational levels ranged from high school education to graduate degrees with a median level of some college attendance. Parent occupations ranged from clerical workers to professionals.
Procedures
Parent Education Program. The parent education program was developed for several reasons. For one, parents in the community appeared to be reacting against school reform and some parents of children in the reform classrooms made complaints about the mathematics education their children were receiving (Lehrer & Shumow, 1997). Essentially, parents cared about their children’s education, and they did not understand the reforms because they had no opportunities to learn about them. As a result, it seemed worthwhile to provide parents with information and experience so that they could make up their minds from an informed perspective. Parents cannot be expected to support reforms that they do not understand. Another reason the program was developed was that parents assisted their children with homework in a manner consistent with the traditional methods with which they were taught (Lehrer & Shumow, 1997; Shumow, 1995) and disparities between home and school often create problems for children, parents, and schools.
Basic cognitive learning principles were used in designing the parent education program. Activities engaged parents with their children’s mathematical development. Each week, as a homework activity, parents and children cooperatively solved two problems situated in common family activities. Parents selected two problems that were meaningful to them from a set of six problems because incorporating personal relevance in parent education enhances transfer of knowledge (Hills & Knowles, 1987). A newsletter that provided a basic framework about how children typically solve problems accompanied the homework. Such a framework helps establish appropriate expectations for children’s competence, guides parent observations of children’s learning, and highlights the desired outcome of teaching assistance. Altogether there were 16 newsletters describing the development of children’s mathematical reasoning. Homework problems served to exemplify the child’s thinking on the topic described in the newsletter because examples are critically important to learning. In addition, parents recorded their observations of the child’s thinking on the homework, which promoted reflection.
Interviews. Sixteen parents participated in four open-ended discussions with me (the remaining parents completed surveys, the results of which are reported in Shumow, 1995). I conducted classroom observations to familiarize myself with the children. Calls were made at 1-month intervals beginning about 4 weeks after the start of the parent education program and lasted approximately 20 minutes. Questions posed to parents were open-ended. I always began by asking for the parent’s observations. For example, parents were asked: “What do you notice about (the child)’s response to the homework?” I then shared my observations with the parent. I also always asked, “Do you have any comments or concerns?” Finally, I gave a brief preview of what to expect in the following weeks. Verbatim comments were recorded into a computer during the conversations to the extent possible, but sometimes keywords were recorded in order to maintain the flow of conversation. Transcript errors (e.g. spelling, abbreviations) were corrected immediately following the telephone call.
Measures
Interview Coding. Because of the interest in allowing parents to define their own issues, a content analysis was conducted on the first set of interviews. Parent ideas about their role in generating children’s competence, and their satisfaction in assisting their children were revealed in issues raised by parents during the first conversation in reply to my request for their comments and concerns. These were identified and classified into general categories: concerns about the child’s learning, explicit statements favoring traditional methods of mathematics instruction, concerns about their ability to act in consonance with reform practices, parent satisfaction with participation (pressure or pleasure), and a few “other” issues (e.g., questions about the research, the university, or school policies). In order to follow parents’ learning about children’s development, statements parents made about the child’s mathematical skills and knowledge when asked about how the homework was progressing were identified and categorized as (a) a description of only basic facts/rote skills or as (b) including a description of children’s reasoning (e.g., strategies). Subsequent interviews were coded based on this scheme. An independent coder, who was completely unfamiliar with the children, families, or the purpose of the study, sorted parent statements into the defined categories. Interrater reliability was .89.
Parent Teaching Effectiveness
Twenty parents were randomly selected to be videotaped assisting their children with homework both before and after participation in the parent education program. Parents assisted their children in solving four word problems. Parental teaching was coded for a problem that the child found challenging (the child could solve the problem with assistance but not independently). The development and rationale for the coding scheme and protocol is described in detail elsewhere (Lehrer & Shumow, 1997). In brief, the proportion of assistance that included the child in reasoning (as opposed to telling or showing) was identified. Examples of including the child in reasoning are: “What are you trying to find out?”; “What can you do now?”; “Why did you do that?”; and “What does the 5 mean?” Each distinct act of assistance was coded. Assistance was usually bounded by a change in turn, but occasionally, if the child did not respond, two consecutive parent moves were coded. Interrater reliability on 25% of the problem-solving episodes was .92.
Classroom Context—Mathematics Program. Before describing the findings, a brief description of the reform mathematics program is provided. Mathematics reforms have been instituted recently to prepare children to understand and use the complex mathematics required to function in the information age. This study utilized the Cognitively Guided Instruction (CGI) approach to reforming mathematics education. CGI is a project that provides teachers with research knowledge about how children reason about arithmetic word problems (Fennema & Carpenter, 1989) and geometry (Lehrer, Fennema, Carpenter, & Ansell, 1993). Teachers are provided with a description of the strategies children typically use to solve word problems (the newsletters presented a simplified version). Children’s reasoning about shape, measurement, and direction also have been described and this information was shared with the teachers (and parents). Teachers develop their knowledge about children’s thinking by reading, attending workshops, and observing children solving problems. Consistent with progressive constructiveness practices, CGI teachers use knowledge of children’s thinking, not textbooks, as their pedagogical guide (Fennema et al., 1992).
RESULTS
In this section I present evidence that the parent education program assisted parents’ in developing psychosocial generativity, providing specifics about how parents expressed care and contributed to children’s competence. Indicators of generativity include the care and concern parents expressed, ideas about their role, satisfaction with guiding children’s development, knowledge about children’s learning, and enhanced teaching effectiveness. First, two case studies are presented (pseudonums are used in each study) to illustrate such parent learning and development. The case studies are followed by a summary of changes in ideas, knowledge, and teaching effectiveness among the broader sample of participating parents.
Case Studies
Melissa’s Mother: Jane. Jane identified Melissa as a struggling child and was consequently reticent about the program during the first interview in early November. She wondered “about all this problem solving” and stated that arithmetic facts were important, too. When asked to comment on how the homework had been going and what she had noticed she laughed and replied, “I didn’t know what it meant when it asked about her reasoning.” Jane further said that she was concerned about Melissa; she thought that Melissa had school problems and hoped the teacher didn’t think she was neurotic when she wrote her a note about them. She pointed to spelling errors in Melissa’s mathematic’s notebook as justification for her concern. Likewise, during the second interview, Jane raised a lot of questions and concerns centered on her opinion that this mathematics program was “boggling Melissa’s mind.”
Jane described Melissa’s response to the homework during the third interview:
“I was kind of surprised … I mean she would just do it and I’d have to think and then say ‘yup, that’s right.’”… I wouldn’t have been able to figure out in my head, but I don’t know. She had no problem. It’s good to find something positive that your child gets, it makes her happy, as well as me—not seeing her struggle. When we were first talking I felt it [reasoning] was too young. Now, I don’t think so, it’s a great time to introduce what later can be too intimidating, but with quilts [a geometric reasoning activity] and stuff it’s fun.
Later in the third interview she said, “It was something we were doing, it wasn’t a homework, we were just talking in the kitchen, and I made up a problem about what we were doing (the difference between what we used and what we started with) and she counted from the number she had up to mine and I thought that’s a good step because that’s exactly what she’s supposed to be doing. You know, I am more aware. Before I wouldn’t ever think to talk to my kids about math, like her sister I wouldn’t have.” She then compared herself to some other parents in the community: “I’m really glad that we’re doing this. I have some other friends whose kids aren’t in [the target parent education classrooms] and they have no idea what’s going on, they’re not getting this. But I have this and so I feel very fortunate to have this hands on experience as a parent to see the development.” The fourth interview in March was mostly taken up with Jane’s descriptions of Melissa’s mathematical development and strategy use on the homework problems.
Michael’s Father: Ray. At first, Ray had little to say about Michael’s response on the homework other than that “he performed fine,” yet he was terribly concerned. His son had done extremely well in his traditional first-grade mathematics environment as evidenced by his quick and accurate completion of worksheets of arithmetic facts. Michael was very frustrated with having to explain his reasoning and resented having to justify his answers in second grade. Ray said his wife was worried as well because Michael’s attitude was changing. He said that they didn’t “feel it’s our place to question how she teaches, but it seems she is too hard on the children. Michael is pressured and is saying T hate story problems.’ He doesn’t understand what’s wrong with just getting the answer.”
After having completed about half of the program, Ray commented that he was really “gaining an appreciation of learning” from listening to Michael solve and explain problems. During Call 3 Ray expressed a new attitude toward Michael’s competence: “I always looked at him like my little baby, like there’s nothing going on up there except like cartoons, but he’s really surprised me!”
In contrast to the concern he had about Michael explaining and justifying his answers during the first call, during the fourth and final interview Ray said, “He is taking it [explaining] as a challenge … if he thinks it through he can back up what he says …. I’d like him to continue on [with this mathematics program], he enjoys it and I see how he has grown.”
Concerns and Role Definitions
The concerns parents raised about the mathematics program reflected the way in which they defined their roles as parents in caring for their children and contributing to children’s competence. The most commonly raised issue, mentioned by 88% of parents across all four phone calls, involved their role as monitors of their child’s learning and performance. Such concerns were most common during the first two interviews. For example, parents wanted to ensure that their children would be successful in future mathematics instruction. At first, parents worried that the children were not going to be prepared for third-grade math. By the final two phone calls, parents had expanded their concepts of mathematics learning as a result of attending to their children’s reasoning. They asked why third-grade teachers weren’t reforming their curriculum. To illustrate this change, one mother who had initially argued for teaching rote procedures stated, “This is a great math program … I want to see it carried forward. They’re going to get shoved back in their mold. You get them thinking; how can you shove them back in the box?”
Another way that parents revealed interest in monitoring their children’s progress was their concern about the level of the mathematics work. Parents appeared to base their ideas about the appropriate difficulty of work on their beliefs about their child’s ability. Parents who believed their children were very good at mathematics tended to worry that the program was not challenging enough, whereas parents who believed their children struggled worried that the problem solving was too advanced.
As exemplified in the case studies, the parents of struggling children also seemed concerned with providing their children with emotional support, another important aspect of caring. Several parents of highly capable students were cognizant of emotional issues as well; they initially expressed difficulty watching their child struggle to explain their answers and wondered if it was too hard for them.
Parents were also interested in how their children would become competent in mathematics. Half of the parents initially believed that traditional methods were the most effective for promoting success. During the first two phone calls it was common for parents to think that traditional methods such as rote memorization of facts, algorithms, and worksheets were most beneficial. Like Jane, several of these parents ended up marveling at what their children were capable of during the final interview and acknowledging that the children did remember facts during the process of solving more difficult problems. Two parents retained their confidence in traditional methods despite their participation in the educational program.
Another issue, raised by 50% of the parents, regarded their role in contributing to their children’s competence through assisting with homework. They were unsure that they were assisting the child properly given their lack of familiarity with the approach. One father started out being intimidated by the professionalism of the teacher; he said, “what concerns me is the kind of talk teachers do, different than mine—I don’t have the background, the training, the same words.” By the fourth call most parents were more comfortable with their role as facilitators.
Most parents expressed deep satisfaction with their involvement with their children. Time pressures attendant to modern life were evident, but not overwhelming. Being short of time to participate in the parent education program was an infrequently expressed concern raised by 25% of the parents at one time or another. This concern was offset by 81% of the parents who expressed pleasure in participating in the homework (the most time-consuming part of the program). They found that it was simply a lot of fun: “This is really neat, real great to do this homework. Finding things in real life is fun! I just love it - playing with him and going to the store.”
Figure 13.1 indicates that following an initial increase in concerns there was a sharp decrease in the percentage of parents having concerns across the four phone calls. Because some parents identified more than one concern, the percentage of individual parents raising issues per phone call was calculated. As shown in the figure, 56%, 88%, 44% and 25% percent of the parents expressed concerns during the first, second, third, and fourth phone calls respectively. But, as noted, the nature of the concerns about future mathematics instruction turned from negative to positive evaluation of the reforms. (Frequency of total concerns follow the same quadratic pattern.) Also represented on the graph is the parallel increase in parent identification of children’s reasoning.
FIG. 13.1. Change in parent observations over time (N = 16 parents).
Development of Parent Knowledge and Teaching Skill
Parents Learned About Children’s Reasoning. A primary purpose of the parent education program was to help parents learn about children’s reasoning in mathematics. This knowledge assists parents to fulfill their role as supporters of their children’s education by providing an understanding of what to facilitate when teaching the child. The percentage of parents who described children’s reasoning was examined across interviews to determine whether parents learned about children’s mathematical reasoning as they participated in the parent education program.
In the first phone call, consistent with traditional notions of mathematics education, most parents noticed rote knowledge and did not mention the child’s reasoning. For example, a common response to the shape comparison activity is exemplified in one parent’s response: “He knew one was a triangle and one was a square.” In contrast, only 25% of the parents discussed their children’s strategy use. To illustrate, one parent noted how her child approached a shape comparison task: “He noticed the sides of the two shapes looked the same and he measured them and … proved that the triangle was actually exactly half of the square.” In the following phone calls, as evidenced by their discussion of children’s strategy use, parents learned about children’s reasoning. Half of the parents described their child’s strategy use while solving mathematics problems during the second call and only three mentioned rote knowledge. During the third phone call, 75% of the parents described children’s strategy use; only one parent talked exclusively about rote knowledge (which arithmetic facts the child recalled). Ninety-four percent of the parents talked about children’s reasoning during the fourth phone call.
Finally, at the conclusion of the program, the parents were asked whether they had been more aware of their child’s mathematical thinking and whether they had applied this understanding to any situations other than homework. Most (89%) of the parents said they were more aware of their child’s mathematical thinking since receiving the newsletters and doing homework with their child. Eighty-four percent of the parents could give an example of extending the knowledge they gained from program participation; all examples included posing or discussing mathematics problems with the child in the context of daily activity. For example, parents reported engaging their children in mathematical reasoning while planning trips, traveling in the car, preparing food, watching sports, and shopping. This parent report was substantiated by teacher report. Teachers rated parents in the participating classrooms as able to share examples of their child’s mathematical thinking during spring parent-teacher conferences whereas parents in the non-participating classrooms could not.
Parents became more effective teachers. A correlated t test was used to examine change in parental assistance between the pre- and postparent education problem-solving sessions. The proportion of parental assistance that included children in reasoning increased after participation in parent education [t(19) = 6.27, p < .0001].
DISCUSSION
According to Erikson, adults change as a result of contributing to children’s competence and caring for the future generation. My study demonstrated that participation in a parent education program about children’s development resulted in specific changes in parents’ ideas, knowledge, and teaching skill. In contrast to frequently used measures of generativity in which adults are questioned about very general issues such as whether they are interested in raising children or would enjoy teaching a skill (cf. McAdams & St. Aubin, 1991; Ochse & Plug, 1986), the present study provides a more specific and elaborated view of generative development in action. Overall, parents revealed a deep sense of care about and investment in children’s development. As documented here, parents learned to recognize their children’s reasoning and how to contribute to it as a result of reading about children’s development, observing their children’s approach to problems, and participating in problem solving. Parents’ new knowledge paralleled a decrease in concerns, an increase in satisfaction, growth in teaching skill, and transfer to other situations.
Parent participation in this program was substantial. The essential elements of generativity—caring for, protecting, and making a contribution to the next generation—were evident. For example, the issues parents raised demonstrated that they were actively engaged in their role as monitors of their children’s education. Initially, the underlying issue for parents seemed to be whether their own child would be successful with the reform approach to mathematics education. This mirrors a theme identified in preliminary analysis of parent interviews from a national study of mathematics reform implementation (Peressini, 1995). Monitoring children’s progress is an important task that requires knowledge about how children learn and develop. The newsletters sent with homework helped set expectations for parents by describing typical ways that children understand and solve numerical and spatial problems. These descriptions served as a framework for parents’ knowledge construction as they participated, observed, and reflected on their children’s homework.
Recognition of children’s developmental growth is important to parents (Chilman, 1980), a point worth noting by educational reformers. In this study, some parents started out concerned that the work was too demanding or frustrating for the children and expressed protectiveness. This concern about frustration is consonant with Rogoff’s (1990) observation of how difficult it is for parents to watch their children struggle. Children in these reform classrooms work on challenging problems that require more time and effort to solve than the problems in traditional mathematics classrooms. Combined with restricted access to knowledge about how children develop mathematical competence, this parental protectiveness appeared to be a contributing factor to parent complaints and concerns about reforms.
It is especially noteworthy that concerns initially increased as parents became aware of the deep differences between the reform and traditional means of teaching mathematics. This indicates that schools may need to plan to include parent education as part of reform movements. Parents’ concerns decreased as their knowledge increased. People can operate only with the knowledge they have available to them, and, unfortunately, information is not equally accessible to all (Foucault, 1980). As parents learned and worked with their children, they took great delight and pride in helping to develop competence in their children which, in turn, contributed to their own psychosocial development.
Parents became actively engaged in assisting children’s learning. When children were assigned homework and parents were given guidance in the form of information about children’s development, parents actively participated in assisting their children. Parents in this study behaved in a manner consistent with what surveyed parents said they would do given outreach by schools (Epstein, 1986). Nevertheless, parents did express some insecurity about being unable to help their children.
Unfortunately, simply having children does not result in the development of generativity in adults, nor do all adults successfully assist child competence (Erikson, 1985). Schools can support parents’ generativity needs by educating them about children’s development. In this case, parents learned about how their children reason and this knowledge contributed to their ability to assist the children become more competent as well as to their own development. Moreover, the transfer of this knowledge to naturally occurring family situations indicated that the parents’ learning was meaningful to them.
Although there were sporadic complaints about time pressure attendant to homework assignments, most parents enjoyed engaging in the activities, observing, and listening to their children. This is consonant with Erikson’s (1964) contention that generative activities are deeply satisfying to adults. In spite of busy family schedules and high-stress contemporary life styles, homework situated in family activity appeared to be workable for families. The parents in this study were by and large members of the middle class, but Comer’s (1995) work with low-income parents indicates that they, too, responded to requests to help their children with homework.
Attending to parent learning may have the additional benefit of establishing informal community networks of parents who can share knowledge with each other and alleviate concerns. This may be well worth the effort in light of the indications that parents did discuss the school reforms among each other and evidence that information and acceptance of ideas tends to travel by word of mouth between individuals in communities (Weenig & Midden, 1991).
Parents’ response to participation with their children in this mathematics education program illustrates Erikson’s concept of cogwheeling. Parents learned and changed as they assisted their children’s growth in mathematical competence. The mathematics reforms are directed toward preparing children to understand and use higher level mathematics and technology. In this era of rapidly changing information and educational reform, schools need to direct efforts toward life long learning in the form of parent education and to building school communities around mutual goals and understanding.
