Places and backgrounds

Everyone understands the basic idea of everyone being their own person; no one should be an exact replica of anyone else. In order to completely understand how “place” matters in my discipline, keep in mind that we do not all come from the same background. Therefore, everyone has their own interpretation of how “place” matters in their discipline. My interpretation of how the word place is used in this statement is, where I live, where I was raised, or who I was raised around. In other words, my own personal background, the basic who, what, when, where, and why. It may be hard for some individuals to explain how their background matters in their discipline. It might have not been the best for any other personal reason. When I was growing up I was one of those individuals who rarely spoke about my background and I did not understand why until my senior year of high school. The school year had recently started and I already had counselors and teachers asking what I would like to major in. At first, like many seniors in high school, I would answer with “undeclared for now” but once I started writing my personal statements and cover letter I came to a conclusion that I would like to major in psychology. Only because as I was peer-editing other personal statements I realized how much one’s background allows you to understand why one acts the way they do. That is when I realized that not all places or neighborhoods are the same they are all different just as humans are.

In the article, “A Prospective Three Generational Study of Father’s Constructive Parenting: Influences from family of Origin, Adolescent Adjustment, and Offspring Temperament” by David C. R. Kerr, Deborah M. Capaldi, et. Al., a study is conducted in Oregon to see how constructive parenting is maintained by engendering positive adjustments in offspring. Participants used in this study were based off neighborhood risks for delinquency assessed in early childhood. Researchers concluded that first generation parents influenced second generation parents indirectly with positive adjustments but not adolescent behavior. Second generation parents were influenced by first generation parents on parenting the third generation. Second generation parents influenced the third generations behavior problem (p. 1257). Results showed that, children who were being raised in neighborhoods with higher delinquency rates were the ones with negative adolescent behavior, where as in a neighborhood where delinquency was not as high showed positive adolescent behavior (p. 1262-1263).

In the article, “Increases in Maternal Education and Low-Income Children’s Cognitive and Behavioral Outcomes” by Jessica F. Harding, a study is conducted to see the relationship between increases in maternal education and cognitive skills and behavioral problems in first grade. Participants in this study were chosen from low-income families from the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. Researchers concluded that the increases in external behavior problems were larger for children whose mothers had less than a college degree (p. 583).  Mothers who moved away from where they grew up and have had children are influenced to go back to school and have a career for their children. They do not want their children to live the way they did even though their parents did not have a bad childhood. It simply is that parents want their children to do bigger and better things than they ever did (p. 591).

In the article, “Community Violence, Family Conflict, and Preschoolers’ Socioemotional Functioning” by Jo Ann M. Farver and Yiyuan Xu, a study is conducted to see the correlation among family conflict, community violence, and young children’s socioemotional functions and explore how children’s social cognition and mother’s psychological function may intervene with this exposure. Participants were chosen based on inner-city head start programs with high rates in crime and violence. Researchers concluded that children’s social awareness and mother’s depressive symptoms partially mediated the effects of community violence and family conflict on outcomes for children (p. 160-162). Results show, that the more violence they are exposed to in their neighborhood the more children show violence or someone shows violence towards them.

Now that I have explained each of these articles I am able to how explain place matters in my discipline. All three articles discussed the impact on one’s background. Meaning, they gathered data from either the participant’s parents, where they grew up, how they were raised, or how much violence was or wasn’t in their neighborhood area. Just because one is in a different place does not mean there is less violence or less people of a certain race. For example, in my place and perseverance course we use census tracks to compare the percent of people in different races and low income families from different neighborhoods. A big factor in any of the variables we examined was the location and how the location was presented. Did they have a high violence rate? Were all the moms in the neighborhood single moms? This helped me come to a conclusion that no matter how far in life we go, the place we come from will always a part of our disciple. Our discipline is based on past experiences, whether they were good or bad. A big part of our past experiences is where we grew up. Once again explaining how “place” plays a big role in my discipline.