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Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School
12-2007 For a Moment I Feel Free: Homeless Women and a Garden-Based Learning Program Catherine Ann Pierce University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Recommended Citation Pierce, Catherine Ann, "For a Moment I Feel Free: Homeless Women and a Garden-Based Learning Program. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2007. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/266
This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Trace: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Catherine Ann Pierce entitled "For a Moment I Feel Free: Homeless Women and a Garden-Based Learning Program." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education. Mary F. Ziegler, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Sandra Thomas, Katherine Greenberg, Susan Hamilton Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official student records.) To the Graduate Council:
I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Catherine Ann Pierce entitled “For a Moment I Feel Free: Homeless Women and a Garden-Based Learning Program.” I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Education.
Mary F. Ziegler Major Professor
We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance:
Sandra Thomas
Katherine Greenberg
Susan Hamilton
Accepted for the Council:
Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School
(Original signatures are on file with official student records.) “For a Moment I Feel Free”:
Homeless Women and a Garden-Based Learning Program
A Dissertation
Presented for the
Doctor of Philosophy Degree
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Catherine Ann Pierce
December 2007
Copyright © 2007 by Catherine A. Pierce
ii DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to all the women at The Lord’s Place West Palm Beach,
Florida Family Shelter who so generously shared their time and stories with me. I wish the best that life has to offer for each of you and your families.
iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
There are many people to thank for their contributions to this dissertation. Above all, I thank the homeless women who participated in this study and the administrators and staff at The Lord’s Place. I am forever grateful to my teacher, mentor, and friend Linda
Seals for her unwavering support, kindness, and enthusiasm for this study. This dissertation would not exist without their cooperation and support.
A special thanks to my daughter, Jennifer Winton. Your tender love and unstinting support have enriched my life in many ways. I appreciate your love, patience, acceptance, and generosity of spirit.
I am also grateful to my Major Professor, Dr. Mary Ziegler, for her unwavering support and encouragement. Words cannot express my appreciation for a teacher such as
Mary who is dedicated to the success of her students.
I am deeply indebted to the members of my committee for their contributions to this study and their support of me throughout my graduate studies. Dr. Katherine
Greenberg set the project in motion when she assigned a 20-page research paper. Dr.
Sandra Thomas guided me through the development of the original version of my dissertation proposal. Dr. Susan Hamilton generously shared her knowledge of garden- based learning. It was great to work with a committee that showed as much excitement for the research as I did.
I am grateful for Dr. Ralph Brockett who led me through the pilot study and activities related to the development of the therapeutic horticulture program and helped make them a success.
iv I also want to express my gratitude to Dr. Dent Davis for granting me permission to use his curriculum philosophy in the development of the therapeutic horticulture program. It is hard to say who enjoys the program more - the facilitators or the learners.
I want to acknowledge two special friends and colleagues who contributed to the validity of this study. Patricia Duffley-Renow served as my peer debriefer. Her searching questions prompted great insights and helped me to gain a new perspective on certain aspects of this study. Dr. Regina Curran provided inter-rater reliability and helped me to view certain themes in a new light. I feel blessed to know both of you.
Finally, thanks so much to my Hawkwind family and friends for your love and prayers which have accompanied me on this long journey. Thanks also to the women of
WHW for being there everyday and helping me along the way as together we trudge this road of happy destiny.
v ABSTRACT
A recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (2007) concluded that in January 2005 at least 754,147 people were
homeless on an average day. Families with children are the fastest-growing sector of the
homeless population and comprise 40% of the homeless population. Most of these
families are headed by single women and reside in shelters rather than on the streets. Loss
of one’s home, the conditions of shelter life, and the physical and sexual abuse that often
precipitate homelessness result in diminished self-efficacy and hope. There is an urgent
need to mitigate the psychological traumas faced by these homelessness families in a
tangible way to help them develop increased self-efficacy and a restored sense of hope,
and lend support to their efforts to escape from homelessness.
The existing literature indicates that increased self-efficacy leads to improvements
in academic work, predicts success in obtaining employment and permanent housing,
promotes abstinence from alcohol and drug abuse, and supports effective parenting
among homeless women. The literature also indicates that hope contributes to effective
goal setting and the determination to actively pursue those goals, thereby lending support
to homeless women’s efforts to escape from homelessness. Many authors have written
about a garden as a place of transition, expectation, and hope and garden-based learning provides benefits in the intellectual/cognitive, physical, emotional/psychological, and social domains. However, little research has been conducted on the effects of participation in gardening and other horticultural activities on self-efficacy and hope
among homeless individuals.
vi The purpose of this study was to determine if participation in a garden-based learning program would positively influence women residing at a homeless shelter in
South Florida with regard to their levels of hope and self-efficacy. This three-phase, sequential mixed method study used a combination of survey instruments and semi- structured interviews to investigate the levels of hope and self-efficacy in eight homeless women and the ability to modify these factors through a garden-based learning intervention. The overarching research question for this study was: What are the results and experiences of participation in a garden-based learning program for homeless women with regard to hope and self-efficacy?
vii Table of Contents
Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION Statement of the Problem ...... 1 Adult Education for the Homeless ...... 3 Purpose of the Study ...... 4 Research Question and Hypothesis ...... 4 Theoretical Frameworks ...... 5 Significance of the Study ...... 7 Delimitations ...... 7 Limitations ...... 8 Definitions ...... 8 Summary ...... 9
Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW Homelessness ...... 10 History of Homelessness ...... 10 General ...... 10 Families ...... 11 Single Parents with Children ...... 12 Causes of Homelessness ...... 13 Theoretical Constructs ...... 13 Choice, nature, or personality ...... 13 Social disaffiliation ...... 13 Housing and poverty ...... 14 Societal disinvestment ...... 14 Empirical Studies ...... 15 Domestic violence ...... 15 Lack of affordable housing ...... 20 Low paying jobs ...... 21 Mental illness ...... 22 Poverty ...... 22 Substance abuse ...... 23 Unemployment ...... 24 Effects of Homelessness ...... 25 Proposed Solutions to Homelessness ...... 27 Solutions Based on Duration or Nature of Homelessness ...... 27 Solutions Based on Causes of Homelessness ...... 28 Self-Efficacy ...... 34 Self-Efficacy Theory ...... 35 Definitions of Self-Efficacy ...... 36 Development of Self-Efficacy Theory ...... 36 Influence of Self-Efficacy ...... 37 Cognitive processes ...... 38
viii Motivational processes ...... 39 Affective processes ...... 39 Selection processes ...... 40 Development of Self-Efficacy ...... 41 Mastery experiences ...... 41 Vicarious experiences ...... 42 Social persuasion ...... 42 Physiological and emotional states ...... 43 Hope ...... 43 Hope Theory ...... 44 Definition of Hope ...... 44 Development of Hope Theory ...... 44 Goals ...... 45 Pathways ...... 45 Agency ...... 46 Measuring Hope ...... 46 Adult Education ...... 50 Adult Education for the Homeless ...... 50 Garden-Based Learning ...... 52 Theoretical Basis of Garden-Based Learning ...... 53 History of Garden-Based Learning ...... 54 Benefits of Garden-Based Learning ...... 60 Intellectual/Cognitive Benefits ...... 60 Physical Benefits ...... 62 Emotional/Psychological Benefits ...... 63 Social Benefits ...... 65 Experiential Learning ...... 69 Summary ...... 76
Chapter 3: METHOD Mixed Methods Research ...... 77 Definition of Mixed Methods Research ...... 77 History of Mixed Methods Research ...... 78 Applications of Mixed Methods Research in Adult Education ...... 80 Design of the Study ...... 82 Mixed Methods Strategy Selection ...... 82 Implementation Strategy ...... 83 Prioritization Strategy ...... 83 Integration Strategy ...... 84 Theoretical Lens or Perspective Strategy ...... 84 Flow of Project ...... 86 Assumptions ...... 87 Setting ...... 89 Participants ...... 92
ix Data Collection Procedures ...... 93 Demographic Data Collection ...... 93 Quantitative Data Collection ...... 93 Instruments ...... 94 Adult Dispositional Hope Scale ...... 94 Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire ...... 95 Qualitative Data Collection ...... 96 Data Analysis Procedures ...... 96 Quantitative Data Analysis ...... 96 Qualitative Data Analysis ...... 98 Typologies for Analysis ...... 99 Marking Entries Related to Typologies ...... 100 Developing Summary Sheets ...... 100 Identifying Patterns, Relationships, and Themes ...... 100 Coding Entries According to Patterns ...... 101 Selecting Data to Support Patterns ...... 101 Relationships Among Patterns ...... 102 Patterns as One-Sentence Generalizations ...... 102 Selection of Data Excerpts ...... 103 Verification of Findings ...... 103 Triangulation ...... 104 Peer Debriefing ...... 105 Reflexive Journal ...... 105 Summary ...... 106
Chapter 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Participant Demographic Information ...... 108 Quantitative Findings ...... 118 Phase One Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale ...... 119 Phase Three Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale ...... 123 Phase Three Scores on the Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire ...... 126 Qualitative Findings ...... 132 Intellectual/Cognitive Benefits ...... 133 Physical Benefits ...... 134 Emotional/Psychological Benefits ...... 135 Social Benefits ...... 135 Effective Parenting ...... 136 Gardening as Metaphor ...... 137 Gardening as Memories ...... 139 Gardening Outside the Garden ...... 140 Integration of Quantitative and Qualitative Findings ...... 141 Adult Education Pursuits ...... 142 Future Employment ...... 142 Permanent Housing ...... 143
x Abstinence from Alcohol and Drug Abuse ...... 144 Effective Parenting ...... 145 Intellectual/Cognitive Benefits ...... 146 Physical Benefits ...... 147 Emotional/Psychological Benefits ...... 147 Social Benefits ...... 148 Summary ...... 149
Chapter 5: CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS Implications for Policy ...... 154 Implications for Practice ...... 156 Recommendations for Further Research ...... 158 Contributions of This Study ...... 160 Limitations of This Study ...... 161 Summary ...... 162
List of References ...... 163
Appendix A Garden Photographs ...... 193
Appendix B Demographic Information Form ...... 199
Appendix C Adult Dispositional Hope Scale ...... 201
Appendix D Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire ...... 203
Appendix E Interview Questions ...... 206
Vita ...... 208
xi List of Tables
Table Page
1. Causes of Homelessness ...... 16 2. Typical Services for Various Groups of Homeless Individuals ...... 31 3. Proposed Strategies to End Chronic Homelessness ...... 32 4. Demographic Characteristics of Study Participants Compared to Typical Homeless Women with Children ...... 115 5. Causes of Homelessness Among Study Participants Compared to Causes Identified in Empirical Studies ...... 117 6. Individual Phase One Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale ...... 121 7. Comparison of Participants’ Group Mean Scores on The Adult Dispositional Hope Scale to Group Mean Scores of Other Populations ...... 122 8. Individual Phase Three Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale ...... 124 9. Comparison of Phase One and Phase Three Group Mean Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale ...... 126 10. Gardening and Self-Efficacy Questionnaire Responses (N = 8) ...... 128
xii List of Figures
Figure Page
1. Illustration of Project Strategy and Procedures ...... 88 2. A Master Gardener surveys the weeds, weeds, weeds ...... 194 3. The weeds have been pulled and bagged for composting ...... 195 4. Master Gardeners and shelter residents and their children work alongside each other to get everything planted ...... 196 5. The pizza wheel is installed ...... 197 6. At last, the veggies are ready to eat ...... 198
xiii INTRODUCTION
A recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (2007) concluded that in January 2005 at least 754,147 people were
homeless on an average day. Approximately 9% of these individuals reside in Florida and
an additional 8% live in the Gulf Coast states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Texas (Kasindorf, 2005). The 2005 hurricane season “multiplied homelessness along the
Gulf Coast as much as a hundredfold and almost doubled the national ranks” (Kasindorf,
2005, p. 1). Families with children are by far the fastest-growing sector of the homeless
population; in a survey of 27 American cities, the U.S. Conference of Mayors (2004)
found that families comprised 40% of the homeless population. Most homeless families
are headed by single females and reside in homeless shelters rather than on the streets.
Homeless families frequently suffer from psychological trauma due to the loss of their home, the conditions of shelter life, and the physical abuse that frequently precedes homelessness (Goodman, Saxe, & Harvey, 1991). There is an urgent need to mitigate the psychological traumas faced by these homelessness families in a tangible way to help them develop increased self-efficacy and a restored sense of hope, and lend support to their efforts to escape from homelessness.
Statement of the Problem
Although considerable research has been conducted on homelessness, much of the
existing research focuses on characteristics of individuals that contribute to their
homelessness rather than on the social context of homelessness or possible solutions to
the problem of homelessness. According to Fingeret (1984), this "deficit" perspective has
1 led to psychological stereotypes wherein disadvantaged individuals such as the homeless
are seen as being characterized by:
…fear of failure, low self-esteem and self-confidence, resistance to change and
lack of future orientation, inarticulateness, fatalism, inability to cope or to think
abstractly, and apathy… (p. 13).
Thompson (1980) agrees "the language of 'personal deficit', 'affliction' and the need for
'treatment' to 'rehabilitate' the 'malfunctioning' adult into 'normal' society runs like a
medical checklist through the literature" (p. 87). She points out "the general acceptance of
these assumptions" and the "generally uncritical view of pathological and personalized
explanations of disadvantage has served...to divert attention away from a more
fundamental examination of the structural causes of poverty, inequality and educational
divisiveness in our society" (p. 89). Consequently, "educational provisions for the
disadvantaged" have primarily been "intended to transform the feckless and potentially
disruptive into more responsible citizens" (p. 90) because of the middle class belief "that
if 'they' [the poor] were just more like 'us' everything would be all right" (p. 90).
Velázquez (n.d.) offers further enlightenment on this hegemony, "The dominant culture
[in the United States] is an European, white, Christian, middle and upper class controlled one that tends to impose its outlooks and tradition to the society as a whole" (p. 5). This emphasis on individual "deficits,” which excludes social contexts, results in research that is largely ineffective "for the development of theory, policy, and effective interventions"
(Haber & Toro, 2004, p. 3) to mitigate or prevent homelessness among families. It also ignores the strengths, resilience, and adaptive potential of homeless individuals and the
transformative nature of adult education. While homelessness results from an intersection
2 of social and economic conditions that often place intractable limits on personal choice
and individual responsibility, education is seen as a valid part of the solution to the
growing problem of homelessness. In the next section, a brief overview of adult
education programs intended for homeless adults is discussed.
Adult Education for the Homeless
Passage of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987) resulted in
the availability of financial resources to support educational programs for homeless
adults. Over its eight years of existence, the Adult Education for the Homeless (AEH)
program served 320,000 homeless adults. However, despite evaluations that documented
the success of the program in preparing learners for employment and training
opportunities (Drury & Koloski, 1995), funding was rescinded from the 1995 federal
budget and never reinstated (Office of Vocational and Adult Education, 1998). The AEH
program’s highest priority was to assist homeless people become employable and it
sought to achieve that goal by providing assistance in the development of basic skill
competencies (verbal, reading, writing, math, and computer literacy) that would enable
the adults to become more productive citizens.
Some community gardens also provide homeless individuals with opportunities for job training and transitional employment. For example, The Homeless Garden Project in Santa Cruz, California offers “a job-training and transitional employment program which enables individuals to make the life changes and acquire the skills necessary to move in productive directions and lift themselves out of their homeless or marginalized situation” (Homeless Garden Project, 2005, ¶ 2). While employment in most areas of
horticulture consists of seasonal, minimum wage jobs which are not sufficient to prevent
3 a recurrence of homelessness, Weeks (1994) suggested that homeless individuals might
experience empowerment because of working in a garden environment. However, little
research exists on actual benefits of participation in garden-based learning among
homeless women.
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of this study was to determine if participation in a garden-based
learning program would positively influence a sample of women residing at a homeless shelter in South Florida with regard to their levels of hope and self-efficacy.
Research Question and Hypothesis
The overarching research question for this study was: What are the results and
experiences of participation in a garden-based learning program for homeless women
with regard to hope and self-efficacy? A three-phase, sequential mixed method study was
used to obtain quantitative and qualitative data from participants in the garden-based
learning program. Quantitative data were collected during the first and third phases of
this study at the beginning and at the end of the garden-based learning program to
determine if there were any measurable effects from participation in the program.
Qualitative data were collected in the second phase through interviews with a sub-sample
of the larger quantitative sample of phase one. (A more in depth discussion of the
research method is provided in Chapter 3.) The null hypothesis was that there would be a decrease or no significant difference between phase one and phase three on hope and self- efficacy for each individual.
4 Theoretical Frameworks
The theoretical frameworks pertinent to this study are self-efficacy and hope as
espoused by Bandura (1986) and Snyder et al. (1991). Bandura's social cognitive theory
provides a view of human behavior in which beliefs individuals have about themselves
are key in personal agency and in which individuals are seen as both products and
producers of their environment and social systems. An individual's belief about his or her
capabilities to perform well is referred to as self-efficacy. According to Snyder and his
colleagues, hope is a cognitive set that is composed of a reciprocally derived sense of
successful agency (goal-directed determination) and pathways (planning of ways to meet
goals). The agency component signifies a sense of successful determination in meeting
goals in the past, present, and future. The pathways component represents a sense of
being able to generate successful plans to meet goals. “Thus, situational self-efficacy
(agency) thoughts are the key to Bandura’s model, whereas both agency and pathways
thoughts are emphasized in hope theory” (Snyder, Ilardi, Cheavens, et al., 2000, p. 753).
A more detailed description of these theories may be found in Chapter 2.
In spite of the many studies of the numbers and characteristics of people who are
homeless and the effectiveness of programs and services intended to help them, little
research has been done on the personal factors that facilitate or hinder people in making a
permanent transition from homelessness. One study identified 19 categories of events that
facilitated street people’s transition to mainstream society including supportive
individuals who engender hope and the realization of one’s self-worth, confidence, and abilities (MacKnee & Mervyn, 2002). Epel, Bandura, & Zimbardo (1999) found that homeless adults with low self-efficacy are more likely to remain in shelters, whereas
5 participants with high self-efficacy more actively pursue employment and housing and remain at shelters for a shorter duration. In addition, while a sense of hopelessness serves
to perpetuate homelessness (Morrell-Bellai, Goering, & Boydell, 2000), it has been found
that specific interventions can engender hope in homeless individuals (Herth, 1996;
Tollett, 1992).
Several authors theorize that participation in gardening has a positive effect on
psychological well-being, self-esteem, and self-efficacy (Gauvin & Spence, 1996; Myers,
1998; S. Zimmerman, 2000). Kunstler (1992) advocated community based recreational
programs as a means to help homeless individuals "develop self-awareness, increase self-
esteem, learn social interaction skills and appropriate social behaviour, develop a sense of
community, learn decision-making processes and increase feelings of influence and control" (p. 44). Recreational opportunities providing for participation in healthy activities to promote fitness, relaxation, and sociability may also "be a source of personal empowerment for people living in homeless shelters" (Harrington & Dawson, 1997, p.
19). Involvement in therapeutic horticultural activities is also thought to reduce stress and anger, ease emotional pain due to bereavement or abuse, and enhance productivity and problem solving (Worden, Frohne, & Sullivan, 2004). Hoffman, Trepagnier, Thompson, and Cruz (2003) found participation in a gardening program increased self-esteem and self-efficacy among community college students. However, a survey of the literature found no research related to the effects of participation in gardening and other horticultural activities on homeless individuals.
6 Significance of the Study
Whether participation in community gardening does or does not enhance hope
and self-efficacy among homeless women, the participants in this study have received a
direct benefit from their involvement in the garden-based learning program. This study is
also important to homeless individuals because the more we know about what works and
what does not work in adult education for this group, the greater the likelihood that
effective educational interventions will be developed to help restore homeless individuals
to an improved quality of life. It provides other stakeholders such as policy- and decision-
makers in state and local government, public and private social service agencies, and
faith-based and community initiatives with relevant information on the benefits of
education for homeless individuals and can help them find ways to effectively assist
homeless individuals gain the qualities necessary to achieve a secure and stable life
situation. Furthermore, this intervention was highly cost-effective in relationship to the
services offered because volunteers provided primary support for the garden-based
learning program.
Delimitations
Because the sample of this study was delimited to female residents of a homeless shelter in a large urban area in south Florida who voluntarily participated in a community
gardening project, the results of this study cannot be generalized to other populations of
homeless individuals. Nor was this study designed to identify all possible factors
influencing levels of hope and self-efficacy among homeless women.
7 Limitations
This study was conducted using a specific garden-based learning program
consisting of weekly hour-long sessions from November 2005 through March 2006. The
specificity and brevity of the program is a limitation of this study. Furthermore, this study
did not attempt to evaluate the effectiveness of the garden-based learning program itself.
Definitions
For the purpose of this study, the following definitions of terms were used:
Experiential learning: “Knowledge, skills, and/or abilities attained through observation,
simulation, and/or participation that provides depth and meaning to learning by engaging
the mind and/or body through activity, reflection, and application" (Craig, 1997, ¶ 3).
Garden-based learning: An instructional strategy that is based on experiential learning
and utilizes a garden as a teaching tool.
Homeless: A person who (a) lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence, or
(b) lives in a shelter, an institution (other than a prison), or a place not designed for, or
ordinarily used as a sleeping accommodation for human beings (Stewart B. McKinney
Homeless Assistance Act, 1987).
Hope: A cognitive set that is composed of a reciprocally derived sense of successful (a)
agency (goal-directed determination) and (b) pathways (planning of ways to meet goals)
(Snyder et al., 1991)
Self-efficacy: One's judgments about how well one can organize and execute courses of
action required to deal with prospective situations containing many ambiguous,
unpredictable, and often stressful elements (Bandura & Schunk, 1981).
8 Summary
Hope and self-efficacy are essential ingredients of the motivation needed to take action. Homeless individuals frequently have low levels of hope and self-efficacy, which prevent them from taking actions necessary to alleviate their situation or sustain the effort needed to pursue stable housing and employment. This study examined the levels of hope and self-efficacy in a sample of homeless women and the ability to modify these factors through a garden-based learning intervention.
9 LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter contains a review of research and policy literature pertaining to the history, demographics, probable causes, and effects of homelessness in order to provide the reader with background information on the context of homelessness as it pertains to this study. It also contains a discussion of possible solutions to the problem of homelessness, including the role of adult education in mitigating the consequences of homelessness. Literature pertaining to self-efficacy, hope, and garden-based learning are explored, including how they may be key in personal agency and empowerment, and whether they can help increase the numbers of individuals who are successful in breaking
the cycle of poverty and homelessness.
Homelessness
History of Homelessness
General
Homelessness has been an issue of concern in the United States since the Colonial
Period. During the centuries that followed, the face of homelessness has continually
changed. Vagrants and wandering strangers engendered fear and suspicion in the early
colonists (Axelson & Dail, 1988). The end of the Civil War and the economic depression
of the 1890s sent thousands of unemployed to the “open road.” Commonly referred to as
tramps or bums, they were viewed with alarm by the public and characterized as a collection of misfits, murderers, and thieves (Bruns, 1980). In the early 1900s, the hobo who “rode the rails” looking for work was sometimes portrayed as a heroic figure who lived a life of adventure and independence but in reality they usually were simply downtrodden, shabbily dressed and perhaps drunken males (Anderson, 1923/1975). In
10 contrast, single males who were often unemployed and subsisted by begging, panhandling, and petty theft populated skid rows in larger urban areas (Baum & Burnes,
1983). During the Depression Era, whole families were displaced by drought, bank failures, and mortgage foreclosures and subsequently took to the road looking for employment and a place to start over (Snow & Anderson, 1993). Social reforms of the
1960s and 1970s such as the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill (Bassuk & Lamb,
1986) and urban renewal efforts simultaneously increased the number of homeless individuals while decreasing the facilities available to shelter and feed them (Snow &
Anderson, 1993). Stereotypes of the half-crazed veteran still fighting the war back in
Vietnam or the elderly bag lady carefully guarding her possessions while talking to imaginary friends began to characterize the public view of homelessness during this period (Wright, 1989). Changes in economic and social policies such as welfare reform precipitated a growth in homelessness as well as a change in the character of homelessness during the last two decades of the twentieth century (Miles & Fowler,
2006). For the first time since the end of the Civil War and the Great Depression, racial minorities, females, young adults, and families swelled the homeless population (Burt et al., 1999). By the beginning of the twenty-first century, approximately 750,000
Americans were homeless on any given night and during the course of a year between 2.5 and 3.5 million people were experiencing homelessness for some period of time
(National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2000).
Families
Families are by far the fastest-growing sector of the homeless population. In 1982, approximately 18% of the homeless population consisted of families (Stark, 1988); by
11 2004, that number had soared to 40% (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2004). Nearly 20% of
homeless families consist of married couples with children (Nunez & Fox, 1999) who
became homeless after the male breadwinner lost his blue-collar job (Bassuk, 1990).
They are seldom found on the streets but rather live doubled up with extended family or
friends (Haber & Toro, 2004). While some homeless shelters and transitional housing are
specifically designed to accommodate families, most exclude the presence of men or
discourage their presence in a family group and many others refuse admittance to large
families and families with adolescent males (Rossi, 1994). Therefore, families may have
to break up in order for the women and young children to be sheltered. Furthermore, the
presence of a husband or live-in partner may inhibit a woman’s access to welfare, food
stamps, public housing, and other benefits that can help prevent or mitigate
homelessness.
Single Parents with Children
Single mothers head nearly 78% of all homeless families; single fathers account
for 3%. Although some have solidly middle-class backgrounds, the majority come from
poor, urban, and ethnic minority backgrounds (Haber & Toro, 2004). The average
homeless mother is 27 years old, has two or more children, and is divorced or never married. Almost 70% of them have at least a GED or high school education and more
than 20% have some post-secondary education (Bassuk, 1990). Most have work
experience and many are employed when they become homeless. On average, they have
moved more than three times in the year prior to becoming homeless. They often doubled
up with relatives or friends but many had also lived in abandoned buildings or slept in cars and turned to homeless shelters as a last resort. Although many had been receiving
12 welfare and food stamps, these benefits had been insufficient to prevent homelessness. In
the next section, literature on the most common causes of homelessness is reviewed.
Causes of Homelessness
The routes to homelessness are varied and usually involve a combination of factors rather than just one specific cause or event. Both theoretical constructs and empirical studies attempt to explain the causes of and the reasons for the growth of homelessness.
Theoretical Constructs
The four main theories that are used to explain the nature and causes of
homelessness (Jahiel, 1992a) are: choice, nature, or personality; social disaffiliation;
housing and poverty; and societal disinvestment. Each of these theories is briefly
described below.
Choice, nature, or personality. Many believe that people choose homelessness out of a desire for freedom and independence. Those who subscribe to this viewpoint believe the homeless are either too lazy to work or lack “the sense of personal ‘structuring’ necessary to maintain steady employment” (Schiff, 1990, p. 35). While becoming homeless requires some sort of action (or inaction) on the part of individuals, such
actions are often reactions to social forces that create poverty or personal situations such
as substance abuse and domestic violence.
Social disaffiliation. Bahr and Caplow (1973) suggested a faulty relationship
between homeless people and society as an explanation for homelessness. Social
disaffiliation can occur as the result of external changes such as an economic depression,
an individual’s adoption of a deviant role such as alcoholism, or the lack of socialization
13 resulting from lifelong isolation that characterizes some types of mental illness. While there is empirical evidence that some homeless people have limited social networks (see
Rosenheck, Bassuk, & Salomon, 1999), the evidence does not indicate that this deficiency is a cause of homelessness.
Housing and poverty. Proponents of this theory believe homelessness results from
a lack of money to pay for housing. While it is true that poverty and a shortage of
affordable housing can trigger homelessness, factors such as mental illness, substance
abuse, and unemployment also play a role in the amount of money an individual has
available for housing. Individuals with mental illness or substance abuse disorders are
commonly denied employment and housing opportunities and victims of domestic
violence are often unable to maintain stable employment (Browne, Salomon, & Bassuk,
1999). Furthermore, Massey and Denton (1993) argue that increasing racial segregation
and declining incomes produce high poverty in urban areas by concentrating tenants with
a decreasing ability to pay fair market rents in financially distressed buildings where
rental housing is at risk of under-maintenance and eventual abandonment.
Societal disinvestment. A more critical stance asserts that people who are vulnerable to homelessness are victims of policy decisions reflecting conflicts of interest and differential power among various groups in society. Powerful and affluent groups influence policies in both the public and private sectors with the result that there is
disinvestment in people who have become dependent on government support and who
have to be sacrificed to allow investment in other people (Jahiel, 1992b). According to
Shane (1996),
14 The deliberate policy of societal disinvestment relates directly to homelessness.
The families and individuals who are most vulnerable to homelessness were the
object of specific decisions to disinvest societal resources in them. Social
disinvestment results directly from changing priorities for governmental
investment. (p. 61)
Disinvestment in urban schools leads to inadequate educations and a life of poverty for students who attend these schools. Policies such as the recent emphasis on personal responsibility, welfare to work, cuts in Medicaid enrollments, and maintenance of the federal minimum wage at the 1997 level in spite of inflation are examples of the societal disinvestment theory. Such policies make it difficult for poverty-stricken individuals to
find and maintain employment that provides a living wage and will help them escape
poverty and potential homelessness.
Empirical Studies
The U.S. Conference of Mayors conducts an annual survey to assess the status of hunger and homelessness in America’s cities. The survey seeks information and estimates from each city on a variety of issues including the causes of homelessness, which are
summarized in Table 1. As shown in the table, while the causes of homelessness have
remained relatively stable over the last nine years, their order of frequency varies from
year to year. More information is provided below on the most frequently identified causes
of homelessness, especially those pertaining to women.
Domestic violence. Nationally, approximately half of all homeless women and
children are fleeing domestic violence (Zorza, 1991). When a woman leaves an abusive
relationship, she often has nowhere to go especially if her financial resources are limited.
15 Table 1
Causes of Homelessness
Year Causes in Order of Frequency
1998 Lack of affordable housing
Substance abuse and the lack of needed services
Mental illness and the lack of needed services
Low paying jobs
Domestic violence
Changes and cuts in public assistance
Poverty
Lack of access to affordable health care
1999 Lack of affordable housing
Substance abuse
Low wages
Domestic violence
Mental illness
Poverty
Changes to public assistance programs
16 Table 1 Continued
Year Causes in Order of Frequency
2000 Lack of affordable housing
Substance abuse
Mental illness
Domestic violence
Poverty
Low paying jobs
Changes in public assistance programs
2001 Lack of affordable housing
Low paying jobs
Substance abuse and the lack of needed services
Mental illness and the lack of needed services
Domestic violence
Unemployment
Poverty
Prison release
Changes and cuts in public assistance programs
17 Table 1 Continued
Year Causes in Order of Frequency
2002 Lack of affordable housing
Mental illness and the lack of needed services
Substance abuse and the lack of needed services
Low paying jobs
Domestic violence
Unemployment
Poverty
Prison release
Downturn in the economy
Limited life skills
Changes and cuts in public assistance programs
2003 Lack of affordable housing
Mental illness and the lack of needed services
Low paying jobs
Substance abuse and the lack of needed services
Unemployment
Domestic violence
Poverty
Prison release
18 Table 1 Continued
Year Causes in Order of Frequency
2004 Lack of affordable housing
Mental illness and the lack of needed services
Substance abuse and the lack of needed services
Low paying jobs
Unemployment
Domestic violence
Poverty
Prisoner re-entry
2005 Lack of affordable housing
Low paying jobs
Mental illness and the lack of needed services
Substance abuse and the lack of needed services
Domestic violence
Poverty
Prisoner re-entry
19 Table 1 Continued
Year Causes in Order of Frequency
2006 Mental illness and the lack of needed services
Lack of affordable housing
Substance abuse and the lack of needed services
Low paying jobs
Domestic violence
Prisoner re-entry
Unemployment
Poverty
In addition, many abused women who seek the help of police or the courts find themselves being evicted from their homes due to "zero tolerance for crime" policies adopted by many property owners (ACLU, 2004). Furthermore, a lack of affordable housing and long waiting lists for public housing mean that many women and their children are forced to choose between living in terror at home and being homeless on the streets.
Lack of affordable housing. Research sponsored by the National Low Income
Housing Coalition found the cost of rental housing continues to increase faster than wages. Although federal standards state that families should spend no more than 30% of their income on housing, the Coalition did “not find a single county in the United States where a full-time worker making minimum wage could afford a one-bedroom apartment”
20 (Pelletiere, Wardrip, & Crowley, 2005). On average, family income of $15.78 per hour is
needed to afford a two-bedroom apartment (Pelletiere et al, 2005). That is more than
three times the current federal minimum wage. Many families are already spending more
than 30% of their incomes for housing and are considered to be precariously housed
because the loss of a job, an accident, a health crisis, a rent hike, or even just one missed
paycheck can cause them to become homeless (Rossi, 1994). Furthermore, the presence of a husband or live-in partner may inhibit a woman’s access to welfare, food stamps, public housing, and other benefits that could help a family remain housed. The need to provide a security deposit and pay both the first and last month’s rent also hinders access to housing for many families.
Low paying jobs. Although the difficulties associated with finding and
maintaining employment while homeless can become almost insurmountable barriers,
13% of the urban homeless population is employed but inadequate income causes them to remain homeless (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2006). In a number of cities not included in the recent annual surveys conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the percentage of employed homeless individuals is even higher (Duffield & Gleason, 1997). For example, in Knoxville, Tennessee 46% of homeless individuals are employed however
“many of the jobs held by homeless persons are temporary or do not provide sufficient
wages to provide self-sufficiency” (Nooe, 2006, p. 18). Estimates of the number of
American workers employed at the federal minimum wage of $5.15 per hour (or $2.13
per hour for employees who earn tips) range from approximately 3% (U.S. Department of
Labor, 2005) to 25% of the workforce (Shulman, 2003). These working poor are
primarily employed in the retail, service, and hospitality industries as clerks and cashiers,
21 child-care workers, nurse’s aides, call-center operators, housekeepers and janitors, and
food preparation and service workers. Many of these workers lack healthcare and other
benefits that most higher-wage workers take for granted and are living on the brink of
homelessness. Furthermore, employment in these low wage occupations is expected to
increase by 19% in the next ten years (Hecker, 2005).
Mental illness. Approximately 26% of American adults suffer from a diagnosable
mental disorder in any given year (Kessler, Chiu, Demler, & Walters, 2005). And while it
is estimated that a similar percentage (i.e., 20% to 25%) of the single adult homeless
population suffers from some form of mental illness, their diagnoses include the most
personally disruptive and serious mental illnesses including severe, chronic depression;
bipolar disorder; schizophrenia; schizoaffective disorders; and severe personality
disorders (Rosenheck et al., 1999). Homeless people with mental disorders remain
homeless for longer periods and have less contact with family and friends. They
encounter more barriers to employment, tend to be in poorer physical health, and have
more contact with the legal system than homeless people who do not suffer from mental
disorders (National Resource and Training Center on Homelessness and Mental Illness,
2003).
Poverty. A single parent with two children, earning the minimum wage does not
earn enough to raise their family above the poverty line. This is especially true of parents
affected by welfare reform measures: “few earn enough to support a family, either because their wages are very low or their jobs are unstable” (Sherman, Amey, Duffield,
Ebb, & Weinstein, 1998, p. 8). Families moving from welfare to work are particularly vulnerable to becoming homeless. A study conducted by the Institute for Children and
22 Poverty (da Costa Nunez, 2004) found 37% of homeless families had their welfare
benefits reduced or cut in the 12 months before becoming homeless and 25% of families who stopped receiving welfare in the previous 6 months were forced to double up on housing to save money. Danziger, Heflin, Corcoran, Oltmans, and Wang (2002) found that slightly more than 12% families who depend on a mix of work and welfare for their income become homeless and approximately 2% of those who successfully complete the transition from welfare to work become homeless.
Substance abuse. Although nearly 8% of U.S. adults meet the DSM-IV criteria for
alcohol abuse (National Longitudinal Alcohol Epidemiologic Survey, 1992), estimates of
the prevalence of alcohol abuse among homeless adults range from an average of 38%
(National Mental Health Information Center, 2003) to estimates of 58% to 68% among
homeless men, 30% among single homeless women, and 10% among homeless women
with children (Fisher & Breakey, 1991). Estimates of illegal drug use are especially
difficult to determine but estimates derived from the National Comorbidity Study suggest
that lifetime drug disorders among the general U.S. population aged 15 to 36 are
approximately 12% and current drug disorders are about 4% (Kessler et al., 1994). In
contrast, estimates of the prevalence of drug abuse by homeless individuals range from a
low of 1% to a high of 70% (Fischer, 1989). A more recent study concluded rates of drug
use disorders for homeless adults were more than four times higher than the general
population estimates for lifetime and more than eight times higher for current disorders
(Robertson, Zlotnick, & Westerfelt, 1997). For individuals with below-living wage
incomes, substance abuse can trigger residential instability. Among those who are
addicted and homeless, untreated substance abuse and the health problems associated
23 with it may be prolonged. At the same time, the use of alcohol and drugs frequently
provide an escape from the stressful and sometimes violent conditions of homelessness
(Marvasti, 2003).
Unemployment. The annual average unemployment rate rose slightly more than
1% between 2000 and 2005 with the average worker remaining unemployed for nearly three months and nearly 14% remaining unemployed for six months or more (U.S.
Department of Labor, 2006). However, unemployment statistics do not provide a full picture of current employment because they do not include measures of discouraged or underemployed workers. Discouraged workers are individuals who have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months (or since the end of their last job if they held one within the past 12 months), but who are not currently looking because they believe there are no jobs available or there are none for which they would qualify (Bureau of Labor Statistics,
2005). Underemployed workers are individuals who want to work full time but have only been able to obtain part time work or workers with high skill or education levels employed in low-wage jobs that do not require such abilities or education (Jensen &
Slack, 2003). While the official U.S. unemployment rate for April 2007 was 4.5%, if discouraged and underemployed workers were included in the measure the rate would actually be 8.2% (Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007). Furthermore many workers, especially those who lose or leave jobs because their place of employment closed or moved, find it difficult to gain new employment and when they do, their new jobs pay, on average, about 13% less than the jobs they lost (Mishel, Bernstein, & Schmitt, 1999).
The loss of home due to one or more of the causes previously cited or for other
reasons not discussed means more than just the loss of shelter with its protection from the
24 natural elements and the freedom, security, privacy, and comfort it affords. It means the
loss of a place to sleep, eat, bathe, use the toilet, wash clothes, and keep one’s
possessions. It results in being burdened with issues of daily survival in an environment
full of crime and other dangers, and feeling beaten down, depressed, and unsuccessful at making choices or having opportunities to achieve stability. Some of the other pervasive
effects of homelessness are described in the next section.
Effects of Homelessness
Whatever the chain of events leading to their present state, homeless people
characteristically experience "paranoia, paralysis, loss of self-respect, loss of identity
[and] a sense of isolation" (Harrington & Dawson, 1997, p. 18) alternating with more
hopeful feelings as they "struggle to envision a different future while managing a desolate
present" (Rosenthal, 1994, p. 132). In order to mitigate the effects of this conflict
between the present and the future "homeless people attempt to maintain normal lives"
(Belcher, Scholler-Jaquish, & Drummond, 1991, p. 90). According to Butler (1994), the
desire for a “normal” life is one of the greatest identifiable needs that have emerged from
research on homelessness. Most homeless individuals want to maintain their pride, have a
sense of being in control, and feel hope that their lives will improve (Harrington &
Dawson, 1997), as well as having a sense of dignity (Seltser & Miller, 1993).
At the same time, loss of one’s home, the conditions of shelter life, and the
physical and sexual abuse that often precipitate homelessness not only disrupt the routine
events of a woman’s life but also result in psychological trauma (Goodman et al., 1991).
A core element of such psychological trauma is a diminished sense of self-efficacy and
self-worth (Figley & McCubbin, 1983). Forced to rely on powerful institutions such as
25 the welfare system, public housing authorities, the health care system, and the courts for
assistance, these women often fail to alleviate their dire circumstances due to inadequate
or non-existent responses from these institutions. When such failures repeatedly occur, a
woman's self-esteem and self-efficacy suffers and she often succumbs to the condition of
“learned helplessness" (Abramson, Garber, & Seligman, 1980; Walker, 1977) wherein
she no longer believes her own actions can influence the course of her life and that her
environment or others are in control of the outcomes. In addition to this sense of helplessness and hopelessness, homeless women also frequently experience anxiety, depression, fear, and post-traumatic stress disorder, and generally rely on emotion- focused coping in an attempt to deal with their frustrations (K. M. Posti, personal communication, March 15, 2006).
Despite the prevalence of mental illness and substance abuse among homeless
persons, homeless mothers show lower rates of depression, substance abuse, and criminal
behavior when compared to homeless women without children (Burt, Aron, Lee, &
Valente, 2001), suggesting that motherhood may be a protective factor in homelessness.
Banyard's (1995) research, which shows that many homeless mothers rely on their children as a strategy for enhancing their motivation, tends to support this conclusion. In
contrast, Boyd, Toro, and McCaskill (2004) found relatively high rates of substance abuse and severe mental disorders in a sample of 51 homeless mothers. However, when
they compared their sample of homeless mothers to a matched sample of poor, housed
mothers, they found no significant differences in the rates of substance abuse and severe mental disorders. They concluded that elevated rates of substance abuse and mental illness are more likely associated with the circumstances of poverty than with
26 homelessness. Differences between homeless mothers and poor housed mothers have,
however, been found in a few other studies. LaVesser, Smith, and Bradford (1997) found
higher rates for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among homeless
relative to poor housed women, while North and Smith (1992) found homeless women
with PTSD developed the disorder prior to becoming homeless. Goodman et al. (1991) argue, “Homelessness itself is a risk factor for emotional disorder” (p. 1219). In the next
section, some proposed solutions to the unabated and increasing problem of homelessness
are examined.
Proposed Solutions to Homelessness
The earliest responses to the problem of homelessness in the United States
consisted of the provision of emergency food and shelter for what was seen as a relatively
homogenous population of homeless individuals. As the homeless population became
more diverse, it became apparent that there was a need for other types of shelter and
services. The type and level of services provided often depends on how the homeless are
classified. Two methods are commonly used to categorize homeless individuals. One
method is based on the duration or nature of homelessness—temporary, episodic, and
chronic. The second method focuses on the causes of homelessness. A brief overview of
these two classification schemes is given below.
Solutions Based on Duration or Nature of Homelessness
Burt (1996) classifies the homeless into three categories: (a) temporarily homeless, individuals who are currently in their first episode of homelessness lasting 12
months or less; (b) episodically homeless, those who are currently in their second (or
higher) episode lasting 12 months or less; and (c) chronically homeless, people who are
27 currently in an episode of homelessness that has lasted longer than 12 months, regardless of the number of times they have been homeless. The temporary homeless are those who are “down-on-their-luck” or facing a short-term crisis. Having few barriers to work and independent living, most return to self-sufficiency within a short period and do not require extensive services. The episodic homeless have extensive barriers such as limited education, little work experience, inadequate living skills, or substance abuse or mental health issues, which make it difficult for them to maintain long-term stable employment and housing without specialized supportive services. The chronically homeless face severe obstacles to achieving self-sufficiency such as serious mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, and other illnesses that require intensive treatment and ongoing access to supportive services.
Solutions Based on Causes of Homelessness
Jahiel (1992a) offers a useful three-stage framework for understanding policy responses to homelessness that are based on identified causes of homelessness and which focus on three levels of prevention strategies: primary, secondary, and tertiary. In this model, primary prevention consists of steps to prevent individuals from becoming homeless and include education and training, early treatment for substance abuse and mental disorders, increasing income through wages or welfare, and expanding the supply of low-income housing. Secondary prevention involves eliminating homelessness soon after it occurs by supplying rehabilitation, remedial education, and job training and placement services along with assisted housing. Tertiary prevention is the provision of services intended to minimize the harmful effects of homelessness and includes emergency shelter and meals.
28 Emergency interventions are the primary response to homelessness in the United
States because they address the most basic and urgent needs of the homeless. However,
they generally offer only short-term temporary solutions to the problem. Secondary
prevention services such as mental health and substance abuse treatment and education
and training may help individuals make the transition from homelessness and prevent
reoccurrence of episodes of homelessness but they fail to mitigate the larger structural
causes such as low wages and the lack of affordable housing that precipitate
homelessness which primary prevention intends to address.
In some instances, the type and level of services provided are determined by
attitudes of the service provider toward the homeless population and their perceptions about the causes of homelessness rather than the duration or nature of homelessness. As previously discussed, there are four main theories used to explain the nature and causes of homelessness (Jahiel, 1992a) and these theories in turn provide rationales for solutions to the problem of homelessness. Proponents of the choice, nature, or personality theory
are inclined to provide minimal services to homeless individuals and support local
ordinances that prohibit practices such as panhandling and sleeping in public. A belief in
the social disaffiliation theory leads to services intended to “reconnect individuals with
social organizations by providing remedies to the conditions responsible for the
disaffiliation (e.g., help in getting a job or welfare allowance, supported work and
housing for individuals with mental disorder or substance abuse, and reestablishment of family ties)" (Jahiel, 1992a, p. 16). Strategies associated with the housing and poverty theory of causation revolve around a "Housing First" approach, which entails moving homeless people into permanent housing as quickly as possible and then providing them
29 with some level of services to help them stabilize, and linking them to long-term
supports, thereby preventing a reoccurrence of homelessness. Supporters of the societal disinvestment theory “stress the empowerment and organization of people that are poor or otherwise vulnerable to homelessness, in order to increase their involvement in societal decisions and thereby prevent homelessness from affecting them at all” (Jahiel,
1992a, p. 16). The emergency intervention or preventive programs and associated services typically offered based upon these two classification methods are summarized in
Table 2.
Recently the Federal government has directed its attention toward strategies
intended to end chronic homelessness in the United States and has requested that state
and local governments nationwide develop and implement 10-year plans to end chronic
homelessness. For purposes of this initiative, the chronically homeless are defined as
individuals who have mental illness, addiction, or physical disability; who have been homeless for over a year; and who often inhabit the streets or encampments. While these chronically homeless comprise only 10% of the homeless population, they consume more
than half of all resources dedicated to helping the homeless (National Alliance to End
Homelessness, 2003). Spearheaded by the Interagency Council on Homelessness, which
is responsible for providing Federal leadership for activities to assist homeless families
and individuals, these initiatives encompass two categories of strategies: prevention and
intervention. Prevention strategies are intended to reduce the number of chronically
homeless while intervention strategies are aimed at increasing the placement of currently
homeless individuals into supported housing. Recommended strategies for
implementation of these plans are shown in Table 3.
30 Table 2
Typical Services for Various Groups of Homeless Individuals
Category Emergency Preventive
Temporary Shelters & food kitchens Increase affordable housing
Health care Increase income levels
Counseling Eviction & displacement
Employment & housing prevention
services
Episodic & Shelters & food kitchens Increase transitional & supportive
Chronic Health care housing
Counseling Increase affordable housing
Detox & substance abuse Increase community access to
treatment treatment
Mental health care Institutional release programs
Employment & housing
services
Note: Adapted from Homelessness in urban America: A review of the literature, by H.
Sommer, 2000.
31 Table 3
Proposed Strategies to End Chronic Homelessness
Prevention Intervention
Centralization of funding and service Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) delivery to increase coordination in the form of multi-disciplinary,
clinically-based teams that engage people
experiencing chronic homelessness on the
streets and in shelters
Dedicated resources to house individuals Permanent supported housing with low discharged from psychiatric care threshold access for homeless mentally ill institutions people
Discharge planning protocols that prevent Direct access to permanent supported homelessness housing for frequent users of acute health
systems
Note. Adapted from The 10-year planning process to end chronic homelessness in your community: A step-by-step guide, by the United States Interagency Council on
Homelessness, n.d.
32 To date, 300 state and local governments have committed to developing 10-year
plans to end chronic homelessness (U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, 2007).
The majority of these plans have adopted the “Housing First” approach to ending
homelessness which is based on two principles: “(1) the best way to end homelessness is to help people move into permanent housing as quickly as possible, and (2) once in
housing, formerly homeless people may require some level of services to help them
stabilize, link them to long-term supports, and prevent a recurrence” (National Alliance to
End Homelessness, 2003, p. 102). The “Housing First” approach consists of three
components: crisis intervention, emergency services, screening, and needs assessment;
permanent housing services; and case management services (National Alliance to End
Homelessness, 2003). In practice, this approach consists of moving homeless individuals
into subsidized housing, ensuring they have a source of income through employment
and/or public benefits, and connecting them with community-based services to meet their
long-term support/service needs.
While the “Housing First” approach is beneficial in that it gets homeless
individuals and families off the streets and out of emergency shelters, research shows that
this approach does not necessarily lead to self-sufficiency among the formerly homeless.
For example, Fischer’s (2000) follow-up study of 98 families who participated in a
transitional housing program in Atlanta, Georgia found that only 43% had their own
unsubsidized apartment after 5 years. In a similar study of 114 former shelter residents in
New York City (Stojanovic, Weitzman, Shinn, Labay, & Williams, 1999) it was found
that 72% were still living in subsidized apartments an average of 3.3 years after their exit
from the shelter. Another study of 2,937 homeless persons with serious mental illness
33 placed in subsidized housing in New York City found that “after one, two, and five years,
75 percent, 64 percent, and 50 percent, respectively, of the sample were continuously
housed” (Lipton, Siegel, Hannigan, Samuels, & Baker, 2000, p. 479). In contrast, a 15- month study of 397 homeless adults in Alameda County, California found that while “the great majority of homeless adults exited from homelessness within 3 months of their baseline interview in this study…only 15.4% obtained and remained in stable housing throughout the 15-month follow-up period” (Zlotnick, Robertson, & Lahiff, 1999, pp.
219-220). Of those who did remain housed, “entitlement-benefit income, and an exit into subsidized housing, were significantly associated with an exit from homelessness into stable housing” (p. 220). Perhaps the emphasis on subsidized housing and entitlement- benefit income rather than adult educational interventions accounts for the dismal prospects for self-sufficiency that are associated with the “Housing First” approach. In a later section of this chapter, educational interventions intended for homeless adults are discussed. In the following sections, a brief overview of psychological and cognitive
theories pertaining to self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986) and hope (Snyder et al., 1991) and how they relate to the problems of homeless women is provided.
Self-Efficacy
Homeless individuals often have a low sense of self-efficacy (Buckner, Bassuk, &
Zima, 1993; Tollett & Thomas, 1995) which can overwhelm their coping capabilities.
This is particularly true of those who have been homeless for a year or more (Poole &
Zugazaga, 2003), have severe mental illness (Toro et al., 1999), or problems with
substance abuse (Nyamathi, Stein, & Bayley, 2000). Battered women in particular may
suffer from poor self-efficacy “related to keeping or finding a job, performing job tasks,
34 accomplishing education and training goals, or performing successfully in any setting”
(Chronister & McWhirter, 2003, p. 419). The restrictive and sometimes demeaning
policies and practices of emergency shelters, soups kitchens, and rescue missions and the
stigmatization and marginalization that accompany homelessness do little to enhance
self-efficacy among homeless individuals. Furthermore, “allowing any institution, or
person, to assume control of the way one obtains food, shelter, and security can easily
erode self-efficacy and increase dependency” (Poole & Zugazaga, 2003, pp. 417-418).
In spite of the many studies about the prevalence of low self-efficacy among homeless people, little research has been done on how self-efficacy can facilitate or
hinder people in making a permanent transition from homelessness. One study identified
19 categories of events that facilitated street people’s transition to mainstream society
including the realization of one’s self-worth, confidence, and abilities (MacKnee &
Mervyn, 2002). Epel et al. (1999) found that homeless adults with low self-efficacy are
more likely to remain in shelters, whereas participants with high self-efficacy more
actively pursue employment and housing and remain at shelters for a shorter duration.
Based on this foundational literature, self-efficacy is a variable selected for inclusion in
the present study. In the next section, theory and previous research on self-efficacy are
reviewed.
Self-Efficacy Theory
Bandura's (1986) social cognitive theory of self-efficacy provides a view of
human behavior in which beliefs individuals have about themselves are key in personal
agency and in which individuals are seen as both products and producers of their
35 environment and social systems. An individual's belief about his or her capabilities to
perform well is referred to as self-efficacy.
Definitions of Self-Efficacy
Bandura and Schunk (1981) defined self-efficacy as one's judgments about how
well one can organize and execute “courses of action required to deal with prospective
situations containing many ambiguous, unpredictable, and often stressful elements” (p.
587). Thus, a sense of self-efficacy is future-oriented and includes a strong belief that one
can bring about a particular outcome. Pintrich, Marx, and Boyle (1993) proposed that
self-efficacy beliefs are construed in two ways: first, the construct of self-efficacy
represents individuals’ confidence in their own ideas and conceptions; and second, self-
efficacy refers to the individuals’ confidence in their own learning and thinking strategies
to change their ideas. In summary, self-efficacy is a judgment about whether or not one is
able to accomplish a specific act.
Development of Self-Efficacy Theory
When Bandura (1977) first proposed his theory of self-efficacy, he provided an
important component that was missing from the prevalent learning theories of that time –
the idea that individuals’ self-perceptions of capability are instrumental to the goals they
pursue and the control they are able to exercise over their environments. In 1986,
Bandura expanded upon the theory by emphasizing the critical role of self-beliefs in
human cognition, motivation, and behavior. According to his theory, people “make
causal contribution to their own motivation and action within a system of triadic
reciprocal causation. In this model of reciprocal causation, action, cognitive, affective,
and other personal factors, and environmental events all operate as interacting
36 determinants” (p. 1175). Self-efficacy beliefs are central to these determinants. More
recently, Bandura (1997) further situated self-efficacy within a theory of personal and
collective agency that operates jointly with other sociocognitive factors to regulate
human well-being and attainment. This book also addresses the major factors associated with agency including the nature and structure of self-efficacy beliefs, their origins and effects, the processes through which such self-beliefs operate, and the modes by which they can be created and strengthened.
Since its inception, the self-efficacy component of social cognitive theory has
been widely researched in various disciplines and diverse settings. For example, self-
efficacy has been found to be related to phobias (Bandura, 1983), addiction (Marlatt,
Baer, & Quigley, 1995), depression (Davis & Yates, 1982), social skills (Moe & Zeiss,
1982), assertiveness (Lee, 1984), stress (Jerusalem & Mittag, 1995), and academic
motivation and self-regulation (Pintrich & Schunk, 1995). Additional research related to
the means through which self-efficacy regulates behavior in areas of relevance to
homeless individuals is discussed in the next section of this chapter.
Influence of Self-Efficacy
High self-efficacy beliefs can decrease an individual's levels of stress, anxiety,
and depression (Bandura, 1997) and provide them with "a sense of agency to motivate their learning through use of such self-regulatory processes as goal setting, self- monitoring, self-evaluation, and strategy use" (B. Zimmerman, 2000). According to
Bandura (1994), perceived self-efficacy regulates behavior through four major processes: cognitive, motivational, affective, and selection processes.
37 Cognitive processes. Self-efficacy beliefs influence thought patterns that may be
self-aiding or self-hindering (Bandura, 1989) and the effects of self-efficacy beliefs on cognitive process take a variety of forms. First, people's self-efficacy influences their personal goal setting. The stronger an individual’s perceived self-efficacy, the higher the goals they set for themselves and the firmer their commitment to them. Second, people's beliefs in their efficacy influence the types of anticipatory scenarios they construct and reiterate (Bandura, 1989; 1993). Individuals with high efficacy visualize success scenarios that provide positive guides and supports for performance. In contrast, those who have a low sense of efficacy visualize failure scenarios and think of everything which can go wrong. The effect of self-efficacy on students’ academic performance is illustrated by Shell, Murphy, and Bruning (1989). They conducted a study on the relation between self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs and achievement in reading and writing for 153 white, middle-class, undergraduate students. They found that self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs are positively related to reading and writing achievement for mature students.
Hammond and Feinstein (2005) also found a link between adult education and
self-efficacy in their study of women with low levels of educational achievement. Their
study focused on self-efficacy “because it translates into a range of wider benefits and
because it may afford protection from depression and other forms of social exclusion” (p.
265), conditions which are common among homeless women. Their mixed method study
found there are four processes associated with participation in adult education pursuits
and increased self-efficacy:
38 (1) perceptions of achievement in adult education increase self-efficacy; (2) adult
education leads to more challenging occupations, which build self-efficacy; (3)
resistance to participation in adult education is reduced as self-efficacy increases;
and (4) learning on the job can build self-efficacy because it reflects engagement
in occupations where the value of learning is recognized. (pp. 277-279)
One of the conclusions that Hammond and Feinstein (2005) came to as a result of their
study is that “as self-efficacy increases, so does motivation to take on new challenges
including participation in more challenging courses” (p. 282).
Motivational processes. Bandura (1989) stated that people's self-efficacy beliefs determine their level of motivation. Self-efficacy can influence choice of activities, effort
expended, and persistence. This means an individual’s beliefs about their self-efficacy can determine what tasks they elect to do, the intensity with which the tasks are performed, and persistence in the presence of obstacles. Individuals who have a high sense of efficacy for accomplishing a task such as finding a job will work harder and persist longer when they face difficulties. In contrast, individuals who feel inefficacious
may avoid searching for a job when it seems to be difficult or challenging. Self-efficacy
has been found to be related to motivation for quitting smoking (Shiffman et al., 2000) as
well as job search persistence (Wanberg, Glomb, Song, & Sorenson, 2005).
Affective processes. An individual’s beliefs in their coping capabilities affect how
much stress and depression they experience in threatening or difficult situations, as well
as their level of motivation. Those who believe they can exercise control over threats do
not conjure up disturbing thought patterns; their stronger sense of self-efficacy causes
them to feel more confident about taking on demanding or threatening activities. In
39 contrast, those who believe they cannot manage threats experience high anxiety, dwell on
their coping deficiencies, view many aspects of their environment as fraught with danger,
magnify the severity of possible threats, and worry about things that rarely happen. This
inefficacious thinking leads to personal distress and an impaired level of functioning.
Perceived self-efficacy to control thought processes is a key factor in regulating stress
and depression while perceived coping self-efficacy and thought control efficacy operate
jointly to reduce anxiety. Self-efficacy to regulate positive and negative affect is
accompanied by high efficacy to manage one’s academic development, to resist peer
pressures for antisocial activities, and to engage oneself with empathy in others’
emotional experiences (Bandura, Caprara, Barbaranelli, Gerbino, & Pastorelli, 2003).
Research has also shown that perceived self-regulatory efficacy mediates the effects of
affective states on addictive behavior (Marlatt & Gordon, 1985) since negative emotional
states such as anger, anxiety, depression, frustration, and boredom are associated with the
highest rate of relapse. Conversely, people with low self-efficacy perceive themselves as
lacking the motivation or ability to resist drinking in high-risk situations.
Selection processes. Beliefs of personal efficacy can also shape the course
individual lives take by influencing the types of activities and environments people
choose. People avoid activities and situations they believe exceed their coping capabilities. However, they readily undertake challenging activities and select situations they judge themselves capable of handling. Career choice and development is but one example of the power of self-efficacy beliefs to affect the course of life paths through choice-related processes. The higher the level of an individual’s perceived self-efficacy the wider the range of career options they seriously consider, the greater their interest in
40 them, and the better they prepare themselves educationally for the occupational pursuits they choose (Hackett, 1995). A study among disadvantaged adult students attending a high school equivalency program found that self-efficacy predicts consideration of educational programs and occupations regardless of the students’ actual ability (Bores-
Rangel, Church, Szendre, & Reeves, 1990).
Development of Self-Efficacy
Clearly, self-efficacy makes a difference in how people think, feel, motivate themselves, and act. People with high self-efficacy beliefs expect their efforts to produce favorable results, view obstacles as surmountable, and actively figure out ways to overcome problems. In contrast, people with a low sense of self-efficacy avoid difficult tasks that they view as threatening and have low aspirations and weak commitment to their goals. In general, a person’s self-efficacy beliefs stem from four sources: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, social persuasion, and physiological and emotional states.
Mastery experiences. Mastery experiences are the most effective means for creating a strong sense of efficacy since they provide authentic evidence of one’s ability to succeed. In contrast, failures undermine self-efficacy particularly when they occur before a sense of high self-efficacy is developed. Mastery experiences provide opportunities for acquiring the cognitive, behavioral, and self-regulatory tools needed to create and execute appropriate courses of action needed to manage life circumstances. At the same time, “a resilient sense of efficacy requires experience in overcoming obstacles through perseverant effort” (Bandura, 1995). Therefore, both achieving success and overcoming failures and setbacks are essential to the development of self-efficacy.
41 Vicarious experiences. Vicarious experiences contribute to the development of self-efficacy through social models. The impact of such models is directly proportional to perceived similarity to the models: the greater the perceived similarity, the stronger the impact. Seeing others similar to oneself succeed through perseverance increases an individual’s belief in their ability to succeed in comparable activities. At the same time, seeing similar others fail in spite of their efforts undermines an individual’s sense of self- efficacy. It contrast, seeing the behavior and subsequent results of models people see as very different from themselves has little influence on self-efficacy. In addition to providing a standard against which to judge one’s personal capabilities, competent social models “transmit knowledge and teach observers effective skills and strategies for managing environmental demands” (Bandura, 1995, p. 4). Social models also contribute to the development of self-efficacy in others through their expressed ways of thinking and the attitudes they exhibit when faced with obstacles.
Social persuasion. Verbal persuasion from others that one possesses the ability to master certain activities usually prompts greater sustained effort and can help overcome self-doubts about one’s ability to be successful. Conveying positive appraisals not only enhances self-efficacy in the recipient but it can also provide them a foundation for the creation of self-affirming statements that replace a focus on personal deficiencies.
Successful persuasion also includes structuring situations so that success is readily possible and potential failures are few, and encouraging individuals to measure success in terms of self-improvement rather than competition with others. Ironically, while it can be difficult to boost self-efficacy in others through persuasion, persuasion can easily be used to undermine self-efficacy beliefs. Individuals who have been persuaded they lack
42 capabilities tend to avoid challenging activities and give up quickly in the face of a
difficulty, which tends to reinforce their perceived lack of self-efficacy.
Physiological and emotional states. Physiological and emotional cues such as stress and tension are often seen as indications of inability to perform well. Fatigue, aches, and pains are interpreted as a lack of the physical strength and stamina needed to
perform activities requiring these qualities. Feelings of depression or despondency
diminish perceived self-efficacy, while a positive mood enhances it. Therefore, one way
to enhance self-efficacy is by increasing health and physical status and decreasing stress
and negative emotional states. Changing how an individual interprets their physical and
emotional states can also lead to a higher sense of efficacy. For example, affective
arousal can be viewed as either an energizing factor that improves performance or a
debilitating one that prevents effective action.
From Bandura's perspective, "Beliefs of personal efficacy constitute the key factor
of human agency. If people believe they have no power to produce results, they will not
attempt to make things happen" (Bandura, 1997, p. 3). A sense of agency is also key in hope theory (Snyder et al., 1991), which is discussed in the following section.
Hope
The condition of homelessness is frequently characterized by feelings of
powerlessness, a sense of helplessness, and an absence of hope. “When hope is lost, there
is no reason to act, to set goals, or to work toward freedom from adverse situations
because there is no way out” (Tollett & Thomas, 1995, p. 77). While a sense of
hopelessness serves to perpetuate homelessness (Morrell-Bellai et al, 2000), hope is an
essential element in facilitating an exit from the condition of homelessness (MacKnee &
43 Mervyn, 2002). Furthermore, it has been found that specific interventions can engender
hope in homeless individuals (Herth, 1996; Tollett, 1992).
Hope Theory
Historically, hope has been conceptualized in various ways which generally
involve an overall belief that goals can be met (e.g., Frankl, 1963; Kegan, 1982; Lewin,
1938) but these theorists have not specified a means for pursuit of goals. In contrast,
Snyder et al. (1991) expand these concepts to explain a cognitive perspective of hope.
Definition of Hope
According to Snyder et al. (1991) hope is a cognitive set that is composed of a
reciprocally derived sense of successful agency (goal-directed determination) and
pathways (planning of ways to meet goals). The agency component signifies a sense of
successful determination in meeting goals in the past, present, and future. The pathways component represents a sense of being able to generate successful plans to meet goals.
Although these two components are not identical, they are “reciprocal, additive, and positively related…That is, both agency and pathways are necessary, but neither is sufficient to define hope” (Snyder et al., 1991, p. 571).
Development of Hope Theory
From a theoretical perspective, hope has been conceptualized in various ways
such as a positive feeling (Lynch, 1974), a result of religious faith (Fowler, 1981), or an
aspect of personality (e.g., Colerick, 1985; Fine, 1991; Kobasa, 1982) that enables a
person to maintain a positive sense of direction in life in spite of adversities. Snyder’s
interest in the concept of hope evolved out of his study about excuses people give to explain mistakes or poor performance (Snyder, Higgins, & Stucky, 1983). According to
44 Snyder (2002), discussions with his research participants “led to my casting of hope as
the ‘other side’ of the ‘excusing process’ in my first published article on hope” (p. 249).
Prior to this time, little empirical research had been conducted on the concept of hope.
Following suggestions from his colleagues, Snyder began to investigate thinking, rather
than emotions, as the foundation of hope. “Hope, as I was coming to define it, was
primarily a way of thinking, with feelings playing an important, albeit contributory role”
(Snyder, 2002, p. 249). However, in interviewing people Snyder determined that hope consisted of more than thoughts about a specific goal. Therefore, his definition of hope includes three concepts: goals, pathways, and agency.
Goals. Because Snyder was guided by the assumption that human actions are goal
directed, goals are a cognitive component of hope theory. Goals serve as targets of mental
action sequences, vary in terms of their temporal frame and specificity, and have
sufficient value to merit persistent conscious thought. There are two types of goals in
hope theory: positive or “approach” goals and negative or “avoidance” goals. The first
relates to goals an individual wants to achieve, while the second is related to deterring a
negative goal outcome such as loss of a job. However, goals cannot be attained without a
means to reach them.
Pathways. Pathways are the routes individuals develop to attain their goals. High-
hope individuals are characterized by decisive and confident thoughts about the pathways
to their goals and are adept at finding alternate routes when faced with obstacles. In
contrast, low-hope individuals develop tenuous and vague pathways and have difficulty
producing alternative paths to their goals when confronted with barriers to achievement
45 of those goals. Furthermore, it is when obstacles and barriers are encountered that the
agency component is most significant.
Agency. Agency is the motivational component of the theory and consists of the perceived ability to use one’s pathways as routes to achieve desired goals. Agency encompasses the mental energy necessary to begin and sustain utilization of a pathway in pursuit of a desired goal. When obstacles intervene while pursuing a goal, “agency helps people to channel the requisite motivation to the best alternate pathway” (Snyder, 2002).
Because there are individual differences in hope, Snyder and his colleagues developed and validated individual differences scales to substantiate the hope theory, one of which is discussed below.
Measuring Hope
Snyder posited that hope is an essential coping strategy that can be measured in
individuals (Snyder et al., 1991). Since the development of the hope theory, he and his
colleagues have developed a number of instruments to measure the cognitive set of hope.
In this study, the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale will be used to measure the self- reported hopefulness of the participants in terms of agency (i.e., goal-directed determination) and pathways (i.e., planning of ways to meet goals). According to Snyder,
LaPointe, Crowson, & Early, 1998),
Higher hope as measured by the dispositional Hope Scale has been related to
elevated optimism, perceived problem-solving capabilities, perceptions of control,
positive affectivity, competitiveness, self-esteem, and generalised positive goal
expectancies, as well as lower scores of indices of anxiety, negative affectivity,
and depression. (p. 808)
46 “To date, research has shown that hope as measured by the dispositional scale is an
effective predictor of various academic and coping activities…and that [it] makes such
predictions beyond variance due to other related psychological capabilities (Peterson &
Luthans, 2003, p. 2). Due to this predictive ability, the scale has been used in a number of research studies, some of which are briefly described below. A more comprehensive
description of the scale is provided in Chapter 3.
Feudtner et al. (2007) used the scale in their survey of 410 nurses employed at
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to determine the nurses’ level of comfort when working with dying children and their families. They found that in addition to greater number of years in nursing practice and more hours of palliative care education, higher scores on the hope scale “were significantly associated with higher levels of comfort working with dying children and the families, lower levels of difficulty talking about death and dying, and higher levels of palliative care competency” (p. 186).
The scale was also used in a longitudinal study of 308 white-collar U.S.
employees on the relationship between hope and gratitude on levels of corporate social
responsibility concerns (Andersson, Giacalone, & Jurkiewicz, 2007). The study found
that employees with stronger hope and gratitude had a greater sense of responsibility
toward employee and societal issues but employee hope and gratitude did not affect a
sense of responsibility toward economic and safety/quality issues. The authors concluded,
“The data demonstrates that the importance of socially responsible actions can be
impacted by an interaction of hope and gratitude when dealing with issues of ethics and
philanthropy, but not when economic and legal responsibilities are concerned” (p. 407).
47 Snyder’s (1996, 1998) supposition that circumstances of profound loss such as are
encountered in combat lower a person’s sense of hope has prompted the use of the scale
in a number of studies of veterans afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
According to Snyder (1998), PTSD exemplifies an extreme stress-related response that
should be accompanied by low hope. In one study, the scale was used to assess the
concurrent levels of hostile cognitions and hope in 37 male veterans with combat-related
PTSD (Crowson, Frueh, & Snyder, 2001). The study found that “hope levels varied
primarily as a function of being employed rather than unemployed” (p. 149). “In an
interesting caveat to the overall pattern of findings, unemployed veterans reported having
more pathways (or more ways around an obstacle) and more overall hope in combat than
today” (p. 160). In contrast, employed veterans had higher pathways and overall hope
scores for recent events and higher levels of agency than the unemployed veterans did.
Interestingly, among the employed veterans “higher levels of agency were reported in
combat compared to today” (p. 160). Irving, Tefler, & Blake (1997) also used the scale in
their study of the relationship between dispositional hope, coping, and social support
among 47 Vietnam veterans undergoing inpatient treatment for combat-related PTSD.
They reported that while participants had significantly low levels of hope at the time of
intake, “hope confers a beneficial effect once veterans undergo treatment for combat-
related PTSD, a finding that suggests that hope may be ‘gone but not lost’ for these
individuals” (p. 465).
Onwuegbuzie and Snyder (2000) used the scale to assess the relationship between hope and graduate students’ coping strategies for studying and taking tests. They found that high-hope students are not only clear about what goals they want to accomplish
48 while studying but they also have well–defined strategies for learning the material
(pathways) and they put forth the necessary effort to use these strategies (agency). High-
hope students stay “on task” and attend to the appropriate cues when studying and taking
tests, and are not as distracted by self-deprecatory thinking and counterproductive
negative emotions as low hope students.
The relationship between emotions and hope was also explored by Stanton et al.
(2000) in their study of 92 breast cancer patients. They found that study participants used
emotional approach coping more frequently when they perceived their social contexts as
receptive and when they scored high in hope. “In general, greater use of emotional
approach was associated with more positive psychological and physical adjustment,
although the relations were somewhat stronger for coping through emotional expression
than emotional processing” (p. 878). Given that “coping through emotional approach, which involves actively processing and expressing emotions, enhances adjustment and health status for breast cancer patients” (p. 875) it is clear that hope is beneficial for these patients. Snyder (2002) suggests there is a need for further research on the benefits of hope especially for individuals who are trying to cope with difficult circumstances. He views hope as crucial for enhancing the quality of individual lives and anticipates the further development of strategies for instilling hope in individuals (Snyder, Ilardi,
Michael, & Cheavens, 2000). To many people, adult education pursuits also contribute to the quality of life. In the following section, adult education as it pertains to homeless individuals, garden-based learning, and experiential learning is discussed.
49 Adult Education
Darkenwald and Merriam (1982) define adult education as a process of systematic
learning activities for "bringing about changes in knowledge, attitudes, values, or skills"
(p. 9). This definition potentially encompasses a large range of activities that may include
basic skills education, activities leading to academic credentials, work-related courses or
training, and courses or programs taken for personal development, general interest, or
recreation. While homelessness results from an intersection of social and economic
conditions that often place intractable limits on personal choice and individual
responsibility, adult education can and should be a valid part of the solution to the growing problem of homelessness.
Adult Education for the Homeless
Passage of the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act (1987) resulted in
the availability of financial resources to support educational programs for homeless
adults. Over its eight years of existence, the Adult Education for the Homeless (AEH)
program served 320,000 homeless adults. However, despite evaluations that documented
the success of the program in preparing learners for employment and training
opportunities (Drury & Koloski, 1995), funding was rescinded from the 1995 federal
budget and never reinstated (Office of Vocational and Adult Education, 1998). The AEH
program’s highest priority was to assist homeless people become employable and it
sought to achieve that goal by providing assistance in the development of basic skill
competencies (verbal, reading, writing, math, and computer literacy) that would enable
the students to become more productive citizens. None of the programs funded under this
Act stressed participant empowerment or self-efficacy.
50 Adult education has the potential to change homeless individuals’ self-concepts and worldviews as well as their behaviors (Office of Vocational and Adult Education,
1998). By helping them to become aware that they have a constructive role in their families and communities and can improve the environment in which they currently live, adult education can prepare them to function in healthy and responsible ways. At the same time, adult education programs for the homeless must be relevant to the learners’ needs while meeting the requirements and goals set forth by the homeless shelters and program funders related to the attainment of permanent housing and full-time employment. Ideally, an adult education program for the homeless would lead to not only job skill acquisition but also prepare the learners for living and learning in a changing and complex society, and encompass the development of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and empowerment among the participants. To be truly effective, such programs should also address the factors that led to the participants becoming homeless such as psychological problems, substance abuse, lack of education and subsequent low-wage employment, marital and family issues, and sexual and physical abuse. The result of such a comprehensive program would be both the acquisition of a specific level of skills and knowledge directly related to the learners’ needs as well as increased feelings of self- efficacy and hope, which are essential ingredients for escaping homelessness (Epel et al.,
1999; MacKnee & Mervyn, 2002).
Kunstler (1992) advocated community based recreational programs as a means to help homeless individuals "develop self-awareness, increase self-esteem, learn social interaction skills and appropriate social behaviour, develop a sense of community, learn decision-making processes and increase feelings of influence and control" (p. 44).
51 Harrington and Dawson (1997) theorize that recreational opportunities that promote
fitness, relaxation, and sociability may also "be a source of personal empowerment for people living in homeless shelters" (p. 19). Miller and Keys (2001) speculate that “an increase in positive feelings about oneself” (p. 349) helps to promote a sense of dignity among homeless individuals.
Although there is a lack of empirical research on the benefits of therapeutic
horticulture as a recreational activity, several authors suggest that participation in
gardening has a positive effect on psychological well-being, self-esteem, and self-
efficacy (Gauvin & Spence, 1996; Myers, 1998; S. Zimmerman, 2000). Involvement in
therapeutic horticultural activities is also thought to reduce stress and anger, ease
emotional pain due to bereavement or abuse, and enhance productivity and problem
solving (Worden et al., 2004). Hoffman et al. (2003) found participation in a gardening
program increased self-esteem and self-efficacy among community college students.
However, a survey of the literature found little research related to the effects of
participation in gardening and other horticultural activities or garden-based learning on
homeless individuals. In the next section, the theoretical and historical foundations of
garden-based learning and some of its benefits are discussed.
Garden-Based Learning
Garden-based learning is an instructional strategy that is based on experiential
learning and utilizes a garden as a teaching tool. Much of the literature on garden-based
learning focuses on its application with children rather than adults. Within such literature,
it is often referred to as plant-based learning or plant-based education. These two interchangeable terms encompass “activities, programming, and curricula that use plants
52 as a foundation for integrating learning in and across disciplines through active, real- world experiences that also have personal meaning” (Lewis, n.d., p. 2). Both garden- and plant-based learning are situated within the larger context of therapeutic horticulture, which is defined as “the process by which individuals may develop well-being using plants and horticulture...[through either] active or passive involvement” (Anonymous,
1999, p. 4). Therapeutic horticulture “includes the use of horticulture for embedded learning of basic skills (literacy, numeracy, etc.); addressing social or key skills (e.g. team working, patience) and the use of the outdoor environment to gain mental and physical health” (Thrive, 2007, ¶ 3) and includes the formal, professional practice of horticultural therapy. “Horticultural therapy (HT) is the engagement of a person in gardening-related activities, facilitated by a trained therapist, to achieve specific treatment goals” (American Horticultural Therapy Association, n.d., ¶ 1). Whether garden-based learning occurs under the definition of plant-based learning, plant-based education, therapeutic horticulture, or horticultural therapy, the theoretical roots of garden-based instruction can be found in the works of many educators of both children and adults as discussed in the next section.
Theoretical Basis of Garden-Based Learning
The educational philosophies of Montessori, Dewey, and Gardner are all related to garden-based learning. Montessori (1967) believed that gardening helped provide moral education for children and encouraged the contemplation of nature. Dewey
(1916/1997) thought that gardens allowed children to develop their thinking skills. He believed that by working in a garden, students would come to understand the role of farming and horticulture while studying plant growth, soil chemistry, and the impacts of
53 factors such as light, air, pests, and pollinators on plants. More recently, Gardner (1999) has proposed there is a naturalist intelligence, which enables human beings to recognize, categorize, and draw upon certain features of the environment in their learning processes.
Based on these theories, educators of children all around the world are currently using garden-based learning to promote science and agricultural literacy, environmental awareness and responsibility, increase knowledge about mathematics and nutrition, and to support multicultural awareness and community development (Desmond, Grieshop, &
Subramaniam, 2004). In the field of adult education, garden-based learning is utilized in formal courses in horticulture and agriculture, informal learning such as Master Gardener training, and popular education such as that provided by gardening magazines and television media. Garden-based learning is also used in some adult basic education, vocational, and life skills training programs and is the backbone of horticultural therapy programs. The use of a garden as an instructional tool for children and adults has a long history, which is briefly discussed in the following section.
History of Garden-Based Learning
One of the first people to recognize the benefits of garden-based learning was Dr.
Benjamin Rush, a professor at the Institute of Medicine and Clinical Practice in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1798, he observed that mentally ill patients benefited from working in the vegetable garden at the
Institute (Davis, 1998). His discovery prompted the wide use of garden-based learning in the form of growing and harvesting field crops as a modality for treating people with mental illness. In the late 1880s, municipal support for the development of community garden areas began in American cities. These gardens were established in response to
54 poverty and unemployment but also served as sites for intergenerational garden-based
learning (Shannon, 2004). These community gardens not only served as sites for learning
but also encouraged self-help and independence among immigrants, and the destitute and
unemployed (Bassett, 1981). By 1896, garden-based learning was being utilized by the
New York City Children’s Aid Society in their work with disadvantaged children (Davis,
1998). Although school gardens were popular in Europe from the early 1800s, the first
school gardens in the United States did not appear until the early 1900s. These gardens
were used to teach children about nature and civic responsibilities and stressed scientific
education and human-environment relationships (Shannon, 2004).
During World War I, Liberty Gardens were established in many cities to support
the war effort. According to Bassett (1979),
The average American did not understand how they could help the war by
planting a garden. Because Americans had to be convinced that gardening helped
the war effort, officials of the National War Garden Commission had to be trained
on how to organise the “would be” gardens through the use of propaganda and
instructional material. (p. 56)
School gardening also became a national movement during the war and “in 1916 over
one million students contributed to the production of food during the war effort”
(Subramaniam, 2002). By the end of the war, every state in America and every province
in Canada had at least one school garden (Sealy, 2001). Garden-based learning was also integrated into programming for returning veterans with physical disabilities for both
occupational therapy and recreational purposes (Davis, 1998).
55 During the Great Depression, Relief Gardens were established in the United
States. The Cooperative Extension Service played a large role in this effort by providing
instruction and practical demonstrations of research-based practices for good nutrition,
gardening, and canning of surplus foods as a way to encourage food security and self-
sufficiency. “These skills helped many families survive the years of economic
depression” (Seevers, Graham, Gamon, & Conklin, 1997, p. 38). According to Bassett
(1979), Relief Gardens served three additional purposes: (1) they helped maintain the physical and mental health of society’s unemployed; (2) they prevented civil disorder by giving the populace something to do rather than taking their anger and despair to the streets; and (3) they were used to teach employment skills. “These gardens also appeared to provide people with a sense of self-respect and independence in a time when these characteristics were hard to come by” (Shannon, 2004, p. 10). As economic prosperity returned to the country, there was a decline in garden-based learning in schools and communities until World War II broke out.
Not only was there a resurgence of school and community Victory Gardens in
support of the war effort, but “gardening was also seen as a way to relieve war-time
tension, offering recreational and therapeutic benefits for an anxious lifestyle brought on
by war” (Shannon, 2004, pp. 11-12). Plant- and garden-based learning was also extensively used in hospitals during the war as part of treatment and rehabilitation of veterans with physical and mental disabilities (Davis, 1998). Although interest in community and school gardens waned after the war, garden-based learning in the form of horticultural therapy was initiated by public gardens in cooperation with a veterans’ hospital and a nursing home (Davis, 1998). Some public housing authorities also
56 promoted the establishment of community garden-based learning projects during the late
1950s and early 1960s (Hynes & Howe, 2004). These community gardens were “seen as
a tool to provide: neighborhood revitalization, environmental stewardship, community
development, food production for urban poor, and urban beautification” (Shannon, 2004,
p. 12). In the mid-1960s, the birth of the environmental movement also led to a brief resurgence of school gardens as an interactive educational link to help children and youth understand the life sciences and develop an understanding of the environment
(Yamamoto, 2000).
Since then, a number of developments have led to an expansion of garden-based
learning. The establishment of the Cooperative Extension Service’s Master Gardener
program in 1972 has resulted in a host of well-qualified volunteers to provide garden-
based instruction in a variety of venues including nursing homes, youth gardens, mental
health centers, hospitals, correctional facilities, and a homeless shelter (Flagler, 1992;
Pierce & Seals, 2006). In 1973, the National Council for Therapy and Rehabilitation
Through Horticulture became the first professional organization for horticultural
therapists; in 1988, the name of the organization was changed to the American
Horticultural Therapy Association (Davis, 1998). Their mission is to advance the practice
of plant- and garden-based learning to improve human well-being (Davis, 1998).
Renewed interest in environmental education and children’s nutrition and health issues
has resulted in the recent proliferation of school gardens. Community gardens have also
become important again as concerns arise over community food security issues (Hynes &
Howe, 2004). Presently, some community gardens also serve as job training sites for
57 juvenile offenders (Cammack, Waliczek, & Zajicek, 2002b) and homeless individuals
(Homeless Garden Project, 2005).
As the above history shows, the benefits of garden-based learning are not limited
to the acquisition of horticultural knowledge and skills. Desmond et al. (2004) identify a
number of “core uses” (p. 49) for garden-based learning in basic education as follows: (a)
academic skills; (b) mental and physical development; (c) social and moral development;
(d) vocational and/or subsistence skills, and (e) life skills. They also suggest “it may be useful to consider the way garden-based learning is used in the context of the broader society, outside of the classroom” (p. 46) including: (a) community development; (b) food security; (c) sustainable development; (d) vocational education; and, (e) school grounds greening. While these are commendable goals, an examination of evidence on the use of garden- or plant-based learning in various educational venues reveals a gap between these suggestions and actual practice.
For example, in 1995 the California Department of Education (2007) launched the
Garden in Every School initiative to encourage schools to establish and sustain school
and community gardens as a learning laboratory or outdoor classroom where students
could master California’s core curriculum standards through garden-based learning.
However, in 2005 a survey of state school principals found that only 24% of California
schools reported having a school garden (Graham, Beall, Lussier, McLaughlin, &
Zidenberg-Cherr, 2005). “The most frequent reason for having a garden was for
enhancement of academic instruction (89%)” (p. 149) primarily in the areas of science,
environmental studies, and nutrition. “The greatest barriers for using the garden for
academic instruction were time (88%), a lack of curricular materials linked to academic
58 standards (74%), and a lack of teachers' interest, knowledge, experience, and training in
relation to gardening (70%)” (p. 149). In a similar study of fourth-grade teachers at
California schools with gardens, Graham and Zidenberg-Cherr (2005) found that 68% of
responding teachers used the garden for academic instruction. “The most frequently taught subject areas using the garden included science (65%), nutrition (47%),
environmental studies (43%), language arts (42%), math (40%), and agricultural studies
(27%)” (p. 1798). Reported barriers to using the school garden in academic instruction
included “time (67%), lack of teachers’ interest…(63%)…[and] experience with
gardening (61%), lack of curricular materials linked to academic standards (60%), lack of
teachers’ knowledge of gardening (60%), and lack of teacher training in relation to
gardening (58%)” (p. 1799).
Although the participants in these two studies believed that garden-based learning
had some effectiveness with regard to enhancing academic performance, there is a
scarcity of empirical evidence in the literature describing correlations between gardening
programs and academic performance and achievement or other intellectual/cognitive,
physical, emotional/psychological, and social benefits of garden-based learning. Lohr and
Relf (2000) explain this lack of empirical evidence by saying,
The need for research on the impacts of plants on people is relatively new. In the
past, when people were more directly connected to nature, they did not have the
need to validate these impacts with research; the benefits were obvious to them.
(p. 27)
Shoemaker, Relf, and Lohr (2000) cite horticulturists’ lack of experience in social science
research methodologies as a limiting factor in the development of research on human
59 issues in horticulture. Sempik, Aldridge, and Becker (2003) examined over 300 published articles on garden- and plant-based education and concluded that many of the articles were “purely descriptive and contained no actual quantitative or qualitative data” (p. 3).
“Many studies to date have been inconclusive, and some are essentially anecdotal, thus lacking the scientific rigor to substantiate the suggested benefits” (Phibbs & Relf, 2005, p. 425). Although there is a lack of evidence on the effectiveness of garden-based learning in the form of “systematic academic inquiry” (Sempik et al., p. 4), an overview of some studies on garden-based learning is provided in the following section.
Benefits of Garden-Based Learning
Many authors have written about a garden as a place of transition, expectation, and hope (see Harris, 1997; Smith, 1991). According to Schintz (1985),
Hope for the future is at the heart of all gardening. Anyone who toils away at the
soil must think a few weeks ahead to envision next year’s garden, for most
gardeners are convinced that improvement is on the way. Thus, gardening is an
exercise in optimism. Sometimes, it is the triumph of hope over experience. (p.
11)
Other impacts and outcomes of garden-based learning can be categorized into four basic areas: intellectual/cognitive, physical, emotional/psychological, and social.
Intellectual/cognitive benefits. Neer (1990) found children with severe physical and other disabilities who became gardeners experienced a positive change in their school work and Sheffield (1992) found that underachieving students who participated in a five- week inter-disciplinary gardening program during the summer experienced an increase in academic success. Cammack et al. (2002b) reported that participation in a garden-based
60 vocational training and rehabilitation program “improved the horticultural knowledge and
the environmental attitudes of participating juvenile offenders” (p. 77). In South Carolina
adult correctional facilities, participation in a garden-based Master Gardener training
program led to “intellectual stimulation and a sense of academic achievement” among the
inmates (Polomski, Johnson, & Anderson, 1997, p. 362). In contrast, Hendren’s (1998)
three-year study of classroom gardening involving 300 students found no significant
difference in academic achievement because of participation in a garden-based learning
program.
Garden-based learning programs aimed at improving health and nutrition have also reported contradictory results. For instance, Lautenschlager and Smith’s (2007)
study of inner-city youth, ages 8-13, living in Minneapolis/St. Paul, Minnesota, found
that those who participated in a ten-week youth gardening program “were more willing to
eat nutritious food and try ethnic and unfamiliar food than those not in the program” (p.
245). Gardening program participants were able to talk about nutrition knowledge and
give reasons why certain foods were beneficial. They “also verbalized what it meant to be
healthy, citing calorie control, weight management, and disease prevention with
considerable sophistication” (p. 252). Youth who did not participate in the gardening
program were unable to define the term “nutrition” and “their discussion contained
considerable misinformation” about what foods are healthy (p. 252). In contrast, quasi-
experimental studies of third through fifth graders (Poston, Shoemaker, & Dzewaltowski,
2005) and fourth grade students (O’Brien & Shoemaker, 2006) who participated in after-
school nutrition programs with and without garden-based learning found that there were
no improvements in nutritional knowledge in either the experimental or control groups.
61 However, there is evidence that participation in garden-based learning contributes to physical health as described in the next section.
Physical benefits. Warburton, Nicol, and Bredin’s (2006) review of the literature pertaining to the health benefits of physical activity confirmed “there is irrefutable evidence of the effectiveness of regular physical activity in the primary and secondary prevention of several chronic diseases (e.g., cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, hypertension, obesity, depression and osteoporosis) and premature death” (p. 801).
Garden-based learning provides opportunities for a variety of physical benefits associated with exercise and mobility, including improved muscle strength, flexibility, and cardiopulmonary capability. According to Mattson (2001),
Just walking through a garden can reduce blood pressure…If you pick up and use
a shovel or hoe, you gain strength benefits. If you use those tools with some
enthusiasm or determination, you also get aerobic benefits similar to those in
jogging or working out with exercise equipment. (p. 3)
Yamane, Kawashima, Fujishige, and Yoshida (2004) studied the effects of interior horticultural activities with potted plants on 119 adults and found that transplanting non- flowering or flowering plants promoted physiological relaxation in the study participants.
Hackman and Wagner (1990) found that a “nutrition education-through-gardening program” (p. 262) was successful in promoting increased consumption of fruit and vegetables among 55 senior citizens. In a similar study, Montenegro and Cuadra (2004) found that a garden-based learning program with 259 women in Nicaragua was successful in promoting food security for the women and their families and overcoming
“the high levels of malnutrition affecting their whole families” (p. 37). These studies are
62 particularly important in view of the “epidemiologic evidence of a protective role for
fruits and vegetables in the prevention of cancer, coronary heart disease, cataract
formation, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, diverticulosis, and possibly,
hypertension” (Van Duyn & Pivonka, 2000, p. 1511).
The beneficial effects of plants on physical symptoms can also accrue to
individuals who are not actively involved in garden-based learning. For example, Fjeld
(2000) found that workers in an office with foliage plants reported fewer physical symptoms, including coughing, hoarse throat, and fatigue, than when no plants were
present. Lohr and Pearson-Mims (2000) showed that pain tolerance is increased in the
presence of plants and Ulrich (1984) found that surgical patients assigned to rooms with
windows looking out on a natural scene had “shorter postoperative hospital stays, had
fewer negative evaluative comments from nurses, took fewer moderate and strong
analgesic doses, and had slightly lower scores for minor postsurgical complications” (p.
421) than matched patients in similar rooms with windows facing a brick building wall.
While increased physical exercise and improved nutrition are valuable outcomes, there are also emotional and psychological benefits to be gained from participation in garden-
based learning, which are discussed in the next section.
Emotional/psychological benefits. Some studies show that contact with nature in
general can help relieve stress and mental fatigue (Kaplan & Kaplan 1989; Ulrich 1983).
Others have found that even passive interaction with indoor plants can help to alleviate
stress and promote psychological well-being (Lohr, Pearson-Mims, & Goodwin, 1996;
Ulrich & Parsons, 1992). Participation in garden-based learning programs has been
reported to increase self-esteem and internal locus of control among juvenile offenders
63 (Cammack, Waliczek, & Zajicek, 2002a) and female prison inmates (Migura, Whittlesey,
& Zajicek, 1997) and self-esteem and self-efficacy in community college students
(Hoffman, Thompson, & Cruz, 2004). Richards and Kafami (1999) found that a garden-
based learning program for incarcerated offenders with significant substance abuse
histories led to an increase in self-efficacy and a reduction in reactive psychological
symptoms related to substance abuse such as depression, anxiety, and hostility among
these prisoners. In a similar study, Rice and Remy (1998) examined the impact of a
garden-based learning program “used as a vehicle to teach inmates the benefits of
productive work in a setting which is conducive to personal reflection and growth” (p.
174). They found that upon discharge and three months post-release participants reported
less depression, a reduction in substance abuse, and a greater desire for help in dealing
with drug abuse than inmates who did not participate in the gardening program.
Other studies have focused on the psychological benefits of participation in
garden-based learning for the elderly. Heliker, Chadwick, and O'Connell (2000) studied
the effects of participation in a three-month garden-based learning program on two
groups of elders in two culturally diverse settings. They found that the 24 participants
(age range 63-90) experienced a significant improvement in psychological well-being as the result of the garden-based learning program. Barnicle and Midden (2003) investigated the effects of indoor horticultural activities on the psychological well-being of older persons in two long-term care facilities over a seven-week period. Thirty-one participants at one facility served as the control group; 31 participants at another facility served as the gardening group. They found that the gardening group had a significant increase in psychological well-being, whereas the control group had a slight decrease in
64 psychological well-being. Two other studies (Gigliotti & Jarrott, 2005; Jarrott, Kwack, &
Relf, 2002) found that participation in garden-based learning activities at adult day
service programs resulted in greater positive affect and more active socialization among
adults with a diagnosis of dementia when compared to a control group that did not
participate in the activities. These findings are consistent with the assertion that
horticultural therapy and garden-based learning projects appear to promote the
development of social and communication skills (Sempik et al., 2003). In the next
section, some of the literature and research on the social benefits of garden-based
learning is examined.
Social benefits. A number of authors (see Lewis, 1979; Relf, 1981, 1999; Stamm
& Barber, 1999) have pointed out that participation in horticultural activities such as garden- and plant-based learning provides “an optimum setting for social exchange in various forms” (Relf, 2006, p. 11). Community gardens also provide opportunities for socializing with and learning from fellow gardeners and can promote community cohesion by dissolving prejudices about race and socioeconomic or educational status
(Lewis, 1990, 1996). For example, anecdotal evidence about community gardens in public housing and low-income areas of New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago indicates they contribute to “an increase in community cohesion, a reduction in graffiti and violence, and an increase in positive attitudes about themselves and their neighborhood for residents, resulting in personal and neighborhood transformation” (Lewis, 1992).
According to Glover (2003), “community gardens are often more about community than they are about gardening” (p. 192). Furthermore, “Community garden initiatives provide disenfranchised individuals with opportunities to join a group effort, become an active
65 member of a community, take on leadership roles, and work toward collective goals”
(Glover, 2003, p. 192). However, the limited empirical evidence does not support these
conclusions. For example, Kingsley and Townsend (2006) conducted a study of a
community garden that was intended to increase gardening knowledge and provide opportunities for social interaction in an urban community in Australia. They found that
while membership in the project resulted in increased social cohesion, social support, and
social connections among members, these social benefits did not “extend beyond the garden setting and the daily, minor exchanges of watering and seed sharing” (p. 534).
Barriga (2004) conducted a qualitative study of eight participants in four Canadian community gardens that provided garden-based educational activities. She found that the individuals who developed or coordinated the garden projects “had a higher level of social participation in their communities” (p. 68) while other participants tended to focus
“on gardening practices and on the personal impact of their participation in the gardens”
(p. 89). Myers (1998) describes a garden-based learning project with 18 persons with psychiatric disabilities in 10 garden sites located in rural Pennsylvania. Although she concludes the project “demonstrates the effectiveness of gardening activities in providing persons with psychiatric disabilities opportunities for empowerment and increased competence, while building bridges to naturally occurring supports and resources within the broader community” (p. 182) her study appears to lack the scientific rigor necessary to support her conclusions. Westphal (1999) points out that while community gardening projects can be empowering to participants and bring about social change and neighborhood transformation, empowerment of one group often leads to loss of control and disempowerment for other people or groups. She says, “Sometimes the loss of
66 control is exactly what the greening project organizers had in mind, for instance if they are trying to rid a certain corner of drug dealers” (p. 184). However, she also found the projects contributed to alienation within the community because at some community gardening sites, “a local elite was in the making, one that created a sense of disempowerment for some residents” (p. 188).
Various studies that examined the effects of flowering and foliage plants on the behavior of hospitalized psychiatric patients provide empirical evidence of the social
benefits of passive interaction with indoor plants. Several of these studies found that the inclusion of flowering plants in the hospital dining room resulted in significant increases in patient conversations and time spent in the dining room (Farmer, 1977; Murphy, 1977;
Talbott, Stern, Ross, & Gillen, 1976). Rice, Talbott, and Stern (1980) also found that the addition of flowers to the tables in the dining room encouraged socialization among psychiatric patients. Chung and Sim (1998) reported that the inclusion of indoor plants in
a ward of a psychiatric hospital prompted improved social behaviors in schizophrenia patients. Williams (1991) found that both social interaction and cooperative activities were fostered by participation in a horticultural therapy program in a short-term psychiatric ward. Smith (1998) concluded that garden-based learning activities in a hospital psychiatric unit not only helped patients to improve their social skills but also allowed nursing students and mental health staff to build positive relationships with the patients.
Studies of children who participate in garden-based learning programs also report
positive effects on social skills of the participants. For example, Alexander, North, and
Hendren’s (1995) qualitative study of second and third grade inner-city students found
67 that participation in a garden-based learning program increased students’ interactions
with their parents and other adults in a variety of ways.
Many children who began gardening at school soon had their families gardening,
too. In addition, parents became more actively involved with school matters and
their children's experiences at school. Children were found to have a sense of
being part of a larger community, as they and their families found satisfaction
from caring for gardens on weekends. (p. 129)
In a similar study, Hayzlett (2004) reported that participation in a garden-based learning
program increased parent, child, and community interactions and led to improvements in
responsible citizenship. Blandford (2002) reported that a children’s gardening program at
the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG), designed for children ages 6 through 12, “provided a social structure for these children” (p. 37) as well as “a safe, productive social
community” (p. 37) for the teenaged Junior Instructors in the program. In another study
of the same program, Conlon (2005) reported “Social skills development was a
significant aspect of learning in [the program and included] classroom discussion on the
meaning of respect, responsibility, and reliability and how it relates to the children in the
garden and in their daily lives” (p. 53). A phenomenological study of six BBG alumni
age 25 and older (Tims, 2003) “established that the alumni participants developed social
skills through their participation in the CGP [Children’s Gardening Program]” (p. 28).
To the participants in this study, social skills were defined as fostering
friendships, learning to cooperate with others and learning how to work as a team.
Children from various communities around Brooklyn were brought together in
one central location, BBG, where the participants could foster friendships by
68 sharing common interests within the CGP. Working with a partner in the
vegetable plots as well as working in groups in the community plots, alumni
participants developed social skills such as cooperation and teamwork. (p. 25)
Building on Tims’ work, Smith (2005) conducted a mixed-method study of 98 alumni of
the BBC CGP who were age 18 or older and had participated in the garden-based learning program for at least one year. According to Smith,
When asked about social skills, a majority of alumni felt that they “learned to
cooperate with adults” (90%). In addition, alumni also felt that they “learned to
work with others” (88%), “learned how to cooperate with children” (83%),
“learned to work in teams” (87%), and “learned from others’ ideas” (85%). (p. 31)
As students, educators, and horticulturalists continue to expand the research literature on
garden-based learning, the use of a garden as a teaching tool remains important in various
educational settings and endeavors. While methodological and theoretical approaches to
garden-based learning vary across educational disciplines, in the field of adult education
the application of garden-based learning generally falls into the well-established tradition
of experiential learning, which is discussed in the next section.
Experiential Learning
Lindeman (1926/1989) was one of the first in the adult education field to advocate
learning by doing, especially as it related to social justice. He believed that learning is an
everyday experience driven by non-vocational ideals that must be based on actual
situations in learners’ experience. He also thought that learners’ experience is the
resource of highest value in adult education. While Dewey (1938) also advocated
education based on learning by doing, he emphasized that not all experience leads to
69 learning. He identified two key dimensions as being essential to learning from experience. The first is continuity, where a learner can connect aspects of a new experience to knowledge he or she already possesses as a means for modifying that knowledge. The second component is interaction, whereby a learner is actively interacting with his or her environment and testing out the lessons developed in that
environment.
From a theoretical stance, the term experiential learning is frequently used to
“distinguish the flow of ongoing meaning-making in our lives from theoretical
knowledge and to distinguish nondirected ‘informal’ life experiences from ‘formal’
education” (Fenwick, 2003, p. 1). In the field of adult education, experiential learning gained popularity as a means for celebrating and legitimating the significance of individuals’ life experience in knowledge development. Experiential learning in adult education practice encompasses the following activities: field-based experiences such as internships, service learning, or apprenticeships; classroom-based active learning strategies; outdoor education programs intended to develop leadership, problem solving, or team skills; and learning through social action as in the Freirian approach to adult education.
Experiential learning concepts are the driving force behind adult education’s
learner-centered focus, which challenges assumptions that learners passively absorb
information imparted to them. Lave and Wenger (1991) argue that knowledge and
learning emerge from and are directly interwoven with situations in which a learner
participates. Knowledge and activity are intimately connected and learning is “situated”
within the activity, context, and culture in which it occurs (Lave, 1988). Instead of
70 viewing learning as the acquisition of certain forms of knowledge through cognitive
processes, Lave and Wenger (1991) look at the type of social engagements that provide a
context in which learning can take place because they believe learning results from a
process of social participation.
This social interaction is a critical component of situated learning. Learning stems from participation in a “community of practice” (Wenger, 1999). The concept of a community of practice refers to the process of social learning that occurs when people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations (Wenger, 1999). Within a community of practice a group of people are not only engaged in a shared activity but in
“a more encompassing process of being active participants in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in relation to these communities” (Wenger, 1999, p. 4). The fact that they are organizing around some particular area of knowledge and activity gives members a sense of joint enterprise and identity and leads to the development of a set of relationships over time (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Within a community of practice,
Learning involves the whole person; it implies not only a relation to specific
activities, but a relation to social communities - it implies becoming a full
participant, a member, a kind of person. In this view, learning only partly - and
often incidentally - implies becoming able to be involved in new activities, to
perform new tasks and functions, to master new understandings. (Lave & Wenger,
1991, p. 53)
71 Furthermore, “learning as increasing participation in communities of practice concerns the whole person acting in the world” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 49). This approach to learning goes beyond simply learning by doing to focus on the ways that people learn and develop through the “process of being active participants in the practices of social communities and constructing identities in relation to these communities…Such participation shapes not only what we do, but also who we are and how we interpret what we do” (Wenger, 1999, p. 4).
A community of practice provides norms and goals that guide the activities of the community and motivate members to learn. Novices often play different roles than those of long-time members of the community due to their limited experience. This legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), permits beginners to participate in and contribute to the ongoing activity while gaining the knowledge and skills that will later allow them to become active and engaged within the community. “The mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 29).
Lave and Wenger illustrate their theory by reporting on different types of apprenticeships in which there was a gradual acquisition of knowledge and skills as novices learned from experts in the context of everyday activities. One of these apprenticeships, which is particularly relevant to homeless women, concerns non- drinking alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous (A. A.). A. A. is a community of practice that draws upon a specific set of beliefs and assumptions in an attempt to deal successfully with alcoholism. According to Cain (1991),
72 The change these men and women have undergone is much more than a change in
behavior. It is a transformation of their identities, from drinking non-alcoholics to
non-drinking alcoholics, and it affects how they view and act in the world. It
requires not only a particular understanding of the world, but a new understanding
of their selves and their lives, and a reinterpretation of their own past. (p. 210)
This process of identity transformation occurs as “an apprentice alcoholic attends several
meetings a week…in the company of near-peers and adepts, those whose practice and
identities are the community of A. A.” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 79). Within the context
of A. A., “apprenticeship learning is supported by conversations, stories, and problematic
and especially difficult cases” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 95). For this reason, “old-
timers” tell stories in meetings about their lives as drinking alcoholics and their process
of becoming sober. Through listening to these stories, “newcomers have access to a
comprehensive view of what the community is about” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 79).
The Twelve Steps of A. A., which are also discussed in meetings, serve as goals for
members and “guide the process of moving from peripheral to full participation in A. A.”
(Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 79). Sponsors, who are individuals with long-term sobriety,
provide guidance to newcomers about such things as “her present actions and self-
understanding, and her understanding of her past (Cain, 1991, p. 233) in terms of A. A.
principles and practice. Furthermore, “It is in practice that people learn…the important point concerning learning is one of access to practice as resource for learning, rather than to instruction” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 85).
A similar process occurs within the context of a garden-based learning program.
For example, “newcomers become part of the gardening program through participation,
73 by seeking out the learning opportunities that the program provides and/or that emerge from their interactions with the environment and other participants, and from doing and talking about their experiences” (Rahm, 2002, p. 166). Through participation, what accumulates within the learner is not scientific facts but a way of acting, talking, and becoming a member of a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991).
Situated learning and contextual approaches to learning are found in many adult education settings, particularly in adult literacy, welfare-to-work, workplace education, and family literacy programs (Imel, 2000). In spite of the popularity of these approaches, some authors argue that the insistence that knowledge is context-dependent is
“misguided” and “overstated” (Anderson, Reder, & Simon, 1996, p. 5). These critics claim that the extent to which learning is connected to context depends on the kind of knowledge being acquired, and the ways the material is engaged. For example, Tennant
(1997) argues that “learning can occur which is seemingly unrelated to one’s context or life situation” (p. 78). Others have pointed out that not all learning in communities is valuable. “Unsupervised people learning in ‘authentic environments’ may make do, finding ways to participate which actually reinforce negative practices which a community is trying to eliminate” (Fenwick, 2000, p. 255). Salomon and Perkins (1998) argue that people who are apprenticed in particular ways may “pick up” undesirable forms of practice, wrong values, or strategies that subvert or profoundly limit the community of practice and its participating individuals. Although Wenger (1999) points out that communities of practice “can reproduce counterproductive patterns, injustices, prejudices, racism, sexism, and abuses of all kinds” (p. 132), issues of power, positionality, and resistance in communities of practice have not yet been adequately
74 addressed in the literature (Fenwick, 2000; Tennant, 1997). Heaney (1995) raises the
question of ethical issues in situated learning, particularly as they relate to the models
used in workplace education and training, which may keep newcomers on the periphery
and transmit only technical and instrumental knowledge. In spite of these criticisms,
Sfard (1998) points out that the participation metaphor (i.e., the view of learning within a
community in action or practice) invokes themes of togetherness, solidarity, and
collaboration among learners. Although neither situative theory nor the participation
metaphor specifically guided the development of this particular garden-based learning
program, these two concepts as described above were reflected in the program’s structure
and intent.
For example, Wenger and Snyder (2000) say that a community of practice
“typically has a core of participants whose passion for the topic energizes the community
and who provide intellectual and social leadership" (p. 3). This core of participants is
defined by their participation and commitment, rather than their expertise and mastery of the learning activity. “Mastery resides not in the master but in the organization of the
community of practice of which the master is a part” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 95). In
this particular garden-based learning program, Master Gardeners who were not experts in
either horticulture or adult education initially comprised this core. As shelter residents
joined the fluid and informal community (Wenger, 1999), they worked and learned in the
garden alongside the Master Gardeners. Through the process of legitimate peripheral
participation, newcomers became old-timers and part of the core. Relationships
developed between members of the community of practice and helped offset the sense of
isolation, social disaffiliation, and limited social networks frequently associated with
75 homelessness (Harrington & Dawson, 1997; Rosenheck et al, 1999). The social aspects
of the program also lent themselves to vicarious experiences and social persuasion aimed
at increasing self-efficacy in the participants (Bandura, 1995). Furthermore, the learning
activities of the garden-based learning program provided participants with opportunities
for mastery experiences, improved physical health, and decreased stress (Mattson, 2001;
Poston et al., 2005; Richards & Kafami, 1999), which contribute to the development of
self-efficacy (Bandura, 1995).
Summary
The literature on homelessness describes a number of causes and effects of this devastating human condition and offers a varied mix of potential solutions intended to alleviate the problem of homelessness that continues to plague the United States. In
addition, while adult education, garden-based learning, self-efficacy and hope have been
espoused as factors that can mitigate the consequences of homelessness and facilitate a
permanent transition from homelessness, a survey of the literature found little research
related to the effects of participation in gardening and other horticultural activities on
self-efficacy and hope among homeless individuals.
76 METHOD
The purpose of this study was to determine if participation in a garden-based
learning program would positively influence a sample of women residing at a homeless shelter in South Florida with regard to their levels of hope and self-efficacy. The results
and experiences of participation in gardening and other horticultural activities on
homeless women, particularly with regard to hope and self-efficacy, were identified and
measured through a mixed method study incorporating quantitative instruments and
qualitative interviews. The overarching research question for this study was: What are the results and experiences of participation in a garden-based learning program for homeless women with regard to hope and self-efficacy?
Mixed Methods Research
Mixed methods research (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2003) is a procedure for the
collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data in a single research study.
Mixed methods research varies according to the priority given to the quantitative and
qualitative data, the sequencing of the collection and analysis of both types of data, and the integration of the two types of data. Mixed methods research is prominent in various social and human sciences disciplines, including education, psychology, and nursing.
Definition of Mixed Methods Research
Mixed methods research involves collecting and analyzing both quantitative and
qualitative data in a single study. Quantitative data consist of objective measures of
certain phenomena while qualitative data consist of subjective meanings and descriptions
of things or experiences. Given that quantitative and qualitative research methods both have limitations, mixed methods research provides a means for neutralizing or canceling
77 biases associated with a single method. The results obtained through one method can help
inform or develop those obtained through the other method (Greene, Caracelli, &
Graham, 1989). One method can also serve to provide insight into different levels or units
of analysis derived through the other method (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998) or the combined methods may serve a larger, transformative purpose to either bring about a change or advocate for marginalized groups (Mertens, 2003). In the next section, an overview of the history of the use of mixed methods research is provided.
History of Mixed Methods Research
During the first half of the 20th century, quantitative research methods were
dominant within the social sciences, while in the closing decades a variety of researchers
adopted qualitative methods of research. However, many researchers were using
“multimethod” or mixed method research designs throughout the 20th century. Classic
mixed methods studies from this period include the Hawthorne studies of employee
motivation (Roethlisberger & Dickson, 1939), the “Yankee City” studies of social class
and status (Warner & Lunt, 1941), Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter’s (1956) research
on UFO cult members which resulted in the emergence of cognitive dissonance theory,
and Zimbardo’s (1969) simulated prison study.
More recently, a number of scholars have written about mixed methods designs.
In 1978, Denzin introduced the term “triangulation” to describe the combination of data
sources to study the same phenomenon; one method of triangulation mentioned by him
was the use of multiple methods. Jick (1979) spoke of “across methods triangulation,”
which involves quantitative and qualitative approaches, wherein the weaknesses of one
method are offset by the strengths of another method. An article by Greene et al. (1989)
78 identified different types of mixed method designs and offered guidance on designing
such studies. Morse (1991) developed a system of notation that can be used to signify the
relative weight given to each method and the sequence in which the methods are used in a
research study. In the 21st century, at least three books have been devoted entirely to
discussions of mixed methods research (see Brewer & Hunter, 2005; Creswell & Plano-
Clark, 2006; Tashakkori & Teddlie, 2002) and the first issue of The Journal of Mixed
Methods Research was published in January 2007.
In spite of the extensive use of mixed methods designs, some scholars (see Guba
& Lincoln, 1988; Smith & Heshusius, 1986) argue that the use of qualitative and
quantitative methods involves subscribing to different research paradigms which is
“neither possible nor sensible” (Greene et al., 1989, p. 257) due to differences in
epistemology, ontology, axiology, and methodology associated with each paradigm. In
contrast, Reichardt and Cook (1979) argue that paradigms can be mixed and matched to
create combinations appropriate for specific research inquiries. Kidder and Fine (1987)
concur that understanding of a given inquiry problem can be enhanced through exploring
data produced by various paradigms, while Miles and Huberman (1984) point out that
epistemological purity does not get research done. However, Sandelowski (2000) says,
“Mixed-method studies are not mixtures of paradigms of inquiry per se, but rather
paradigms are reflected in what techniques researchers choose to combine, and how and
why they desire to combine them” (pp. 246-247).
This researcher believes that by collecting different types of data in a mixed method study she will gain a more complete answer to the overarching research question
than could be achieved by the use of a single research method. Neither qualitative nor
79 quantitative research alone can provide a full picture of a phenomenon; but mixed- method studies combine the best of both quantitative and qualitative methods and provide useful narrative as well as quantitative data for decision-making purposes (Creswell,
1999). Another benefit of the use of a mixed method design in this research study is that it permits the researcher to have more confidence in the results of the study (Jick, 1979;
Morse, 1991) since the results obtained with mixed methods are usually more detailed and comprehensive than those produced by a single method study. A mixed method study also permits the selection of versatile and diverse methods for data collection and analysis “within a framework that intentionally engages with the different ways of knowing and valuing that the different methods embody” (Greene, 2005, p. 208). Koegel
(1992) points out that research using only quantitative data such as assessment instruments is prone to bias and likely to yield a distorted picture of the community being studied. “The risk [of bias] increases if the researcher’s definitions are embedded in the dominant culture while those of participants are embedded in marginalized cultures, because the researcher’s questions and assumptions may be based on dominant stereotypes of the community” (Paradis, 2000, pp. 849-850). Rappaport (1990) suggests that one means for overcoming this bias and the influence of stereotypes is to “give voice to participants’ definition of reality” (p. 56) using additional methods such as interviews, which enable participants to also influence the researcher. In the next section, applications of mixed methods research in the field of adult education are examined.
Applications of Mixed Methods Research in Adult Education
The use of mixed methods research is well established in the field of adult education. An examination of articles from Adult Education Quarterly found that while
80 few authors identify their work as mixed method research in either the abstracts or the
method sections of the articles, a number of mixed method studies have been published in
this journal. For example, Shipp and McKenzie (1981) used both quantitative and
qualitative designs to study demographic characteristics of adult learners and nonlearners.
Cervero, Rottet, and Dimmock (1986) collected and analyzed qualitative and quantitative
data in their evaluation of a nursing continuing education program. Boshier (1991) tested
the validity of a motivation scale using both qualitative and quantitative data. Moreover,
although Merriam (1998, 2002) fails to mention mixed method studies in her two recent
books on qualitative research, she and her colleagues combined qualitative and
quantitative approaches in their follow-up study of adults with HIV (Courtenay, Merriam,
Reeves, & Baumgartner, 2000). Gordon and Sork (2001) utilized a questionnaire and
open-ended interview questions in their mixed method study of adult education
practitioners’ view on the need for a code of ethics. In contrast, two recent articles
explicitly state in the abstract that a mixed method was used in the research being
reported. Hawley, Sommers, and Meléndez (2005) relied on a survey as well as
interviews of adult education administrators in their report on the impact of collaborations between adult education organizations and nonprofit or business partners
on the earnings of program participants. Milton, Watkins, Spears Studdard, and Burch
(2003) used both a survey and qualitative interviews to identify and measure factors
contributing to changes in the number of students and faculty in adult education graduate
programs.
Mixed methods research can also be found in other publications related to the
field of adult education. For example, King (2004) used a survey to gather information
81 from adult learners and, based on those findings, developed interview questions for their
professor as a means for examining transformative learning and professional
development among adult educators. A comprehensive report for the Kentucky
Department for Adult Education and Literacy (Jensen, Haleman, Goldstein, & Anderman,
2001) combined quantitative data collected from adult education providers and
community leaders with qualitative interviews of adult education providers, adult
education students, and adults who were not currently attending an adult education
program to investigate why under-educated adults choose not to pursue educational
opportunities. In the next section, strategies for the design of mixed methods research and
their application to this study are described.
Design of the Study
A three-phase, sequential mixed method study was used to obtain quantitative and
qualitative data from participants in the garden-based learning program. A detailed discussion of the strategies selected for this mixed method study and the study’s design is provided in the following sections.
Mixed Methods Strategy Selection
Strategies are the overall plan or approach employed to answer a specific research
question. The overarching research question for this study was: What are the results and experiences of participation in a garden-based learning program for homeless women with regard to hope and self-efficacy? Four decisions must be made when selecting a mixed methods strategy of inquiry including selection of the implementation sequence, priority to be given to the quantitative and qualitative data, determination of the research stage where the quantitative and qualitative findings will be integrated, and whether an
82 overall theoretical lens or perspective will be used in the study (Creswell, 2003).
Frequently, the chosen strategy is depicted in a figure “to help the reader understand the flow of activities in a project” (Creswell, 2003, p. 225). Details on the implementation, priority, integration, and theoretical perspective strategies selected for this study are discussed in the following sections. A graphical illustration of the chosen strategy is presented in the section Flow of Project as Figure 1.
Implementation Strategy
In the implementation stage, the researcher may collect both the quantitative and qualitative date sequentially or concurrently. When a sequential strategy is chosen, either the qualitative or the quantitative data may be collected first. For the purposes of this study, a three-phase sequential design was used. Quantitative data were collected during the first and third phases of this study at the beginning and at the end of the garden-based learning program to determine if there were any measurable effects from participation in the program. Qualitative data were collected in the second phase of the study.
Prioritization Strategy
The choice of whether greater weight is given to the quantitative or qualitative data depends on the researcher’s interests and what they want to emphasize in the study.
Because no research related to the effects of participation in gardening and other horticultural activities on homeless individuals appears in the literature, the research problem for this study is primarily qualitative (Morse, 1991). Therefore, the greatest weight was given to the qualitative data and the quantitative data were used to complement the findings.
83 Integration Strategy
Integration of the quantitative and qualitative data can occur during data
collection, data analysis, interpretation, or some combination of these (Creswell, 2003).
In this study, the quantitative data were collected, analyzed, interpreted, and presented
separately from the qualitative data. The conclusions derived from the two types of data
are integrated in the results and discussion chapter to provide a more complete
understanding of the influence of garden-based learning on self-efficacy and hope in the
sample of homeless women. “Integration might be in the form of comparing, contrasting,
building on, or embedding one type of conclusion with the other” (Creswell &
Tashakkori, 2007, p. 108).
Theoretical Lens or Perspective Strategy
While a theoretical lens or perspective is not a required dimension of qualitative research, quantitative studies normally base the hypothesis and research questions on a
specific theory. In this proposed study, Bandura’s (1986) self-efficacy theory and the
hope theory developed by Snyder et al. (1991) serve as the basis for the quantitative data.
Some mixed method research studies also “use an explicit advocacy lens (e.g., feminist
perspectives, critical theory), which is usually reflected in the purpose statement, research
questions, and implications for action and change” (Hanson, Creswell, Plano Clark,
Petska, & Creswell, 2005, p. 229). This theoretical lens is also frequently associated with
the collection and analysis of the qualitative data in a mixed method study.
Mertens (2003) advocates the use of a theoretical lens in mixed methods research
and emphasizes the role that values play in studying various marginalized groups. Her
explanation of a transformative-emancipatory perspective was used to inform the
84 research design, data collection methods, data analysis, and interpretation of results in this study. Not to be confused with theories of transformative learning (see Boyd, 1989;
Daloz, 1999; Dirkx, 1997; Mezirow, 1991), a transformative-emancipatory perspective is related to the social justice issues that have long been a concern in the field of adult education (e.g., Dewey, 1916/1997; Freire, 1970; Horton & Freire, 1990). According to
Mertens (1999), the transformative-emancipatory perspective is based on the assumption that knowledge is not neutral, is influenced by human interests, and reflects the power and social relationships within society. “The transformative paradigm is characterized as placing central importance on the lives and experiences of marginalized groups, such as women, ethnic/racial minorities, people with disabilities, and those who are poor” (p. 4).
“Paying attention to what the beneficiaries of a program think about it is a hallmark of a credible study” (Mertens, 1999, p. 3). Furthermore, “theoretical frameworks that place the blame for failure inside individuals or their culture are dysfunctional, deficit models”
(Mertens, 2002, p. 108) and “can result in inappropriate interventions and negatively impact the self-concepts of the intended participants” (Mertens, 2001, p. 370). Because so much of the literature about homeless individuals revolves around such deficit models, use of the transformative-emancipatory perspective in conducting research with them is especially appropriate. Use of this perspective helps to ensure that study participants are treated respectfully and that the study results can help facilitate social change that will be beneficial to them.
A specific ethical approach to research is also a key component of the transformative-emancipatory approach and was adopted for use in this study. The foundation of this ethical approach is the belief “every person must be treated with
85 dignity and respect and that the avoidance of harm must be the primary principle” when conducting research (Mertens, 2007, p. 87). Paradis (2000) urges researchers to go
“beyond the avoidance of harm to an active investment in the well-being of marginalized individuals and communities” (p. 839) such as the homeless. Thompson (1992) suggests that in order to avoid perpetuating the stereotypes, marginalization, stigmatization, and victimization that homeless women face “an ethic of care and compassion should also characterize our research” (p. 16) with them. In keeping with this philosophy, Lindsey
(1997) offers three strategies for creating a research environment that effectively deals with these ethical issues while conducting research with homeless women: (1) paying them for their participation in the research as a way of showing appreciation of the value of their time; (2) designing interview questions that focus on success, rather than failure; and (3) honoring the participants privacy by not pressing them for answers to questions that they decline to answer or that seem to make them feel uncomfortable.
Flow of Project
The strategy used for this research is similar to the sequential transformative strategy proposed by Creswell (2003) and the sequential methodological triangulation proposed by Morse (1991) in that it has distinct data collection phases, integration of the results from each phase occurs during interpretation, and the research is inductively driven. Furthermore, “the purpose of a sequential transformative strategy is to employ the methods that will best serve the theoretical perspective of the researcher” (Creswell,
2003, p. 216). The use of more than one data collection phase permits this researcher “to give voice to diverse perspectives, to better advocate for participants, or to better understand” (Creswell, 2003, p. 216) the effects and experiences of participation in
86 gardening and other horticultural activities on homeless women particularly with regard to hope and self-efficacy.
The strengths of this strategy include ease of implementation and clear-cut
description and reporting of findings. It is also a way to make a primarily qualitative study acceptable to an adviser with a quantitative background or to journal reviewers who are unfamiliar with qualitative methods. The primary weakness of this strategy is the length of time involved in data collection and analysis. Another disadvantage to this strategy is the need to be skilled in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. In addition, because little has been written on the use of a transformative or advocacy perspective in research, there is limited guidance on how to incorporate such standpoints into data collection, analysis, and the reporting of the findings.
The overall flow of the project is illustrated in Figure 1. Arrows are used in the figure to
illustrate the sequential flow of data collection, analysis, and interpretation. The abbreviations
“Quan” and “QUAL” represent quantitative and qualitative respectively; capitalization of
“QUAL” indicates that the qualitative data were emphasized in this study.
Assumptions
This researcher assumed that collecting diverse types of data through a mixed
method study would provide a fuller understanding of the research question than the use
of a single method. It is assumed that all participants were aware of their feelings and
reported them accurately. Furthermore, it was also assumed that any unknown variables
such as participation in 12-Step Programs and counseling would equally affect all study
participants and therefore would not have an undue influence on the results of this study.
87
Quan QUAL Quan
Data Collection Data Collection Data Collection (Phase 1) (Interview) (Phase 3)
Data Analysis Data Analysis Data Analysis (Phase 1) (Interview (Phase 3) Transcript)
Interpretation of Entire Analysis
Data Results Compared
Figure 1. Illustration of Project Strategy and Procedures
88 Setting
This study took place at a homeless shelter in a large urban area in south Florida
where a unique garden-based learning program is available for residents on a voluntary
basis. Residents of this shelter consist of women with children who are victims of
domestic violence, suffering from substance abuse or HIV-AIDS, and/or veterans. The
mission of the shelter is to help clients become self-sufficient. In keeping with this
mission, the shelter provides transitional housing for 2 years during which time residents are required to attend adult education courses intended to help them embark on a career
rather than just obtain a job. In addition, regulations of the State of Florida require that
residents work part-time while attending school. The shelter offers additional support
services in the form of individualized case management, domestic violence and substance
abuse counseling, parenting classes, and training in various life skills such as budgeting
and job interviewing. The shelter can accommodate 24 families in two- and three-
bedroom furnished apartments. At any given time, there are usually 20 to 24 women and
50 to 60 children residing at the shelter.
This shelter is unique in that it has a community garden located on its property.
Prior to the pilot study (Seals & Pierce, 2007), the garden had been neglected for several
years. In late summer of 2004, shelter administrators contacted the County Extension
Agent responsible for management of the Master Gardener volunteer program and asked
if she would help them reestablish the garden for use by shelter clients. The County
Agent and several Master Gardeners agreed to take on the project and work was begun in
the garden. Some pictures of the garden and of residents and Master Gardeners working
together are provided in Appendix A.
89 The County Extension Agent and Master Gardener Coordinator, who was one of
my horticulture instructors at The University of Tennessee, had e-mailed me about the
project at the shelter (L. M. Seals, personal communication, September 11, 2004). At the
time, I was in the process of writing a research paper about motivation as part of my
doctoral course work. Because of my studies, I came across articles about the benefits of
self-efficacy for homeless individuals (Epel et al., 1999) and the impact of participation
in community gardening on self-efficacy (Hoffman et al., 2003). When I discovered the
articles, I e-mailed copies to Ms. Seals and suggested that we undertake a collaborative
study at the shelter. In December 2004, I went to Florida and met with her and the shelter
administrators to discuss conducting a pilot study (Seals & Pierce, 2007) on participation
in community gardening as a means for enhancing self-efficacy in homeless women who
resided at the shelter. At that time, we also discussed the development of a therapeutic
horticulture program (Pierce, 2005) for shelter residents as a means of providing them
with additional opportunities to participate in horticultural activities.
I saw the community garden for the first time during that trip. On the day of my
arrival, two Master Gardeners and one shelter resident were weeding the garden. In spite
of the damage inflicted on the garden approximately six weeks earlier by Hurricane
Wilma, the garden beds and borders were neat and tidy. An orange tree that had been
uprooted by the hurricane had been reset in the ground and was propped up with 2” by 6” braces. However, it was still bearing fruit and we all stood under it and shared an orange.
I was given a tour of the garden that day and learned several things about unique aspects
of gardening in South Florida such as irrigation, palm trees, and nematodes.
90 Subsequently, a research proposal for a pilot study was developed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Tennessee and by the shelter’s legal counsel. The pilot study was conducted in March 2005 and the findings (Pierce &
Seals, 2006) lent support to the relationship between participation in gardening and other horticultural activities and a positive influence on self-efficacy as found by Hoffman, et al. (2003). In addition, all the participants in the pilot study felt that the garden was a beneficial aspect of the community and hoped that the program would not only continue but also expand in the future (Seals & Pierce, 2007). The success of the pilot study, the good relationships I formed with both shelter staff and clients during the pilot study and development and implementation of the therapeutic horticulture program, and the interest of the Master Gardeners and shelter residents in continuing with the community garden, made it possible for me to conduct the current study.
Master Gardeners again conducted 12 weekly hour-long classes at the shelter’s
community garden from November 2005 through March 2006. Shelter residents worked in the community garden alongside the Master Gardeners during the classes and at other
times during the week doing such things as planting, weeding, and harvesting produce for
their personal use. Class topics included mulching, composting, fertilizing, soil testing, irrigation, plant installation techniques, pruning, integrated pest management, citrus care and management, palm care and fertilization, and butterfly gardening. A special feature of the garden was a pizza wheel, which is a decorative way to grow herbs and vegetables that are frequently used to make pizza. The classes consisted of experiential learning activities and informal conversations about the tasks and activities associated with each topic, rather than formal lectures. Through this process, “individuals learn as they
91 participate by interacting with the community…the tools at hand…and the moment’s
activity” (Fenwick, 2000, p. 253). The objective of such learning is “to become a full
participant in the community of practice, not to learn about the practice” and its emphasis
is “on improving one’s ability to participate meaningfully in particular practices”
(Fenwick, 2003, p. 26). The role of the educator in this conceptual framework of
experiential learning is to “arrange sequences of activities and conditions in complex
social situations that help learners best practice the kinds of participation they desire”
(Fenwick, 2000, p. 254).
Participants
Study participants were clients of a homeless shelter in a large urban area in south
Florida who were participating in a garden-based learning program at the shelter. At the
time this study was conducted, the shelter had 20 adult female clients in residence.
During this study, slightly more than two-thirds of the residents originally participated in
the garden-based learning program.
Criteria for inclusion in the study were voluntary participation in the community
gardening project. Individuals who were participating in the community gardening
project were recruited using information sheets posted at the homeless shelter and via
word-of-mouth among shelter residents. After volunteering, all study participants were
required to read and sign an informed consent form before participating in the study. A
copy of the informed consent document was given to participants for their use and
information. The language used in the informed consent document was understandable to the participants and was read aloud to the participants if the researcher saw evidence of a
lack of understanding. A Spanish-speaking interpreter/translator was available to read the
92 informed consent document to Hispanic participants. It was estimated that a maximum of
14 women would participate in all three phases of the study and that it would take a total of two hours for them to complete the instruments and the interview. Study participants were given a $30 gift certificate upon completion of the final survey instrument and interview to show appreciation for the value of their time. The procedures that were used to collect the quantitative and qualitative data are described in the next two sections.
Data Collection Procedures
Demographic, quantitative, and qualitative data were collected during this study.
A description of each type of data and the means for collecting it is provided in the following sections.
Demographic Data Collection
Demographic data such as age, racial/ethnic background, marital status, education level, number of children and their ages, reasons for homelessness, and length of homelessness were obtained from participants at the beginning of the qualitative interviews. See Appendix B for a copy of the form that was used to obtain this demographic information. The methods that were used to collect the quantitative data are described in the following section.
Quantitative Data Collection
Quantitative data were collected twice during this study: at the beginning and at the end of the garden-based learning program. In the first phase of the study, a licensed social worker who is a member of the shelter staff administered the Adult Dispositional
Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991) to 14 clients who intended to participate in the community gardening program to determine their self-reported level of hope; scores from
93 the agency subscale of the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale were used to measure reported self-efficacy of the participants. In the third phase of the study, the Adult Dispositional
Hope Scale and the Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire (Pierce & Seals, 2006) were administered to the same clients (provided they were still residents of the shelter) by this researcher after the qualitative interviews were conducted. The Adult Dispositional
Hope Scale was administered to measure self-reported levels of hope and the Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire was administered to measure self-reported levels of self- efficacy. Information on these two instruments is provided in the next section.
Instruments
Adult Dispositional Hope Scale. The Adult Dispositional Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991) evaluates an individual’s hope where hope is defined as a cognitive set that is comprised of a reciprocally derived sense of successful (1) agency (goal-directed determination), and (2) pathways (planning of ways to meet goals). It consists of a self- administered, pencil and paper Likert scale requiring about 5 minutes for completion. The scale is composed of 12 items in 2 subscales; agency and pathways. Hope is the sum of the agency and pathways items. Four items on the scale are distracters and are not used for scoring. Total scores on the scale can range from a low of 8 to a high of 32 when a 4- point response continuum is used.
Measures of internal consistency of the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale as determined in eight studies are as follows: for the total scale, Cronbach's alphas range from .74 to .84; for the Agency subscale, Cronbach's alphas ranged from .71 to .76; and for the Pathways subscale, Cronbach's alphas ranged from .63 to .80 (Snyder et al.,
1991). As Nunnally (1978) notes, “scales with internal reliabilities of .70 to .80 are
94 acceptable for research purposes because correlations with such scales are not attenuated to any great degree by measurement error” (p. 245). The test-retest reliability of the Adult
Dispositional Hope Scale has been examined in four samples. The test-retest correlations
were .85, p < .001, over a 3-week interval (Anderson, 1988); .73, p < .001, over an 8-
week interval (Harney, 1989); and .76 and .82, respectively, p < .001, over 10-week
intervals in two samples (Gibb, 1990; Yoshinobu, 1989). There are also extensive data
supporting the convergent, discriminant and construct validity of the Adult Dispositional
Hope Scale (see Snyder, 2002; Snyder et al., 1991; Snyder, Sympson, Michael, &
Cheavens, 2001). See Appendix C for a copy of the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale.
Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire. The Gardening and Self-efficacy
Questionnaire (Pierce & Seals, 2006) adapted from the Compton Community College
Department of Psychology Gardening Study questionnaire (Hoffman et al., 2003) and modified for homeless populations was used to measure self-efficacy. The Gardening and
Self-efficacy Questionnaire is a 13-item self-report questionnaire with items drafted as first person statements describing an individual’s personal appraisal of changes in self- efficacy as a result of working in the garden. (See Appendix D for a copy of the questionnaire.) Answers are chosen from a four-point Likert scale (i.e., strongly disagree, disagree, agree, and strongly agree). The answers are assigned a rating of 1, 2, 3, or 4 respectively, with potential total scores ranging from 13 to 52 and higher scores indicating greater agreement. The wording of the statements is at a grade 8 level in order to mitigate the effects of potentially low reading levels among the participants. In a pilot study (Pierce & Seals, 2006), measures of internal consistency for the instrument resulted in a reliability estimate (Cronbach’s alpha) of .82, indicating high internal consistency. A
95 split half measure of reliability yielded a Spearman–Brown coefficient of .62, which is a
relatively high measure of how well performance on one half of the instrument can
predict performance on the other half. In the next section, the procedures for collecting
the qualitative data are described.
Qualitative Data Collection
In the second phase of the study, a sub-sample of the larger quantitative sample was selected for the qualitative data component. Subjects selected from the quantitative sample were those individuals who participated in the garden-based learning program and were still clients of the shelter. Individual interviews were conducted with the members of the sub-sample to explore their perceptions of their experiences in the garden-based learning program. The interviews were semi-structured in that all respondents were asked the same series of predetermined questions as pertinent to their personal situations.
However, the questions were open-ended and permitted a wide variety of responses. A list of the interview questions is provided in Appendix E. All interviews were tape- recorded and transcribed by this researcher. The procedures that were used to analyze the quantitative and qualitative data are described in the following sections.
Data Analysis Procedures
As depicted in Figure 1, there were three phases of data analysis. The procedures
that were used for analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data are presented and
discussed in the next sections.
Quantitative Data Analysis
The instruments administered in phase one and phase three were scored by this
researcher using the scoring keys provided by the developers of the Adult Dispositional
96 Hope Scale and the Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire. All instruments were scored immediately after they were administered. Phase one and phase three scores on the
Adult Dispositional Hope Scale were compared for each respondent to determine if there was a decrease or significant difference between the phase one and phase three total hope scores for each individual. Phase one scores and phase three scores from the agency subscale of the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale were compared for each respondent to determine if there was a decrease or significant difference between the phase one and phase three agency (self-efficacy) scores for each individual. Participant scores were also compared to the normative scores for the instrument and to the scores of other study participants. Each study participant’s phase one and phase three scores on the Adult
Dispositional Hope Scale were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
(SPSS, 2006). The null hypothesis was that there would be a decrease or no significant difference between phase one and phase three on hope and self-efficacy for each individual.
The phase three scores on the Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire were analyzed and compared to the phase three scores from the agency subscale of the Adult
Dispositional Hope Scale. The quantitative data obtained from Gardening and Self- efficacy Questionnaire were “qualitized” or transformed into qualitative data by using the scores on the instrument to profile study participants. Tashakkori and Teddlie (1998) describe five kinds of qualitative profiles that can be developed from quantitative data: modal, average, comparative, normative, and holistic. “A modal profile is a verbal description of a group of participants around the most frequently occurring attributes”
(Sandelowski, 2000, p. 253). For example, if most participants score in the low range on
97 the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale, they can be described as being low in hope.
Conversely, an average profile can be used to describe participants’ levels of hope if most
scores are around the mean. Comparative profiles can be developed to describe the
comparison of participants’ phase one and phase three scores and to compare participants
to each other on both sets of scores. A normative profile was developed to compare
participant scores to normative scores for the instrument. This qualitizing provides
richness and detail to the quantitative findings and expands understanding of the
influence of a garden-based learning program on participants’ levels of hope and self-
efficacy. The qualitative data analysis procedures are identified in the next section.
Qualitative Data Analysis
Qualitative interviews were tape-recorded, transcribed by the researcher, and
entered into a word-processing program to provide quick and easy access to the material.
Pseudonyms were assigned to each participant to protect their anonymity. Each transcript was analyzed using a typological analysis model (Hatch, 2002). In this data analysis
method, the collected data are divided into categories or groups based on a priori themes
(Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998). These typologies are typically derived from “theory,
common sense, and/or research objectives” (Hatch, 2002, p. 152) and are usually
reflected in a study’s literature review and interview questions. While the typological
analysis method is primarily deductive in nature, the reading and rereading of entire
transcripts multiple times in order to understand their essential aspects (Sandelowski,
1995) also permits the use of inductive logic “to develop emerging themes or categories”
(Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p. 118) which are not included in the a priori typologies.
According to Hatch (2002), a typological data analysis consists of the following steps:
98 1. Identifying typologies to be analyzed
2. Reading the data, marking entries related to your typologies
3. Reading entries by typology, recording the main ideas in entries on a
summary sheet
4. Looking for patterns, relationships, themes within typologies
5. Reading data, coding entries according to patterns identified and keeping a
record of what entries go with which elements of your patterns
6. Deciding if your patterns are supported by the data, and search the data for
nonexamples of your patterns
7. Looking for relationships among the patterns identified
8. Writing your patterns as one-sentence generalizations
9. Selecting data excerpts that support your generalizations (p. 153)
A brief discussion of how each of these steps were applied in this research study is
provided in the following paragraphs.
Typologies for Analysis
In the current study, several a priori typologies relating to concerns of homeless
women were identified through an interview with the program director of the homeless shelter (K. A. Posti, personal communication, December 9, 2004) and a review of the literature pertaining to homeless women and garden-based learning. The identified
typologies included intellectual/cognitive, physical, emotional/psychological, and social
benefits of garden-based learning; personal well-being, adult education pursuits, future
employment, permanent housing, abstinence from alcohol and drug abuse, and effective
99 parenting. These typologies were subsequently reflected in the Gardening and Self-
efficacy Questionnaire and interview questions.
Marking Entries Related to Typologies
Each interview transcript was “read through completely with one typology in mind” (Hatch, 2002, p. 154) and the participant’s words relating to the typology were
copied to a word-processing file relating to that particular typology. Notes were made in
the typology files about the name of the participant and the interview transcript’s line
numbers of the data excerpts to facilitate later reference to the quotes. This process was repeated until all the interview transcripts had been analyzed for evidence relating to each typology. Although the participants’ statements were not analyzed during this step, I did make notes to myself about the participants’ responses that were helpful as the data analysis process continued.
Developing Summary Sheets
In this step of the process, all the typology files were printed and I created a
summary sheet for each participant. As the data excerpts in each typology file were read,
I wrote a brief statement of the main idea of the excerpt on that participant’s summary
sheet. As before, the interview transcript’s line numbers for the data excerpts were
recorded and no attempt was made to analyze the data or “to try to interpret the
significance or to guess what informants really meant” (Hatch, 2002, p. 154).
Identifying Patterns, Relationships, and Themes
At this point in the process, the summary sheets were read to identify hypothetical
patterns, relationships, and themes. Patterns are regularities in the data such as
participants using similar words to answer a certain interview question or differences in
100 the reasons for participating in the garden-based learning program. Relationships are
links between data elements that can be expressed semantically (Spradley, 1979). “Some examples are strict inclusion (X is a kind of Y), rationale (X is a reason for doing Y), cause-effect (X is a result of Y), and means-end (X is a way to do Y)” (Hatch, 2002, p.
155). Themes are integrating concepts or “statements of meaning that run through all or most of” the interview transcripts (p. 156). Since my focus during this step was on discovering patterns, relationships, and themes pertaining to the pre-determined typologies, the analysis became more inductive in nature.
Coding Entries According to Patterns
This step involved returning to all the interview transcripts and re-reading all the passages marked for inclusion in each pre-determined typology in terms of the patterns and relationships identified in the previous step. Each previously highlighted entry in
each interview transcript was then coded according to the patterns or relationships
expressed in it. During this step, it became apparent that there were additional typologies
expressed during some interviews, which were not included in the a priori typologies.
Information on how these emerging typologies were handled is discussed in the next
section.
Selecting Data to Support Patterns
In this step, two decisions must be made about the data contained in the interview
transcripts. The first decision relates to “whether or not your categories are justified by
the data” (Hatch, 2002, p. 157). Although it had been anticipated that interviewees who
suffered from alcoholism and/or drug addiction would report participation in the garden-
101 based learning program as a strategy for remaining abstinent, the data did not support this conclusion so this typology was dropped from the data analysis.
The second decision relates to “evidence upon which other cases, even competing
cases, can be made” (Hatch, 2002, p. 157). In order to answer this question, I re-read all
of the interview transcripts in their entirety. In doing so, I did not find any contradictions.
However, a fuller understanding of the additional typologies discovered in the previous step began to emerge. Subsequently, a second analysis of the interview transcripts was undertaken to uncover evidence of these additional typologies using the previous five steps of a typological analysis as identified by Hatch (2002).
Relationships Among Patterns
Up until this point, each interview transcript had been treated separately and all
the data had been analyzed separately based on information contained in individual
interview transcripts. “The task now is to step back from the individual analyses that have
been completed and look for connections across what has been found” (Hatch, 2002, p.
158). Therefore, I re-read each typology file and participant summary sheet and constructed a mind map of the relationships that were expressed in the majority of the interviews. During this stage, I also made notes to myself about possible reasons for any lack of relationships across the participants’ responses.
Patterns as One-Sentence Generalizations
According to Hatch (2002), this step is “very useful for my students [who are] just
learning to do qualitative data analysis” (p. 158). In this step, you are forced to “organize
your thinking into a form that can be understood by yourself and others” (p. 159).
Furthermore, “If findings cannot be expressed as generalizations, chances are data
102 analysis is incomplete” (p. 159). Therefore, in this stage, I wrote a series of one-sentence
generalizations to express the themes, patterns, and relationships uncovered during my
data analysis. Since the only difficulty I had with this step was trying to word the
generalizations as the participants might have rather than in language normally used in
academic writing, I concluded that the data analysis was complete.
Selection of Data Excerpts
This final step in the typological analysis method involves returning to the
interview transcripts and summary sheets “to select powerful examples that can be used
to make your generalizations come alive for your readers” (Hatch, 2002, p. 159). Not
only does this help readers to grasp the context of the study and “hear” the participants’ voices, but it also serves as a final check on the data analysis. “If you have difficulty finding quotations that make a compelling case for your generalizations, it will be worth
your time to go back to the analysis process to be sure that your findings are indeed
supported by your data” (p. 160). Because I had too many good quotes to report them all,
I again concluded that my data analysis was completed. Yet, while the analysis was complete, it was still necessary to evaluate the quality of the analyses and interpretations
derived from the data. The process used to verify the findings is discussed in the next
section.
Verification of Findings
Verification is the process of confirming or establishing the truth, accuracy, or
reality of something (Mish, 1983). “In qualitative research, verification refers to the
mechanisms used during the process of research to incrementally contribute to ensuring
reliability and validity and, thus, the rigor of a study” (Morse, Barrett, Mayan, Olson, &
103 Spiers, 2002, p. 9). While a number of different terms have been used by qualitative
researchers to describe this process, the term most commonly used is validity. Validity is
generally understood to refer to “the trustworthiness of inferences drawn from data”
(Eisenhart & Howe, 1992, p. 644). According to Lincoln and Guba (1985),
The basic issue in relation to trustworthiness is simple: How can an inquirer
persuade his or her audiences (including self) that the findings of an inquiry are
worth paying attention to, worth taking account of? What arguments can be
mounted, what criteria invoked, what questions asked, that would be persuasive
on this issue? (p. 290)
In answer to their questions, Lincoln and Guba (1985) introduced four criteria (i.e.,
credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability) that can be combined to
determine the trustworthiness of a qualitative study as well as several methodological
strategies for demonstrating qualitative rigor. In the following paragraphs, the strategies
used to verify the qualitative findings in this study are identified and briefly discussed.
Triangulation. “Triangulation involves checking information that has been collected from different sources or methods for consistency of evidence across sources of data” (Mertens, 1998, p. 183). By definition, mixed method studies include triangulation of methods (i.e., quantitative and qualitative). Inter-rater reliability also provides triangulation and was used in two forms for this study. In the first case, a copy of one interview transcript and a preliminary analysis of the data in that transcript were reviewed by the professor and a group of students in a research class I was taking at the time this study was conducted. Although the professor deemed it “a pretty ‘thin’ analysis of a decently rich data set” (J. A. Hatch, personal communication, April 24, 2006) the
104 comments I received were helpful to me as I continued with a more in-depth analysis of the interviews. In the second instance, a recent recipient of a Ph.D. and former member of a doctoral research group I had belonged to for three years, reviewed and coded the same interview transcript using the pre-determined typologies and others that emerged during the data analysis. We compared the codes and discussed those that were different until we reached agreement.
Peer debriefing. Peer debriefing, which is similar to inter-rater reliability, involves “an extended discussion with a dis-interested peer, of findings, conclusions, analysis, and hypotheses. The peer should pose searching questions to help the researcher confront...her own values and to guide next steps in the study” (Mertens, 1998, p. 182).
Another former member of my doctoral research group took time out from working on her own dissertation to serve in this capacity. Her searching questions prompted great insights and helped me to gain a new perspective on certain aspects of the study.
Reflexive journal. “This technique provides information for all four criteria of trustworthiness (i.e., credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability)”
(Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, p. 93). I used my reflexive journal on a regular basis to record information about myself as an instrument of research and about “methodological decisions made and the reasons for making them” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 327). The journal was the place where I keep track of major research events, including the original version of the research proposal and subsequent refinements, notes pertaining to articles included in the literature review, and observational notes recorded after conducting each interview. I also recorded painful feelings evoked by listening to the women talk about how they became homeless in the journal. In the following chapter, the quantitative and
105 qualitative results of this study are described and discussed separately. Then the data derived from the quantitative and qualitative analyses are integrated by “comparing, contrasting, building on, or embedding one type of conclusion with the other” (Creswell
& Tashakkori, 2007, p. 108).
Summary
A three-phase, sequential mixed method was utilized in this study to investigate
the levels of hope and self-efficacy in a group of homeless women and the ability to
modify these factors through a garden-based learning intervention. The results and
experiences of participation in gardening and other horticultural activities on homeless
women, particularly with regard to hope and self-efficacy, were identified and measured
through quantitative instruments and qualitative interviews. The overarching research
question for this study was: What are the results and experiences of participation in a
garden-based learning program for homeless women with regard to hope and self-
efficacy?
106 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results from the quantitative and qualitative data analysis and my interpretations of those results are discussed in this chapter. “Having a combined ‘Results and Discussion’ section provides a more dynamic way of presenting the data, questioning each aspect of it (e.g., other possible ways of interpreting it, threats to validity), and following these questions with new analyses” (Tashakkori & Teddlie, 1998, pp. 93-94).
Furthermore, when the results and discussion are separated, “there sometimes will be an inconsistency between the results discussed in the text of the article and the results presented in the tables” (Huck, 2000, p. 12); combining the presentation and discussion of the results can eliminate such inconsistencies. The American Psychological
Association (2001) also recommends combining results and discussion when “integrating several experiments in one paper” (p. 27) as is typical of mixed methods studies. The overarching research question for this study was: What are the results and experiences of participation in a garden-based learning program for homeless women with regard to hope and self-efficacy? A three-phase, sequential mixed method study was used to obtain quantitative and qualitative data from participants in the garden-based learning program.
Quantitative data were collected during the first and third phases of this study at the beginning and at the end of the garden-based learning program to determine if there were any measurable effects from participation in the program. Qualitative data were collected in the second phase through interviews with a sub-sample of the larger quantitative sample of phase one. In this chapter, demographic information on the participants is provided first. The quantitative results from phase one and phase three are then presented
107 and discussed, followed by the presentation and discussion of the phase two qualitative
findings. The quantitative and qualitative results are integrated at the end of the chapter.
Participant Demographic Information
“Long-term, longitudinal, or experimental designs with pretest and posttest
features are difficult to complete when the participants are not easily accessible to
researchers” (Vredevoe, Shuler, & Woo, 1992, p. 733). Of the original 14 study
participants, 7 had left the shelter by the time the qualitative phase of the study was
conducted 6 months later. This rate of attrition among participants is common in studies conducted with homeless individuals and can be partially attributed to the transient nature of the homeless population. Crane and Warnes (2002) reported an 18% attrition rate in their study of older homeless adults who had been resettled in permanent housing and
Caton et al. (2005) found that 15% of the homeless adults they interviewed in the first phase of their study were lost to follow-up after 18 months. Cohen et al (1993) examined six studies of homeless persons and found follow-up rates ranged from 33% to 86%. The studies with the highest retention rates involved frequent contact with participants, access to domiciled friends of study participants, and high incentives for participation, none of which were utilized in this study. Morrissey and Dennis (1990) concluded that finding methods for minimizing attrition in longitudinal studies is one of the most serious challenges in conducting research with homeless individuals.
Just prior to the qualitative phase of this study, the shelter’s program coordinator
attempted to locate the phase one participants who no longer resided at the shelter.
However, one had returned to her abuser and was not interested in continuing her
participation in the study. Three others had been asked to leave the shelter during the
108 interval between phase one and phase two: one because of failure to comply with shelter rules and two because they had relapsed on either drugs or alcohol. Of the remaining original participants, contact with all but one had been lost. This participant felt so much gratitude at being able to be part of the garden-based learning program and this research that she insisted on returning to the shelter to participate in the final phases of the study and declined to be compensated for her participation in the study. In the next section, demographic information obtained during the qualitative phase of this study is presented to introduce the reader to the eight participants who completed the entire study. (A copy of the form used to obtain the demographic information is provided in Appendix B. Other demographic information was provided by the participants during interviews.)
Florence is a 39-year-old single White female with a 21-month-old daughter.
Before coming to the shelter, she and her daughter were homeless for 8 months due to domestic violence. Although she had been at the shelter for slightly more than a year and had a restraining order against her former husband, Florence was still terrified of him in part because of his long histories of drug abuse and criminal activities. She said, “He's a very dangerous criminal, and I don’t want my daughter exposed or myself exposed to him seeing us...When I get on the public transportation, I look to the rear of the bus and all the way back because I don't want him to touch us.” In spite of these fears, Florence was taking paralegal courses at a local community college and “trying to apply for an internship so that I can get job training and credits for school at the same time.”
Patty, a 23-year-old, Hispanic, divorced mother of three children under the age of six was also homeless because of domestic violence. Speaking about leaving her husband, she said,
109 I planned it out before I did it. I didn't want my kids having to go through that. It
was enough seeing Mommy and Daddy argue and fight and stuff. Alcohol...I
mean I wouldn't say he um, would get drunk but he had to have it everyday, you
know...he'd get a six-pack and easily finish it. He would...he, ah, would get very
distant...he would get verbally nasty; um I just didn't want my kids around that.
Although she had earned a high school diploma and was working full-time when she left her husband, Patty had a low-wage customer service job and knew she could not afford housing. She applied to the shelter and was accepted before leaving her husband. In the ten months she had resided there, Patty had begun work on her certification in medical coding at a local community college.
Debby, a 22-year-old, White, separated mother of two was also taking courses at the community college. She had earned her GED while staying at the shelter and was studying medical assisting. She said, “I started [college classes] before I got my test results from my GED. It's going great! I just finished my 4th week.” Homeless as the result of domestic violence, Debby tried staying with a friend:
She was going through a rough time with her boyfriend and there was just so
much fighting. And my kids were little... I didn't want them to go through this.
They were doing drugs over there and I was like, "I can't have my kids here." I
had DCF called on me while I was there. They're like, "Listen. This isn't your
house. I'm going to give you a chance to do the right thing.” So I went to
court...my victim's advocate was like, "Listen. You need to go to a shelter." So
that's what I did.
110 She and her children stayed at the first shelter for a few weeks and then the staff there told her, “You'd be a good candidate for the ABC program, considering, you know, what you've been through, what you want to achieve in your life.” She subsequently applied and was accepted at the shelter where this study occurred.
Nadine was also interested in pursuing a certificate in medical assisting and was scheduled to start classes at the local community college a few weeks after our interview took place. Although she had dropped out of high school in the ninth grade, Nadine related, “I took my GED, like when I was 15 or 16. And then when I was 18, I started some college like the first semester. Then when I was 21, I started college again for one semester, and then had to stop again.” The 27-year-old White, divorced mother of three had become homeless because her drug abuse had led to eviction from her apartment.
Like Debby, she had tried staying with a friend after being evicted.
I was staying with a friend and DCF won't let you have your children and just live
anywhere...they took her [daughter] May 13. Two weeks later, they gave her to
me and two weeks later took her back because I was staying with somebody. So I
had come here [to the shelter] to get her back.
When asked about employment, Nadine said she was looking for a job but was not having much success. She related, “I feel like I could have got hired at the staffing agency, but my background came up...it is just working around a lot of issues...I had some legal problems because of substance abuse.”
Helene also lost custody of her children before coming to the shelter. This 28- year-old, White, single mother of two attributed her homelessness to her use of drugs.
“Um, we started using after our son was born, and, um, things just kind of escalated from
111 the using and we wound up, um, losing the kids to our parents. Thankfully, not DCF.”
After losing custody of their children, her boyfriend, who is the father of her youngest child, went to drug treatment and Helene “wound up in the mental institution. From there,
I went to a halfway house for three months.” She and her boyfriend were then able to regain custody of their children and went to a homeless shelter for families where her brother had stayed. After her boyfriend relapsed, she and the children came to this particular shelter. During the 19 months she has resided at the shelter, Helene has pursued an associate degree as a surgical technician and at the time of her interview was working
on her externship at a local hospital.
Like Nadine, Chris also has a criminal history that made it difficult for her to find
gainful employment. Although the 37-year-old, divorced, mother of three had graduated
from the shelter and was living in permanent housing, she was not able to use the
associates degree in accounting that she had earned while residing at the shelter. Chris
spoke of being discouraged and resentful about how her background continued to plague
her and kept her in a low-wage retail sales job, especially since she had been successfully
recovering from alcoholism for more than 2 years. Unlike many of the other women,
Chris has a long history of homelessness. She related that in a three-year period, she and
her children had been homeless on three separate occasions.
The first time we were in another shelter for 4 months due to domestic violence.
Then we were homeless for most of a year - sometimes staying with friends or
family for a night or two. And then we were homeless again for 3 months just
before we came to this shelter.
112 Even though Chris is now in permanent housing and working full-time, she frequently
returns to the shelter for help with school supplies, bus passes, and camp vouchers for her
children.
Joyce, a 43-year-old, White, divorced mother of two describes herself as
“the oldest one around here.” In spite of having a high school diploma, “a year in
college, and two 1-year certificates” Joyce has been working in the retail field.
Homeless because of domestic violence and her own drug abuse, Joyce migrated
to Florida from her home state approximately one year before our interview took
place. When asked why she came to Florida, Joyce said, “I didn't want to go
home for a year.” During her time in Florida, Joyce and her son stayed at another
shelter for about six months and they have been at this particular shelter for six
months. Joyce also has a daughter who lives with her father in another state.
During our interview, Joyce revealed that she had plans to leave the shelter
within the month because “We just miss home so much! My son and I, we miss
my daughter and my family. I'm lucky I have an alternative plan. There's a lot of
people that don't, you know.”
Leslie is one of those people who doesn’t seem to have an alternative.
This 30-year-old, Hispanic, divorced mother of 7-month-old twins was born in
South America and has only lived in the United States for 5 years. According to the shelter’s program coordinator:
The issue we have with Leslie is that she doesn't qualify for the same
government benefits as everyone else. She's legal to be here but because
she's not a citizen, they, meaning the State of Florida’s assistance
113 program, won't offer her the childcare. So, we're trying to get her
subsidized childcare but she can only get that if she's working. But she
can't work if she doesn't have childcare. So it's like this never-ending
cycle. Ideally, we would rather her go to school but right now, she's
working so that she tries to qualify for the subsidized childcare because
they don't want to hear that she wants to go to school. They only want to
hear that she's working.
Domestic violence caused Leslie to flee her home when she was 6 months
pregnant. Because she has no family in the United States and has a limited social network, she stayed at a refuge for victims of domestic violence until the children were born and she could be admitted to this shelter. The program coordinator says, “We couldn't take her until she had the kids because we don't
take pregnant women or women without children. So she had to wait until after
she had the babies.” In the time she has been residing at the shelter, Leslie has
been trying to work on her GED and English skills while working in a restaurant
even though she dreams of being able to go to school full-time and pursue a
career that would enable her to be self-supporting. When asked about the work
she would like to do in the future, Leslie replied, “I don't know. I like work with
the people and the food, but [pauses] I like help people also. I don't know.”
Not only do these women have many things in common but also, with the
exception of educational levels, they fit well the typical profile of a homeless mother as
described by Bassuk (1990). A comparison of the participant’s demographic characteristics to those of typical homeless mother is shown in Table 4.
114 Table 4
Demographic Characteristics of Study Participants Compared to Typical Homeless
Women with Children
Characteristic Study Participants Typical Homeless Mothers
Age 31 27
Number of children 2.25 2 or more
Marital status 5 divorced; divorced or never married
2 never married;
1 separated
GED or high school 87.5% 70% education
Post-secondary education 87.5% More than 20%
Work experience 100% Most
115 Participants’ deviation from the average age of homeless mothers may be accounted for
by the nature of the clients residing at the shelter. According to the program coordinator,
Most of our clients are what we call "deep end.” They have years and years and
years of abuse - substance abuse, domestic violence, sexual abuse from family
members, their kids have been abused and sometimes been in foster care. A lot of
our clients have lost children to the system [DCF]; their parental rights have been
terminated. Many have been in treatment for drug and/or alcohol abuse 6, 7, 8, 9
times. One client was in treatment 17 times.
Two factors contribute to the higher level of participation in post-secondary education
among study participants as compared to typical homeless mothers: (1) Nadine, Patty,
and Joyce had all taken some college courses prior to becoming homeless, and (2) all but three of the participants were currently attending classes at a local community college.
When the reasons the participants gave for their homelessness are compared to the
leading causes of homelessness identified by the U.S. Conference of Mayors (2006) in
the year this study was conducted as shown in Table 5, it is clear that the experiences of
the participants do not match as well with the statistics for the general homeless
population. Other differences become apparent when the participants’ stories of how they
came to be homeless are examined in terms of the four main theories (i.e., choice, nature,
or personality; social disaffiliation; housing and poverty; and societal disinvestment) used
to explain the nature and causes of homelessness (Jahiel, 1992a). It could be said that
seven of the women “chose” to become homeless either because they could no longer
endure being victims of domestic violence or because they placed a higher priority on
using drugs or alcohol than paying the rent. However, only Patty actually planned to
116 Table 5
Causes of Homelessness Among Study Participants Compared to Causes Identified in
Empirical Studies
Number of Study Participants who Cited Causes in Order of Frequency Among the
This as Causing Their Homelessness* General Population
1 Mental illness and the lack of needed
services
0 Lack of affordable housing
4 Substance abuse and the lack of needed
services
0 Low paying jobs
4 Domestic violence
0 Prisoner re-entry
0 Unemployment
0 Poverty
* One participant cited two factors as causing her homelessness
117 leave home and go to a shelter as a way of escaping domestic violence. Chris’ recurring
bouts of homelessness may be an indication of a choice to be homeless but it may also
just be a reflection of the devastation that commonly results from chronic alcoholism.
Moreover, although Joyce decided not to go home for a year, it is not clear if she chose homelessness as a lifestyle or simply thought living in a shelter was a viable option in lieu of returning home. Leslie’s lack of a social network, which is commonly related to social disaffiliation, may have led her to turn to a shelter when she could no longer endure the violence at home but it cannot be cited as a cause of her homelessness. None
of the participants cited housing and poverty issues or societal disinvestment as cause of
their homelessness. Therefore, while the prevailing theories on the causes of
homelessness cannot be completely discounted, they seem to have little relevance to this
study’s participants. In the next section, the quantitative data pertaining to participants’
self-reported levels of self-efficacy and hope that were collected during the first and third
phases of this study are presented and discussed.
Quantitative Findings
Quantitative data were collected twice during this study: at the beginning and at
the end of the garden-based learning program. In the first quantitative phase of the study,
a licensed social worker who was a member of the shelter staff administered the Adult
Dispositional Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991) to 14 clients who intended to participate in the community gardening program to determine their self-reported levels of hope and agency (self-efficacy). In the final quantitative phase of the study, the Adult Dispositional
Hope Scale and the Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire (Pierce & Seals, 2006)
were administered to 7 women who participated in phase one of the study who were still
118 residents of the shelter and to 1 woman who participated in phase one but was no longer a
shelter resident. In the next section, the results collected during the first quantitative
phase of this study are presented and discussed.
Phase One Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale
During the first quantitative phase of this study, the Adult Dispositional Hope
Scale (Snyder et al., 1991) was administered to 14 clients who intended to participate in
the community gardening program. The scale consists of a pencil and paper 4-point
Likert scale requiring about 5 minutes for completion. It is composed of 12 items in two
subscales; agency (i.e., goal-directed determination) and pathways (i.e., planning ways to
meet goals). Hope is the sum of the agency and pathways subscales. Four items on the
scale are distracters and are not used for scoring. Although there are differences between
the cognitive theories of hope (Snyder et al., 1991) and self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986), both Snyder (2002) and Bandura (1997) acknowledge that self-efficacy and agency
parallel one another. Therefore, scores from the agency subscale of the Adult
Dispositional Hope Scale were used to measure reported self-efficacy of the participants in this phase of the study. (See Appendix C for a copy of the scale.)
When a 4-point response continuum is used with the scale, as was done in this
study, mean scores on the pathways and agency (self-efficacy) subscales can range from
a low of 4 to a high of 16. A mean score of 10 or less on the pathways subscale is a
strong indicator of an individual’s low ability to generate successful plans to meet their
goals; a mean score of 10 or less on the agency subscale is a strong indicator of low
motivation or will to meet goals and low self-efficacy. Total hope scores, derived by
adding the scores from the pathways and agency subscales, can range from a low of 8 to a
119 high of 32 when a 4-point response continuum is used. A hope score of 20 or less is a
strong indicator of a low level of hope in the reporting individual.
Although, pathways, agency (self-efficacy) and hope scores were calculated for the 14 respondents who participated in the first quantitative phase of this study, the
individual scores of participants who dropped out of the study prior to the final quantitative phase are not presented or discussed in this section because such subject attrition poses a threat to the internal validity of the research findings (Tashakkori &
Teddlie, 1998). The phase one scores generated from data collected before participation in the garden-based learning program for the eight participants who completed the study are presented in Table 6.
As shown in Table 6, with the exception of Leslie, the majority of the participants
scored higher on their self-appraised ability “to generate successful plans to meet goals”
(Snyder et al., 1991, p. 570) than on their “their ability to achieve goals” (Snyder et al.,
1991, p. 571). On the agency (self-efficacy) subscale, Nadine had a score that indicated
low self-efficacy while the rest of the participants’ scores were close to or slightly higher
than the mean for the subscale. With regard to hope, all the participants except Nadine
had hope levels that were toward the hopeful end of the response scale. In order to make
these results more meaningful, the group mean score is compared to mean scores
obtained from six samples of introductory psychology students at the University of
Kansas and two samples (one outpatient and one inpatient) of people in psychological
treatment (Snyder et al., 1991). These comparisons are shown in Table 7.
The fact that the participants in this study had a mean score that was higher than
the mean scores of individuals in psychological treatment challenges assertions about the
120 Table 6
Individual Phase One Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale
Participant Pathways Score Agency and Hope Score
Self-efficacy Score
Chris 14 13 27
Debby 14 11 25
Florence 16 13 29
Helene 13 12 25
Joyce 12 12 24
Leslie 13 14 27
Nadine 12 8 20
Patty 14 14 28
Group Mean 13.50 12.13 25.63
121 Table 7
Comparison of Participants’ Group Mean Scores on The Adult Dispositional Hope Scale to Group Mean Scores of Other Populations
Study College Outpatient Inpatient
Participants Students Psychological Psychological
Treatment Treatment
Group Group
Pathways 13.50 12.63 11.33 11.25
Score
Agency Score 12.13 12.68 11.27 11.25
Hope Score 25.63 25.31 22.6 23.11
high prevalence of mental illness among homeless women (Boyd et al., 2004) and lends
credence to the theory that homelessness itself precipitates mental disorders (Goodman et
al., 1991). Although these women are still considered to be homeless because they reside
in a shelter (Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, 1987), being at the shelter
means they have the same roof over their head each night and makes it easier for them to
obtain benefits such as food stamps thereby relieving some of the worries, frustrations,
and associated psychological traumas of homelessness. The higher pathways score of the
study participants in comparison to the college students may stem from two factors: (1)
the older age of the homeless women, and (2) the need for homeless mothers to plan
ahead just to survive on a day-to-day basis whereas college students are not normally
122 burdened with such concerns. The lower agency scores of the study participants in
comparison to the college students may reflect the cumulative life stresses experienced by
the homeless mothers due to domestic violence or substance abuse. A major
characteristic of homeless women, especially those with alcohol abuse disorders (Moos,
Moos, & Timko, 2006) or who have been victims of domestic violence (Orava, McLeod,
& Sharpe, 1996), is their external locus of control (Arrighi, 1997). Walker (1977, 2000)
suggests that victims of domestic violence, who comprise a significant portion of the
homeless population, experience a diminishing sense of control that leads to
powerlessness and learned helplessness. In the next section, quantitative data collected
during the third phase of this study is presented and discussed and then compared to the results obtained in phase one of the study.
Phase Three Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale
In the third phase of the study, I administered the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale to all quantitative phase one participants who were still residing at the shelter. An
additional phase one participant who no longer lived at the shelter also participated in this
part of the study. The phase three scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale generated
from data collected after participation in the garden-based learning program are presented
in Table 8.
Analyses of the participants’ phase one and phase three scores on the Adult
Dispositional Hope Scale were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social
Sciences (SPSS, 2006). A paired samples t test indicated there was no statistical
significance in the scores. This lack of statistical significance may be related to the small
123 Table 8
Individual Phase Three Scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale
Participant Pathways Score Agency and Hope Score
Self-efficacy Score
Chris 14 14 28
Debby 14 14 28
Florence 15 12 27
Helene 13 11 24
Joyce 13 13 26
Leslie 12 12 24
Nadine 12 11 23
Patty 16 15 31
Group Mean 13.63 12.75 26.38
124 sample (N = 8), which reduced statistical power and precluded the detection of small intervention effects. The length of time allotted for the intervention may also have been a factor in the lack of statistical significance. For example, Toro et al. (1997) found only modest improvements in self-efficacy of homeless individuals throughout the course of an 18-month long intervention (i.e., a self-efficacy mean of 5.99 at baseline compared to a mean of 6.03 at the end of 18 months). Similarly, Bybee, Mowbray, and Cohen (1994) found no significant improvements in psychological functioning of homeless individuals measured at 4- and 12-months after an intensive intervention and concluded, “The positive effects of the intervention may take longer to achieve with some clients” (p. 181) especially those with mental illness and long histories of domestic violence and/or substance abuse. In the current study, the lack of statistical significance may also be related to the amount of time participants were involved with the garden-based learning program rather than to the length of the program. Work, school, and childcare responsibilities along with mandatory participation in substance abuse and domestic violence counseling and parenting classes at the shelter often placed constraints on the amount of time available for participation in the garden-based learning program.
However, comparison of the group mean scores on the Adult Dispositional Hope
Scale from phase one to those of phase three, as shown in Table 9, suggests the intervention may have practical significance since the group mean scores for pathways, agency (self-efficacy), and hope did increase between phase one and phase three. The overall increase in hope among the participants also compares favorably with other interventions designed to instill hope in homeless individuals (see Herth, 1996; Tollett,
1992, Tollett & Thomas, 1995).
125 Table 9
Comparison of Phase One and Phase Three Group Mean Scores on the Adult
Dispositional Hope Scale
Phase One Phase Three
(Pre-intervention) (Post-intervention)
Pathways Score 13.50 13.63
Agency Score 12.13 12.75
Hope Score 25.63 26.38
Recalling the previous comparison of participant mean scores to mean scores of
college students (i.e., pathways, 12.63; agency, 12.68; hope, 25.31) as shown in Table 7,
we find that the women still had a higher group mean score on pathways and hope than
did the college students. In addition, at the end of the intervention the women’s group
mean score on agency (self-efficacy) exceeded that of the college students. Furthermore,
the mean increase in self-efficacy between phase one and phase three exceeds that found
by Toro et al. (1997) among another group of homeless individuals.
Phase Three Scores on the Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire
In the third phase of the study, I also administered the Gardening and Self-
efficacy Questionnaire (Pierce & Seals, 2006) to all seven quantitative phase one
participants who were still residing at the shelter and one quantitative phase one
participant who no longer lived at the shelter. The individual phase three scores on the
Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire for the eight participants who completed the
126 study ranged from 2.77 to 3.46 (M = 3.26, SD = 0.23, t = +40.03, p < .001, two tailed)
suggesting a positive influence on self-efficacy because of participation in the garden-
based learning program. (See Table 10 for response rates.) These results also lend support
to the increase in agency (self-efficacy) measured by the Adult Dispositional Hope Scale.
An analysis of the responses on the Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire
found that the majority of the women strongly agreed that they were very satisfied about
the work they had done in the garden and that participation in the garden-based learning
program contributed to feelings of self-esteem and relaxation. The majority agreed that
participation in the garden-based learning program contributed to a sense of agency and
self-efficacy in terms of their ability to finish things (i.e., achieve goals), start new things,
be responsible in other areas of their life, and find employment and permanent housing.
According to Bandura (1989), the stronger an individual’s perceived self-efficacy, the
higher the goals they set for themselves and the firmer their commitment to them.
Furthermore, Epel et al. (1999) found that homeless adults with high self-efficacy more
actively pursue employment and housing and remain at shelters for a shorter duration.
The majority of the women agreed that participation in the garden-based learning
program contributed to a sense of self-efficacy about their adult education pursuits, which
is consistent with the findings of Shell et al. (1989) that self-efficacy and outcome expectancy beliefs are positively related to academic achievement for mature students.
With regard to alcohol and drug abuse, the majority of participants who considered themselves to have problems with alcohol and/or drug abuse agreed or strongly agreed
that participation in the garden-based learning program contributed to abstinence self-
efficacy. This finding is especially important in view of the numerous studies that have
127 Table 10
Gardening and Self-Efficacy Questionnaire Responses (N = 8)*
Question Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
1. After working in the garden, I 0 0 2 6
feel much better about myself.
2. I feel very satisfied about the 0 0 3 5
work I have done in the garden.
3. After working in the garden, I 0 0 6 2
feel better about my ability to
finish things.
4. After working in the garden, I 0 1 6 1
feel more confident about
starting new things in the future.
5. Since I began working in the 0 1 6 1
garden, I feel that I can relate to
others and communicate better
about how I feel.
6. After working in the garden, I 0 0 1 7
feel more relaxed.
128 Table 10 Continued
Question Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
7. Since I began working in the 0 1 7 0
garden, I feel that I can achieve
more and be more successful in
school.
8. Since I began working in the 0 0 8 0
garden, I feel that I can be more
successful in finding a job.
9. Since I began working in the 0 1 7 0
garden, I feel that I can be more
successful in finding permanent
housing.
10. After working in the garden, I 0 0 2 2
feel I can be more successful in
staying off drugs.
11. After working in the garden, I 0 1 3 0
feel I can be more successful in
avoiding the use of alcohol.
129 Table 10 Continued
Question Strongly Disagree Agree Strongly
Disagree Agree
12. I feel more confident about my 0 0 4 4
ability to take care of my
children and be a good parent
since I began working in the
garden.
13. I think working in the garden has 0 0 7 1
helped me become a more
responsible person in other areas
of my life.
* Responses to Questions 10 and 11 have an N = 4 since four participants did not consider themselves to have problems with alcohol and/or drug abuse.
130 highlighted the importance of self-efficacy in relapse prevention (e.g., Marlatt et al.,
1995; Marlatt & Donovan, 2005; Marlatt, & Gordon, 1985). All participants agreed or
strongly agreed that participation in the garden-based learning program contributed to a sense of parenting self-efficacy. According to Coleman and Karraker (1998),
Parental self-efficacy beliefs have emerged as both a powerful direct predictor of
specific positive parenting practices and a mediator of the effects of some of the
most thoroughly researched correlates of parenting quality including maternal
depression, child temperament, social support, and poverty. (p. 47)
Although more suggestive than definitive, these findings support the relationship between
participation in gardening and other horticultural activities and a positive influence on
self-efficacy as found by Hoffman, et al. (2003).
In summary, the quantitative results from this study were not statistically
significant but they do suggest that participation in a garden-based learning program has
practical significance for homeless women with regard to hope and self-efficacy. These
findings are important to homeless women because increased feelings of hope and self-
efficacy are essential ingredients for escaping homelessness (Epel et al., 1999; MacKnee
& Mervyn, 2002). In addition, “High-hope persons consistently fare better than their low-
hope counterparts in the arenas of academics...physical health, psychological adjustment,
and psychotherapy” (Snyder, 2002, p. 258). Furthermore, high self-efficacy beliefs can
decrease an individual's levels of stress, anxiety, and depression (Bandura, 1997) and
provide them with "a sense of agency to motivate their learning through use of such self-
regulatory processes as goal setting, self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and strategy use"
(B. Zimmerman, 2000).
131 In the next section, the qualitative findings from this study are presented and discussed. The qualitative findings expand the meaning of the quantitative findings and provide opportunities to “give voice to participants’ definition of reality” (Rappaport,
1990, p. 56). Following that, the findings derived from the two types of data are integrated and discussed to provide a more complete understanding of the influence of garden-based learning on self-efficacy and hope in this sample of homeless women.
Qualitative Findings
Before this study was conducted, several a priori data analysis typologies were identified through expert opinion and a review of the literature. The relevant typologies included personal well-being, adult education pursuits, future employment, permanent housing, abstinence from alcohol and drug abuse, effective parenting, and the intellectual/cognitive, physical, emotional/psychological, and social benefits of garden- based learning. During the qualitative data analysis, three of these typologies (e.g., adult education pursuits, future employment, and abstinence from alcohol and drug abuse) were discarded because the data did not support their inclusion. The qualitative data indicated that one of the original typologies, personal well-being, was a sub-theme of both physical and emotional/psychological benefits, so personal well-being was eliminated as a separate typology. Three previously unidentified typologies emerged from the data during the qualitative analysis stage; gardening as metaphor, gardening as memories, and gardening outside the garden. The qualitative findings related to each of these typologies are described and explained in the following sections.
132 Intellectual/Cognitive Benefits
Participation in the garden-based learning program was a way to learn about
gardening. Helene recounted that before participating in the program, she “didn’t know
anything about gardening. All I knew is you stick a plant in the ground and it grows.” She
especially enjoyed learning about the different vegetables that were grown in the garden
while Debby enjoyed learning how to grow flowers. In addition, although Leslie had
gardened with her father in her home country, she learned a lot because “we have
different vegetable.” In contrast, Florence spoke about the gardening techniques she had
learned. “Just like kind of how to space the plants apart and, and how to organize it...care
for it and make sure there's no weeds and take care of the problems and make sure it's not
too dry or too wet.”
Participation in the program was also a way to learn about other aspects of nature and the environment. Florence enjoyed this aspect of the program because, “I think it's really important for all of us to have a little taste of more of nature, and especially where
we live.” When talking about her oldest son, Helene said, “He's not so much into the gardening but he enjoys looking for insects and lizards in the garden.” Many of the
participants mentioned learning from the Master Gardeners about the importance of recycling. “And that's supposed to help, like everybody in the world or the entire planet”
(Florence).
These findings on the intellectual/cognitive benefits the women experienced are
consistent with those of Cammack et al. (2002b) regarding improvements in horticultural knowledge and environmental attitudes because of participation in a garden-based training program. They also affirm Wenger and Snyder’s (2000) assertion that a
133 community of practice “typically has a core of participants whose passion for the topic energizes the community and who provide intellectual and social leadership" (p. 3) and demonstrate how newcomers to the community of practice master the knowledge and
skills necessary “to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a
community” (Lave & Wenger, 1991, p. 29). These mastery experiences also contribute to
the development of self-efficacy (Bandura, 1995) and the pathways and agency cognitive
components of hope (Snyder et al., 1991).
Physical Benefits
Many of the participants talked about how participation in the garden-based
learning program contributed to their physical well-being. For Debby and Florence, the
benefits derived from breathing the fresh air and smelling the flowers. “It's just like
aromatherapy,” said Florence. Joyce, who especially enjoyed being in the sunshine, said,
“My apartment's so dark! Even if I open my blinds, I still turn around and it's dark. I like
the brightness and I like outdoors.” Many of the women spoke about the benefits of
having fresh healthy foods from the garden and how it helped them get their children to
eat vegetables. When talking about her daughter, Patty said, “She likes soda and candy at
night. And I cut all that off. Now she is learning to eat vegetables from the garden.”
Helene said, “It's nice to eat your own things that you can grow. You know where it
comes from.” Tomatoes were an especial favorite with all the residents because,
according to Florence, “You cannot find tomatoes here in this area at the grocery stores.
They're just terrible.” The increased consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables resulting
from participation in the garden-based learning program are consistent with the findings
134 of Hackman and Wagner’s (1990) study of senior citizens and Montenegro and Cuadra’s
(2004) research among Nicaraguan women.
Emotional/Psychological Benefits
As the women talked about their experiences in the garden-based learning
program, it became evident that some of the greatest benefits they derived from
participation were in the emotional/psychological realm. For Leslie, the gardening
activities provided a respite from the struggles of daily life. “It's something different to what you do every day. In the garden, you only seem in that moment. You forget everything. For me, that is the good part.” Florence looked forward to working in the garden at the end of the day when she felt tired or frustrated. She said, “When I work in the garden, I feel renewed and vibrant. I feel like my soul is cleansed. It feels so good.” In contrast, Helene found benefits to gardening early in the day. “I used to not want to go just cause I didn't want to go out that early but it really gets your day going nicely.” For
Debby and Patty, participation in the program was a way to “do something fun.” Chris said, “It helps to relax my mind. I feel more peaceful.” These findings are consistent with other studies of how participation in garden-based learning programs contributes to increased self-esteem and internal locus of control (Cammack et al., 2002a) and reduces psychological symptoms such as depression and anxiety (Richards & Kafami, 1999).
Social Benefits
Because the shelter has rules prohibiting clients from visiting in each other’s
apartments, participation in the garden-based learning program provided the women
opportunities to socialize with other residents. Florence particularly enjoyed this aspect of
the program. “When we're out here in this garden and all the little kids around us - we
135 had a garden party - it's just beautiful. I just feel happy.” When talking about the social aspects of the program, Debby remembered a day when she had to miss a scheduled lesson. “My kids were both sick, so I couldn't make it. But I was sitting outside watching everybody over there." Chris spent a lot of time in the garden, working alongside and learning with the Master Gardeners. She said,
You feel like they are really talking to you and they know you. It's foreign to me.
I thought they would be like everybody else in my life - I’d see them once or
twice and never see them again. Or that they don't really care, they’re doing it
because they have to, not because they want to.
Florence also felt comfortable being around the Master Gardeners and even asked one for some advice about a houseplant. “So, she told me to make sure to water it from the bottom up - get the kind of planter that you can put water into the bottom cause they like to drink that way.” These findings on the social benefits of participation in a garden- based learning program lend credence to the opinion expressed by many authors (see
Lewis, 1979, 1990, 1996; Relf, 1981, 1999; Stamm & Barber, 1999) that community gardens provide opportunities for socializing with and learning from fellow gardeners and can promote community cohesion.
Effective Parenting
Many of the women viewed participation in the gardening as part of being an effective parent. Florence said, “I wanted my daughter to get in. We actually went over there and dug in the dirt with shovels and planted stuff and she had a ball...She loves it...that's an important thing.” She also felt it was important to teach children “how to care for the Earth and that's part of the gardening too.” Nadine viewed participation in
136 gardening with her children as a way “to be able to just spend quality time with my kids.”
Debby thought her son was too young to participate in the gardening. She said, “He'd just be tearing everything up. He could be the weed puller.” Then she laughed and said,
“We'll teach him - weed, flower.” After laughing again, she went on to say. “But I like for my daughter to do it...cause I'd like my daughter to actually see something grow.”
Patty, who only had custody of her two oldest children on the weekends, enjoyed doing gardening activities with her three children. “I've done projects with them, you know...little things...I like to do hands-on things with them...to interact with them, hands- on.” These remarks reflect Curran’s (2006) findings that effective parental involvement in children’s education consists of “doing whatever it takes - anything and everything - to help their children grow and succeed” (p. 68).
Gardening as Metaphor
Throughout the interviews, the women frequently spoke of gardening and plants as a metaphor for life. For example, Florence told me about a plant she had received from one of the Master Gardeners.
It's an African violet, very special to me, because they gave it to me, and it was so
beautiful, and it was a tiny one and I'm growing it into a big one now. It's
gorgeous. It blooms all the time. And it's kind of a symbol to me of our life here,
and, and future life.
For her, the relationship between the shelter’s service and its clients also symbolized a garden. She explained this relationship by saying:
They give you the opportunity to grow as the person you are. And that's the neat
thing about this place, is that they don't, that they guide you if you need help and
137 counseling and that type of thing. I mean, but, it's kind of like they put you here
and say - it's like a plant - they put you here in the soil, and they give you the
water, and they say, "Here, you just grow, grow! Take that sunshine and grow."
Chris echoed this sentiment when she said,
There's just a whole new scene, you know. You wake up and you see these
beautiful things around you and it reminds you that my life is good and my life is
beautiful. It's just like this - it's all part of it...It's just like a new, a brand new lease
on life.
For Leslie, the garden symbolized freedom. When asked how she felt about working in
the gardening, she replied “For a moment, I feel free.”
According to Lakoff and Johnson (1980), a metaphor is a mental construction that helps us to structure our experience and develop our imagination and reasoning. We use metaphors to conceptualize, represent, and communicate many of our thoughts and actions (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980). Metaphors are constructed through an “embodied schema” (Johnson, 1987). An embodied schema consists of "structures of an activity by which we organize our experience in ways that we can comprehend. They are primary means by which we construct or constitute order and not mere passive receptacles into which experience is poured" (Johnson, 1987, pp. 29-30). This means we construct metaphors to link our bodily experience of something to our more abstract thinking, and to "give shape, structure, and meaning to our imagination" (Sfard, 1994, p. 47). The metaphors we use determine how we interpret reality and our experiences. They have the potential to either expand or limit our range of options and lead us toward growth and development or keep us chained to narrow, inflexible, unchanging ways of being.
138 Throughout history, the garden has served as a metaphor for life because it
symbolizes the growth, decay, and renewal that are part of the human life cycle (Marcus,
1990). Change happens in life and the garden is a symbol of those changes. A garden can serve as a metaphor for healing, self-exploration, and individual development (Barrett,
1997). “Plants may also be experienced unconsciously as metaphors. Trees can provide
metaphors of solidity, strength and permanence; perennials of persistence and renewal;
annuals of growth, budding, blooming, seeding, decay, death and transformation”
(Marcus, 2006, p. 8).
Gardening as Memories
Two relationships between gardening and memories emerged from the interviews.
One concerned the women’s memories of gardening as children; the second revolved
around gardening with their own children as a way to create pleasant memories. Florence
had fond memories of gardening in 4-H and at school when she was a child. Nadine
gardened with her mother and looked forward to gardening with her own daughter. She
said, “I think it'll be good for me and her to have something to remember and do.” Debby
had also been involved in gardening in school and said, “I liked it and I always thought
about it.” Helene spoke about gardening with her dad. “He always had a garden with
tomatoes. We even had pumpkins...We always had flowers, too...I remember we used to
plant the bulbs and they grew every spring.” Leslie had also gardened with her father and
said,
My father, he know everything about tree, the plant, the season, everything...we
had tomato...We have Rosa, rose. I love roses. They are different color, all
around, like red, white. My father put the, uh, the one tree, the one piece with the
139 other plant, together. [Translator says, "Oh, yeah. In English, they call that
'grafting'."]
The women’s accounts of gardening as memories supports Clark and Manzo’s
(1988) findings that people who most frequently participate in community gardening had
positive, previous experiences with gardening and Brookfield’s (1984) conclusion that parents are instrumental in awakening learning interests. Memories also influence the ways in which the concept of home is constructed in the present and shapes desires for the future (Hockey & James, 2003). “The garden (through memory)...becomes a powerful symbol of family and home life” (Bhatti, 2006, p. 322).
Gardening Outside the Garden
Many of the women chose to practice their newly acquired gardening skills in
areas outside the garden. Florence had a little houseplant in her apartment and had asked
one of the Master Gardeners to give her a cutting from another kind of houseplant.
Nadine said, “We got some stuff growing in the front of our yard, like peppers and stuff
in our yard out of the little potting plant things.” Debby related,
I like the home gardening magazine and my grandma pays for it every month.
They sent me this little package of Baby's Breath. I don't want to plant it just
outside anywhere. I want to get like a little, a little pot, I guess...I'd like to plant it
in that.
Patty mentioned that she had already bought a big flowerpot so she and her children could plant some flowers in front of their apartment. Chris recalled that when she still resided at the shelter she spent “three or four days a week on a regular basis tending to my own gardening and upkeep of the area surrounding my apartment.”
140 This transfer of knowledge and skills acquired in the garden-based learning program to other contexts exemplifies the meaning and structure of a community of practice and its emphasis “on improving one’s ability to participate meaningfully in particular practices” (Fenwick, 2003, p. 26). By situating learners in contexts where knowledge and skills are developed through mastery and vicarious experiences that occur within an atmosphere of social persuasion experiences, the probability of transfer and application of that knowledge and skills is enhanced (Schell & Black, 1997; Stein, 1998).
This transfer of learning to useful contexts outside the classroom is also an essential goal of experiential learning (Dewey, 1938).
In the following section, the quantitative and qualitative results of this study are integrated. The integration of these two types of data provides a more complete understanding of the influence of garden-based learning on self-efficacy and hope in this sample of homeless women. This integration consists of comparing and contrasting the quantitative and qualitative findings with each other (Creswell & Tashakkori, 2007).
Integration of Quantitative and Qualitative Findings
Several a priori typologies relating to concerns of homeless women and the benefits associated with garden-based learning were reflected in one of the survey instruments and the interview questions used in this study. These typologies included personal well-being, adult education pursuits, future employment, permanent housing, abstinence from alcohol and drug abuse, effective parenting, and intellectual/cognitive, physical, emotional/psychological, and social benefits of garden-based learning. In this section, quantitative and qualitative findings related to each of these typologies are integrated.
141 Adult Education Pursuits
None of the women explicitly associated the garden-based learning program with
adult learning or their other adult education pursuits nor did any of the women express a
desire to participate in formal adult education courses in horticulture. However, all but
one indicated in the quantitative data that they felt their participation in the garden-based learning program helped them feel they could achieve more and be more successful in school. These findings are consistent with those of Hammond and Feinstein (2005),
pertaining to two specific links between adult education and self-efficacy: (1) perceptions of achievement in adult education (i.e., participation in the garden-based learning program) increase self-efficacy, and (2) learning on the job (i.e., experiential learning in a community of practice) can build self-efficacy because it reflects engagement in occupations where the value of learning is recognized.
Future Employment
Only one of the women mentioned possible future employment in the field of
horticulture. During her interview, Joyce related
For 15 years, like 10 years, I worked on a golf course as a landscaper. My
boyfriend was a golf course superintendent and he taught me everything I know.
He studied agricultural for two years. I like plants and I like outdoors.
She expressed a desire to return to that type of work on strictly a part-time basis “because
you can’t make enough money to live on doing that kind of work.”
All of the women agreed that their participation in the garden-based learning
program had helped them feel more successful about finding a job. These feelings of
enhanced self-efficacy are relevant because the higher the level of an individual’s
142 perceived self-efficacy the wider the range of career options they seriously consider, the
greater their interest in them, and the better they prepare themselves educationally for the occupational pursuits they choose (Hackett, 1995). A study among disadvantaged adult
students attending a high school equivalency program found that self-efficacy predicts
consideration of educational programs and occupations regardless of the students’ actual
ability (Bores-Rangel et al., 1990).
Furthermore, while some of the garden-based learning activities initially seemed
difficult or challenging to the women without much prior gardening experience, as the
women mastered the techniques associated with those activities their sense of self-
efficacy was enhanced. According to Bandura (1989), individuals who have a high sense
of efficacy for accomplishing a task such as finding a job will work harder and persist
longer when they face difficulties. In contrast, individuals who feel inefficacious may
avoid searching for a job when it seems to be difficult or challenging. Wanberg et al.
(2005) also found that self-efficacy is related to job search persistence.
Permanent Housing
The majority of the women agreed that participation in the garden-based learning
program had caused them to feel they would be successful in finding permanent housing.
Epel et al. (1999) found that homeless adults with high self-efficacy more actively pursue
permanent housing. Gardening also played a role in plans for permanent housing for at
least one participant. Florence said,
Maybe someday I'll get a little horse farm and my daughter, we can do all that
stuff. That's a goal I have. We want to get a home of our own...I'm going to look
for maybe a little place - all we want is a backyard and the bonus would be having
143 a little bit of grass. You know, just having a place of our own, and knowing that
we can just walk out there and plant our flowers, our tomatoes...And then we can
eat them on the dinner table. It's a dream, and it's getting closer and closer.
In contrast, Nadine, Debby, and Patty were already doing some container gardening
outside their apartments instead of waiting until they were in permanent housing to pursue this dream.
For women who have already been homeless once, and who believe they are
unsuccessful at making good choices about men and/or alcohol and drugs, thoughts of
trying to survive on their own in permanent housing can be daunting. Mastery
experiences in the garden-based learning program provided the women opportunities for
acquiring the cognitive, behavioral, and self-regulatory tools needed to create and execute
appropriate courses of action for managing their life circumstances. Those who believe
they can exercise control over threats do not conjure up disturbing thought patterns; their
stronger sense of self-efficacy causes them to feel more confident about taking on
demanding or threatening activities. In contrast, those who believe they cannot manage
threats experience high anxiety, dwell on their coping deficiencies, view many aspects of
their environment as fraught with danger, magnify the severity of possible threats, and
worry about things that might happen.
Abstinence from Alcohol and Drug Abuse
The shelter’s program coordinator strongly believed that participation in the
garden-based learning program would contribute to clients remaining “clean and sober.”
She said,
144 We do try to teach clients that you do have to have time for yourself whether
that's reading or exercising or having a hobby. That's the way you overcome stress
and addiction. A lot of our clients say, "I don't know what to do. I've used drugs
for the last 25 years. I don't know what a hobby is or what to do with this empty
time."
Interestingly, none of the four women who reported having problems with substance
abuse specifically mentioned participation in the garden-based learning program as a way to maintain their abstinence. However, the quantitative data reflected that all but one of these women agreed that working in the garden helped them feel more successful about
staying off drugs and avoiding the use of alcohol. “Perceived self-efficacy affects every
phase of change in substance abuse - the initiation of changes, their achievement,
vulnerability to, and recovery from, relapse, and long-term maintenance of abstinence”
(Bandura, 1999, p. 214). All the participants cited feelings of relaxation as a benefit of
working in the garden, which is another factor that contributes to relapse prevention
(Marlatt & Gordon, 1985).
Effective Parenting
The themes of gardening being beneficial to children and a means for effective
involvement in parenting echoed throughout the interviews and were reflected in the
quantitative data as well. For example, three of the four women who strongly agreed that
working in the garden enhanced their ability to take care of their children were most
actively involved in the garden-based learning program and all had plants in or around their apartments. Only Leslie did not, probably because her children were too young to participate and understand. For Nadine and Helene, who had lost custody of their
145 children prior to coming to the shelter, and Patty, who only has custody of her two oldest
children on the weekends, gardening was a way to spend quality family time together and
possibly rebuild the shattered mother-child bond. Although Alexander et al. (1995) and
Hayzlett (2004) found that when children participated in a garden-based learning
program it resulted in increased parent, child, and community interactions, to date no
research has been done on the effects of parental participation in garden-based learning
and parent-child interactions. In contrast, Dwyer, Schroeder, and Gobster (1991) found
that participation in urban tree planting activities strengthens “people-tree bond[s],
particularly when children, parents, and grandparents participate together in tree planting
efforts” (p. 277).
Intellectual/Cognitive Benefits
In the interviews, all the women indicated they were learning or re-learning about gardening and that they felt their participation in the activities was successful. These answers were reflected in the quantitative data as well. For example, the majority of the women strongly agreed that they were satisfied about the work they had done in the garden. Furthermore, their learning was not confined to gardening, horticultural, and environmental topics. Florence said, “It's teaching me how to take good care of myself and be strong.” For Chris, participation in the garden-based learning program “creates the
quality of patience and there is an anticipation of things to come.” In Patty’s experience, participation in the program “gives you acceptance and patience and teachability. It's a whole bunch of things that you can learn.” Participation also contributed to a sense of successful agency and planning of ways to meet goals as the women went about the routine chores of planting, maintaining, and harvesting in the garden.
146 Physical Benefits
Throughout the interviews, the women mentioned physical benefits associated
with their participation in the garden-based learning program such as being in the sunshine and fresh air and having fresh foods to eat. These physical benefits are particularly important to homeless women because many of them are in poor health due to malnutrition resulting from the conditions of homelessness and substance abuse. Those who have been victims of domestic violence have also endured physical abuse, which in many cases has lasting effects on their health. These physiological states can have a negative impact on self-efficacy (Bandura, 1995). For example, fatigue, aches, and pains may be interpreted as a lack of the physical strength and stamina needed to perform activities requiring these qualities such as attending school or working. According to
Bandura (1995), increasing health and physical status is a means for enhancing self-
efficacy. Furthermore, recreational opportunities providing for participation in healthy activities to promote fitness may also "be a source of personal empowerment for people living in homeless shelters" (Harrington & Dawson, 1997, p. 19).
Emotional/Psychological Benefits
The depth of qualitative evidence on the emotional and psychological benefits the
women derived from their participation in the garden-based learning program was supported by the quantitative data. The majority of the women strongly agreed that
working in the garden boosted their self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-efficacy. These
findings lend credence to the theories of several authors (see Gauvin & Spence, 1996;
Myers, 1998; S. Zimmerman, 2000) that participation in gardening has a positive effect
on psychological well-being, self-esteem, and self-efficacy. They also support Kunstler’s
147 (1992) opinion that recreational programming, such as garden-based learning, can help homeless individuals "develop self-awareness, increase self-esteem...and increase feelings of influence and control" (p. 44).
Interestingly, these emotional and psychological benefits could be obtained even when a woman was not actually working in the garden. Florence said,
I walk past there [the garden] every day, sometimes two or three times a day, and
I smell the flowers. I'm not even sure what's growing in there right now, there's
some kind of flowers, something happening over there right now, and I can smell
it. It is beautiful. When I'm walking on my way back from wherever - I've gotten
off the bus, and I've had a long day. And I smell those flowers, and I'm like "I'm
almost home" and it's so nice. Sometimes my daughter's with me, and you're like,
“Look, honey, look at the beautiful flowers. Look at everything." And she
remembers that pizza wheel, like, "We did that Mommy. We planted that. That's
my dirt."
Chris related that just sitting in the garden gazebo was “meaningful and peaceful” for her.
Social Benefits
In the quantitative data, the majority of the women indicated that participation in the garden-based learning program helped them to be able to relate better to other people and improved their communication skills. These findings were supported during the qualitative interviews, where the women spoke about how participation in the garden- based learning program provided them with opportunities to socialize with each other and with the Master Gardeners. These relationships with the Master Gardeners are particularly important within the context of homelessness. MacKnee & Mervyn’s (2002)
148 study of factors that facilitate or hinder an escape from homeless found that relationships with non-homeless individuals were beneficial in three ways. First, just having someone from mainstream society reach out to help them prompted feelings of “respect, encouragement, value, and trust” (p. 298) in homeless individuals. Secondly, creating new relationships with mainstream people helped facilitate a transition into society.
Third, mainstream individuals served as role models for values and morals, and made it easier “to aspire towards mainstream dreams such as having a nice home, a loving partner, a car, friends, children, and stability” (p. 300). Social models also contribute to
the development of self-efficacy in others through their expressed ways of thinking and
the attitudes they exhibit when faced with obstacles.
Summary
In summary, the quantitative and qualitative findings from this study offer support
for the relationship between participation in a garden-based learning program for
homeless women and a positive influence on self-efficacy and hope. The existing
literature indicates that increased self-efficacy leads to improvements in academic work,
predicts success in obtaining employment and permanent housing, promotes abstinence
from alcohol and drug abuse, and supports effective parenting among homeless women.
The literature also indicates that hope contributes to effective goal setting and the
determination to actively pursue those goals, thereby lending support to homeless
women’s efforts to escape from homelessness. This study also highlights the importance
of garden-based learning programs as a means to mitigate the psychological trauma
associated with homelessness.
149 This study also brought to light some issues that have not been addressed in the literature on garden-based learning. For example, the lack of studies on the effects of parental participation in garden-based learning and parent-child interactions. It also contributed to the limited empirical research base on the social benefits of garden-based learning in a community setting and suggests that memories of gardening are not just relevant to older adults with whom most studies have been conducted. In the next chapter, some conclusions and implications for policy and practice based on these findings are set forth.
150 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
The persistence of homelessness in the United States is an issue of pressing concern because “approximately 3.5 million individuals experience homelessness each year” (National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2007, p. 1). A recent study conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (2007) concluded that in
January 2005 at least 754,147 people were homeless on an average day. Approximately
9% of these individuals resided in Florida and an additional 8% lived in the Gulf Coast
states of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas (Kasindorf, 2005). The 2005
hurricane season “multiplied homelessness along the Gulf Coast as much as a
hundredfold and almost doubled the national ranks” (Kasindorf, 2005, p. 1). It is
estimated that families with children comprise 30% of the homeless population (U.S.
Conference of Mayors, 2006) and 71% of these families are headed by single females.
Homeless families frequently suffer from psychological trauma due to the loss of their
home, the conditions of shelter life, and the physical abuse that frequently precedes
homelessness (Goodman et al., 1991). There is an urgent need to mitigate the
psychological traumas faced by these homelessness families in a tangible way to help
them develop increased self-efficacy and a restored sense of hope, and lend support to
their efforts to escape from homelessness.
While many government agencies and community organizations have programs
intended to alleviate the problem of homelessness, it appears that these efforts are largely
unsuccessful since the number of homeless individuals in emergency and transitional
shelters increased from 170,706 in 2000 (Smith & Smith, 2001) to 407,813 in 2005
(National Alliance to End Homelessness, 2007). While various theoretical constructs
151 (Jahiel, 1992a) and empirical studies (U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2006) have attempted
to explain the causes of and the reasons for the growth of homelessness, the proposed
solutions to homelessness are typically based on the duration of homelessness (Burt,
1996) or perceived causes of homelessness (Jahiel, 1992a).
The most recent solution for ending homelessness, the “Housing First” approach,
consists of three components: crisis intervention, emergency services, screening, and needs assessment; permanent housing services; and case management services (National
Alliance to End Homelessness, 2003). In practice, this approach consists of moving
homeless individuals into subsidized housing, ensuring they have a source of income
through employment and/or public benefits, and connecting them with community-based services to meet their long-term support/service needs. While the “Housing First” approach is beneficial in that it gets homeless individuals and families off the streets and out of emergency shelters, research shows that this approach does not necessarily lead to self-sufficiency among the formerly homeless (see Fischer, 2000; Lipton et al., 2000;
Stojanovic et al., 1999; Zlotnick et al., 1999).
Perhaps the emphasis on subsidized housing and entitlement-benefit income
rather than adult education interventions accounts for the dismal prospects for self-
sufficiency that are associated with the “Housing First” approach. Historically,
investments in adult education programs for homeless individuals have been viewed as a
means of helping them achieve economic self-sufficiency. This goal of economic self-
sufficiency is related to the expectation that investments in education should result in
some tangible economic return for society because sponsors of these programs support
the point of view than an individual's economic self-sufficiency contributes to the
152 economic development, social growth, and maintenance of society. The predominance of
this viewpoint leads to the development of adult education programs that do not take into
account the perspective of homeless individuals or research on factors that help or hinder
an escape from homelessness.
While societal and political values are involved in adult education program planning (Cervero & Wilson, 1999) and there are value conflicts over the priority of various goals of homeless adult education programs and the appropriate means to use to achieve these goals, a learner-centered focus is a mainstay of adult education practice.
Based on this principle, the ideal adult education program for the homeless would lead to
not only job skill acquisition but also prepare the learners for living and learning in a changing and complex society, and encompass the development of self-esteem, self- efficacy, and empowerment among the participants. To be truly effective, such programs should also address the factors that led to the participants becoming homeless such as psychological problems, substance abuse, lack of education and subsequent low-wage employment, marital and family issues, and sexual and physical abuse. The result of such a comprehensive program would be both the acquisition of a specific level of skills and knowledge directly related to the learners’ needs as well as increased feelings of self- efficacy and hope, which are essential ingredients for escaping homelessness (Epel et al.,
1999; MacKnee & Mervyn, 2002).
The current study examined the levels of hope and self-efficacy in a sample of
homeless women and the ability to modify these factors through a garden-based learning
intervention. Based on the findings and discussion presented in the previous chapter,
there is support for a relationship between participation in a garden-based learning
153 program for homeless women and a positive influence on self-efficacy and hope. In the
next section of this chapter, implications for policy and practice and recommendations for
further research based on the findings of this study are set forth.
Implications for Policy
Provision of housing alone is not sufficient to alleviate homelessness. Rather, due
to the heterogeneity and diversity of the homeless population and the multiplicity of their
problems, a range of interventions is required. However, these interventions must go
beyond the provision of emergency food and shelter, an increase in the minimum wage or
affordable housing, and job training for economic self-sufficiency. Adult education is one
intervention that has the potential to change homeless individuals’ self-concepts and
worldviews as well as their behaviors (Office of Vocational and Adult Education, 1998).
By helping homeless individuals to become aware that they have a constructive role in
their families and communities and can improve the environment in which they currently
live, adult education can prepare them to function in healthy and responsible ways.
For such educational interventions to be successful adult education programs for
the homeless must be relevant to the learners’ needs while also meeting the requirements
and goals set forth by government agencies and program funders related to the attainment of permanent housing and full-time employment. Therefore, adult education programs for the homeless must give the participants access to learning tools that will lead to a change in their habits, behaviors, and attitudes, and improve their ability to find effective solutions for the serious situations and circumstances confronting them in their daily
lives. Adult education programming for the homeless should also help to prepare homeless individuals to deal with problems they may encounter once they move into full-
154 time employment and permanent housing as well as how to avoid problems that could lead to their loss of such employment and housing and a subsequent return to homelessness.
If effective policies to end homelessness are to be formulated, policy makers need to have a better understanding of the nature of homelessness and the events that trigger homelessness. This study offered some additional insight into those issues such as the comparison between commonly perceived and actual causes of homelessness for this group of women. I think it also helped to point out the need for varying interventions to deal with homelessness. For example, Leslie has a clear need for additional education that will help her become self-supporting. In contrast, Joyce, who has far more education, appears to have a greater need for job search skills. This study also shed some light on the barriers such as employer reluctance to hire people with criminal backgrounds and government policies that place a higher priority on work than on education that can hinder women’s efforts to escape homelessness. In addition, it raises questions about immigration policies and what, if anything should be done to help a legal, documented worker who is also the parent of children who are U.S. citizens by virtue of their birth on
American soil. While changes in these policies are well beyond the scope of this dissertation, these are the sort of issues that policy makers need to become acquainted with as they pursue solutions to the unabated and ever increasing problem of homelessness. In the next section, strategies for adult education practice utilizing garden- based learning with homeless individuals are discussed.
155 Implications for Practice
The garden-based educational intervention utilized in this study provided the
participants with a variety of benefits in the intellectual/cognitive, physical,
emotional/psychological, and social realms and demonstrated positive effects for
homeless women with regard to hope and self-efficacy. In contrast to typical adult
education programs for the homeless, this intervention was not based on an economic
model and featured a developmental rather than a remedial approach to learning. A
participatory and informal learning approach was adopted to provide learners opportunities to participate in a variety of learning activities that contributed to mastery and vicarious experiences in an atmosphere of social persuasion and emotional safety.
Master Gardener volunteers who were not experts in either horticulture or adult education initially provided program leadership and shelter residents worked and learned in the garden alongside them. Because the shelter already owned the land on which the garden was located, the costs of the program were minimal and consisted primarily of the purchase price of seeds, plants, and mulch. The voluntary nature of participation in the garden-based learning program, the availability of the garden at any time of the day or week, and areas for gardening around the apartments contributed to the success of the program and learning among the participants. Furthermore, in a garden an individual can feel safe and welcome because they are surrounded by “living beings” that “are non- judgmental, non-threatening and non-discriminating” (Bruce, n.d., p. 1). Plants don’t care about an individual’s racial or ethnic background, educational level, or socioeconomic status. Plants respond to good care no matter who you are or where you came from.
Moreover, while they never criticize, they do give rewards for care and attention to detail.
156 Similar programs can easily be implemented at other homeless shelters. If they do
not have an outdoor garden space, community organizations, botanical gardens, or even
individual landowners may contribute land for the establishment of a community garden.
In some cities, vacant lots have been converted to community gardens, a practice that
contributes to both community food security and the beautification of the urban
environment. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Cooperative State Research,
Education, and Extension Service (CSREES) frequently distributes vegetable seeds and
plants to eligible low-income applicants under the auspices of the Green Thumb Program
component of Community Service Block Grants (CSBG). University-trained Master
Gardeners can provide technical assistance to a garden-based education program in
fulfillment of their annual community service commitment. Furthermore, a community
garden at a homeless shelter can be a site for service learning projects for students in the
fields of education and horticulture. This will give the students a strong affective and
cognitive understanding of the nature and characteristics of disadvantaged individuals
such as the homeless and provide the students with opportunities to develop the
interpersonal skills needed to work with disadvantaged individuals, skills that can be
acquired only through first-hand experiences. Businesses such as garden centers and
hardware stores are often willing to donate materials and equipment, as are members of
garden clubs, churches, synagogues, and other community organizations. Other financial
assistance may also be available through Community Food Security Project grants
administered by the USDA.
The participation of members of mainstream society in garden-based learning programs at homeless shelters can be not only a vital means for coping with resource
157 scarcity and adapting community garden development efforts to local conditions, it is
also an important ingredient in both individual and community development. Such
involvement brings about a positive self-concept, a sense of control, and a sense of commitment and responsibility to others, which can serve as motivation for personal and community change.
In locations where a community garden program cannot be developed, a therapeutic horticulture program could be instituted. Such a program would consist of a
variety of indoor and outdoor activities related to the care, growing, and harvesting of
plant material, and craft projects using seasonally available plant materials. Each activity
should be designed to provide participants with the intellectual/cognitive, physical,
emotional/psychological, and social benefits typically associated with therapeutic
horticulture. Such programs can also provide meaningful leisure activities to encourage
self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-sufficiency among residents of homeless shelters and
lend support to their efforts to escape from homelessness. In addition to the preceding
implications for policy and practice, several recommendations for further research
emerged from this study. These recommendations are discussed in the next section.
Recommendations for Further Research
According to Newman (1992), inadequate and inconsistent research
methodologies have contributed to a lack of information on effective interventions for
homeless individuals. Snow, Anderson, and Koegel (1994) suggest this is because most
of the research has focused on either demographics or “disabilities” of homeless
individuals.
158 The result is a truncated, decontextualized, and overpathologized picture of the
homeless, a picture that tells us relatively little about life on the streets as it is
actually lived and experienced and that glosses over the highly adaptive,
resourceful, and creative character of many of the homeless. (p. 469)
They recommend that research with homeless individuals consist of longitudinal studies
that take into account the contexts in which the homeless find themselves. Furthermore,
“the views of the homeless must be elicited and their voices articulated” (p. 470) in these
research studies.
With these suggestions in mind, it is recommended that the current study be
repeated with a larger sample to give a clearer picture of the results and experiences of participation in a garden-based learning program for homeless women with regard to hope and self-efficacy. The current study could also be repeated with a group of homeless men to determine if the results are similar or different for men than for women.
Identifying homeless individuals with low self-efficacy in order to tailor support services
designed to promote self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and a stable environment more
specifically to their personal needs could help to increase the numbers of clients who are
successful in breaking the cycle of poverty and homelessness.
Additional qualitative studies are needed to explore the new knowledge about
homeless women’s experiences with gardening, which emerged as the typologies of
gardening as metaphor, gardening as memories, and gardening outside the garden. The
typology that highlighted effective parenting and its relationship to parental participation
in garden-based learning is another area for further study. Such studies would expand the
159 literature on the benefits of garden-based education and how it might be further
integrated into adult education programming.
Furthermore, while there is a body of literature that discusses homeless adult
education programs, there is a lack of research that specifically examines homeless adult
education from the perspective of homeless individuals. There is a need to conduct
research on the meaning and experience of other types of adult education among
homeless individuals, as well as gaining an understanding of why some clients of
homeless shelters choose not to participate in currently available adult education activities. A study of this type would be important to homeless individuals because the more we know about what works and what does not work in adult education for this group, the greater the likelihood that effective educational interventions can be designed for them. Such a study could provide other stakeholders such as policy- and decision- makers in state and local government, public and private social service agencies and faith-based and community initiatives with relevant information on the educational needs of homeless individuals.
Contributions of This Study
The findings from the current study offer support regarding the relationship
between participation in a garden-based learning program for homeless women and a positive influence on self-efficacy and hope. This study also highlights the importance of garden-based learning programs as a means to mitigate the psychological trauma associated with homelessness. This study provides relevant information on the benefits of education for the homeless to help adult educators and other service providers develop effective educational interventions and recreational programs for homeless individuals. It
160 also advances the “new field of gardening education” through its exploration of
“gardening participants and their beliefs, actions, and learning” (Wilson, 1995).
Limitations of This Study
Because the sample population for this study consisted of White or Hispanic female residents of a homeless shelter in a large urban area in south Florida who voluntarily participated in a garden-based learning program, the results of this study cannot be generalized to other populations of homeless individuals. Research methodologies generally require participants to be randomly assigned to a treatment or control group; however, in keeping with the tenets of the transformative-emancipatory perspective, no client was denied the opportunity to participate in the garden-based learning program so there was no control group in this study. However, if access had been available, residents at a shelter without a garden-based learning program could have served as a control group.
One factor that may threaten study validity when a control group is not present is
the Hawthorne effect, which refers to changes in study outcomes because of being
observed rather than because of treatment participation (Cottrell & McKenzie, 2005).
However, two features of this study appear to offset that effect: (1) The lack of extensive
data collection in phase one of this study minimized the possibility of an effect due to the
assessment itself (McCambridge & Strang, 2005); and (2) as the result of the pilot study
and activities related to the development of the therapeutic horticulture program, I was
accepted into the shelter environment and achieved somewhat of an emic perspective
(e.g., an understanding of the participants’ worldviews) which permitted me to adopt an
insider role rather than that of a highly esteemed researcher from the university.
161 Furthermore, it may be that there are unknown factors in the participants that
prompted them to participate in the garden-based learning program and this self-selection
may have been responsible for the observed group differences on outcomes. Nor was this study designed to identify all possible factors influencing levels of hope and self-efficacy among homeless women. Moreover, this study was conducted using a specific garden- based learning program consisting of weekly hour-long sessions from November 2005 through March 2006. The specificity and brevity of the program is another limitation of this study.
Summary
The existing literature indicates that higher self-efficacy predicts success of
homeless individuals in obtaining employment and permanent housing (Epel et al., 1999),
promotes abstinence from alcohol and drug abuse (Bandura, 1999), and supports
effective parenting (Coleman & Karraker, 1998). Other factors that facilitate homeless
individual’s transition to mainstream society include supportive individuals who
engender hope and the realization of one’s self-worth, confidence, and abilities
(MacKnee & Mervyn, 2002). In contrast,
Homelessness is perpetuated by a loss of hope that it is possible to change one’s
situation that appears to be connected to the inability, due to limited resources, of
shelters to provide services beyond those that meet the survival needs of the
homeless. (Morrell-Bellai et al., 2000, p. 601)
The findings of this study offer support for the relationship between participation in a
garden-based learning program for homeless women and a positive influence on self-
efficacy and hope.
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192 Appendix A
193 Garden Photographs*
Figure 2. A Master Gardener surveys the weeds, weeds, weeds.
* All photos are copyrighted by L. M. Seals and used with permission.
194
Figure 3. The weeds have been pulled and bagged for composting. Now it is time to start planting.
195
Figure 4. Master Gardeners and shelter residents and their children work alongside each other to get everything planted.
196
Figure 5. The pizza wheel is installed.
197
Figure 6. At last, the veggies are ready to eat!
198 Appendix B
199 Demographic Information Form
Age Number of Children in Each Age Group Under 18 years Birth to 2 years 18 - 24 years 3 to 5 years 25 - 34 years 6 to 12 years 35 – 44 years 13 to 18 years 45 – 54 years Reasons for Homelessness* 55 years or over Domestic violence/abuse Racial/Ethnic Family conflict, including divorce Black Can't afford housing White Drugs Hispanic Alcohol American Indian/Alaska Native Eviction Other Lost job Marital Status Mental illness Single Other Married Length of Homelessness Divorced/Separated Less than 1 month Widowed 1 to 3 months Education 3 to 6 months 8 years or less 6 to 12 months Some high school 1 to 3 years High School Diploma/GED More than 3 years Some college College degree
* May include multiple responses
200 Appendix C
201 Adult Dispositional Hope Scale
Please answer the following questions by filling in the circle that best shows how much that item describes you. There are no right or wrong answers. The answers you provide will be used to determine how we can improve adult education programs. Thank you for participating in this survey.
Definitely Mostly Mostly Definitely False False True True 1. I can think of many ways to get out of a jam. { { { {
2. I energetically pursue my goals. { { { {
3. I feel tired most of the time. { { { {
4. There are lots of ways around any problem. { { { {
5. I am easily downed in an argument. { { { {
6. I can think of many ways to get the things in life that are most important to me. { { { {
7. I worry about my health. { { { {
8. Even when others get discouraged, I know I can find a way to solve the problem. { { { {
9. My past experiences have prepared me well for my future. { { { {
10. I’ve been pretty successful in life. { { { {
11. I usually find myself worrying about something. { { { {
12. I meet the goals that I set for myself. { { { {
202
Appendix D
203
Gardening and Self-efficacy Questionnaire
Please answer the following questions about your experiences while working in the garden by filling in the circle that best shows how much you agree or disagree with that statement. If any questions do not apply to you, just skip them. There are no right or wrong answers. The answers you provide will be used to determine how we can improve adult education programs. Thank you for participating in this survey.
Strongly Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Agree
1. After working in the garden, I feel much better about myself. { { { {
2. I feel very satisfied about the work I have done in the garden. { { { {
3. After working in the garden, I feel better about my ability to finish things. { { { {
4. After working in the garden, I feel more confident about starting new things in the future. { { { {
5. Since I began working in the garden, I feel that I can relate to others and communicate better about how I feel. { { { {
6. After working in the garden, I feel more relaxed. { { { {
7. Since I began working in the garden, I feel that I can achieve more and be more successful in school. { { { {
8. Since I began working in the garden, I feel that I can be more successful in finding a job. { { { {
204
Strongly Strongly Disagree Disagree Agree Agree
9. Since I began working in the garden,
I feel that I can be more successful in finding permanent housing. { { { {
10. After working in the garden, I feel I can be more successful in staying off drugs. { { { {
11. After working in the garden, I feel I can be more successful in avoiding the use of alcohol. { { { {
12. I feel more confident about my ability to take care of my children and be a good parent since I began working in the garden. { { { {
13. I think working in the garden has helped me become a more responsible person in other areas of my life. { { { {
Please provide any additional information about your experiences while working in the garden:
205
Appendix E
206
Interview Questions
1. What brought you to this homeless shelter?
Probes: Can you give me some background on your life? How long have you been
here? Tell me about your work history. What is your current situation?
2. What led you to participate in the gardening activities?
3. Can you tell me about the main things you did in the garden this season?
4. How do you feel about the gardening activities?
5. Are you learning anything from your participation in the gardening activities? What
are you learning?
6. What do you feel successful about in the gardening activities?
7. Do you have any problems with the gardening activities?
Probes: What are the problems? What is the cause of the problems?
8. What do you hope to get out of the gardening activities?
9. How do you feel after working in the garden?
Probes: Physically? Mentally? Emotionally?
10. Can you describe any gardening experiences that influenced how you feel about your
ability to carry out the steps needed to reach your goals?
Probes: Ability to stay off alcohol and/or drugs? Parenting skills? Academic pursuits?
Plans for future employment? Permanent housing?
207
VITA
Cathy Pierce was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, and moved to Knoxville,
Tennessee, in 1983. She earned a bachelor’s degree in Ornamental Horticulture and
Landscape Design and a master’s degree in Educational Psychology and Counseling from
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. As a researcher, educator, and writer Cathy has
extensive experiences in the areas of technical writing and editing and was employed as an adult technical/vocational educator for many years. For nearly 25 years, she has been very involved in community service activities including serving as a mentor to women who are recovering from substance abuse and/or domestic violence. She also developed and administered a variety of educational programs designed to promote personal growth and healing and improve the lives of individuals and families, including nutrition and financial management education programs for low-income families.
208