Loyola University Chicago s2
6
LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO
HELPING KOREAN IMMIGRANT FAMILIES
TO CHANGE CHILD ABUSE PROBLEM:
A POSTMODERN MULTICULTURAL LANGUAGE SYSTEMS PERSPECTIVE
A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO
THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK
IN CANDIDACY FOR
THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF SOCIAL WORK
IN GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK
BY
KUI-HEE SONG
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
MAY 1999
Copyright by Kui-Hee Song, [1999]
All rights reserved.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This dissertation would not have been possible without considerable assistance from a great many people. With deepest respect and warmest regard, Dr. Daniel B. Lee, DSW has been an outstanding committee chairperson. Over the years, I benefited appreciably from Dr. Lee whose exclusive scholastic knowledge background with multicultural and bilingual guidance shed light on all this dissertation research process. I am extremely thankful to Dr. Catherine Tyson for a great deal of encouragement and scholastic insight about cross-cultural qualitative research methodology. I would like to give heartfelt thanks to Dr. Robert Noone, Executive Director of Family Service Center for valuable insight and support throughout coding process.
I am truly in debt to my client, the Kim's four family members (father, mother and two daughters), especially the mother, Mrs. Kim for joining my dissertation research process and teaching me about the significance of genuine lovelessness or "han" and love or "chung" than anyone else in my life.
I am indebted to Jude Gonzales, Director of Graduate Program of School of Social Work, Loyola University Chicago for his critically important friendship, sustaining support , and ongoing creative conversation rendered for this dissertation. I owe a special debt to Dr. Tong He Koh for her warm support to bring the translation of dissertation research to meaningful fruition. I would also like to thank both Niegel Cohen, Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice and Dr. Dora E. Saavedra, Professor of Communication at University of Texas-Pan American for brilliant editing.
I greatly acknowledge generous support to my friends, Bong-Ki Yim and Young-Mee Baek who brightened my outlook during the most demanding times.
Lastly, I acknowledge my parents whose sincere sacrifice and gratitude for journeying with me in love, faith, and trust to celebrate high moment during this doctoral program completion process.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS……………………………………………………………………… iii
TABLE OF CONTENTS……………………………………………………………………… vi
LISTS OF TABLES..…………………………………………………………………………….ix
ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………….x
CHAPTER
I. INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………….1
Purpose of the Study….…….………………………………………………………………..1 Significance of the Study….…………………………………………….………………...…4
Research Question…...………....……………………………………………………………5
Tentative Hypothesis.…………….………………………………………………………….5
Definition of Terms….………………………………………………………………………7
II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE……………………………………………………………11
Korean American Families Involving Child Abuse Problems…………………………….11
Sociodemographic Characteristics in Metropolitan Chicago………………………….11
General Family Characteristics of Child Abuse Korean Population in Chicago…..12
Psychosocial Characteristics………………………………..…………………………16
Intergenerational Dilemmas…………………………………………….…………16
Dissociation from Family Members & Community………………………………17
Social Structure Change.…………………………………………………………..18
Cultural-Linguistic Characteristics…………………………………………………….19
Confucianism…………………………………………………………………..…..19
Implications of Confucianism………………………………………………….…..19
Child Rearing & Discipline Practice……………………………………………20
The Best Interest of Family …………………………………………………….21
Communication Practice………………………………………………..…..…..23
Absence of Linguistic Elaboration of Child Abuse Event…….…………………...25
Theoretical Perspectives of Child Abuse Treatment & Prevention……………………….28
Modern Perspective………………………………………………………………..…..29
Postmodern Perspective……………………………………………………………….30 The Emerging Multicultural Perspective within Social Work Profession……..……...35
Ideological Premises………………………………………………………………..36
Theoretical Bases.…………………………………………………………………..38
Multicultural Perspective on Child Abuse…………………………………………….40
Conceptual Framework Guiding the Study………………………………………………..42
Social Construction Theory… ……………………………………………….…….…43
Supplementation…..…………..…………………………………………………….43
Joint Action..……………………………………………………………….……….43
Social Constructionism/Constructivism………..…………………………….…..…44
Hermeneutic Theory...…………………………………………………………………46
Narrative Theory………..……………………………………………………………..58
Collaborative Language Systems Approach to Therapy……..……………………….49
Modernism and Postmodernism In Therapy………..…………………………...53
Not-Knowing Position …….……………………………..……………………..55
What Therapeutic Questions Are Not………...………………….……….……..56
Therapist Role…..………………..……………………………………….……..56
Therapeutic Process of Dialogical Conversation & Collaborative Narrative………....
Relationship….………..……………………………………………..………….57
Review of Relevant Studies of Child Abuse………………………………………………59
III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY……….………………………………………………..61
Confirmation of the Case Study Method.…………………………………………………..61
Research Design……………………………………………………………………………63
The Compatibility between the Evaluator's & the Practitioner's Theories………………..65
Sampling Plan…………………………………………………………………………….. 65
Setting…………………………………………………………………………………….. 66
System used to Evaluate the Treatment……………………………………………………66
The Pilot Case Study……………………………………………………………………….67
Data Gathering & Procedure……………………………………………………………….69
Triangulation…………………………………………………………………………… 69
Procedure………………………………………………………………………………..69
Development of Coding Categories…………………………………………………….71
Data Analysis Method……………………………………………………………………..71
Validity…………………………………………………………………………………….73
Culturally Relevant Construct Validity…………………………………………….…...73
Ecological Validity……………………………………………………………………...74
Reliability…………………………………………………………………………………..74
Reliability Regarding Qualitative Coding………………………………………………74
Reliability Regarding English Translation.……………………………………………..75
Procedures to Protect Participants & Obtain Consent……..……………………………….76
IV. DATA ANALYSIS…..……………..……………………………………….……………77
Background Information……….……………………………….………….………..……..78
Coding Analysis………………..…………………………………………………………..79
Dialogical Speech Development……………….………………………………………..79
Perspective Taking Development……………………………………………………… 96
Narrative Process Sequences…………………………………………………………..101
Therapist Inter-Subjectivity……….….….………………………………….………115
Therapist Interactional Modes………………………………………………………115
Therapist Dialogical-Relational Process……………………………………………118
Thematic Analysis………………………………………………………………………...131
Family Relationship Meaning…………………………………………………………131
Parental Caring Behavior Meaning……………………………………………………154
Parental Coercive (child Aversive) Behavior Change……………………………….. 167
Cultural Significance of Korean “Han” Transformation Processes……………………… 174
Recapitulation of “Han” Cultural Perspective……………………………………….. 174
Case Analysis From Korean “Han” Cultural Perspective……………………………. 175
The First Stage of Fermenting or “Sak-hee-gi”……………………………………..178
The Second Stage of Reflecting or “Neuk-deul-li”..……..…………………………182
The Third Stage of Disentangling or “Han-pul-li ..……….……………………….185
The Fourth Stage of Mind-Emptying or “ Ma-uem-bi-uen-da”…………….…..…..189
V. RESULTS OF HYPOTHEIS TESTING…………………………………………………194
VI. SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS………..………………………………….……….. 221
Summary of Major Qualitative Findings……...…………………………………………….221
The Central Qualitative Findings………………………………………………………222
Cultural Significance of Korean “Han” Transformation Processes…………….……..225
Restatement of the Major Hypothesis Testing………………………………………...226
Implications for Social Work………………………………………………………….…..229
Theoretical Implications for Practice………………………………………………….229
Implications for Child Protective Service Policy……………………………………..234
Implications for Clinical Research……………………………………………………235
Additional Implication of “Han” Transformation Processes…………………..……..240
Limitations of the Research…………………………………………..………………242
Suggestions for Further Study……………………………………………………..…242
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………...243
APPENDICES
A. Informed Consent Form………………………………………………………….245
B. Coding Systems………………………………………………………… ……….247
C. Sample Coding……………………………………………………………………255
D. Descriptive Elaboration…………………………………………………………..257
REFERNCES …………………………………………………………………………………268 VITA…………………………………………………………………………………..……….282
LIST OF TABLES
TABLE
1 Conceptual Shift from Modernism to Postmodernism……………..…...…………….54
2 Impact of Tape-Recording on Client Experience in Therapy………...………….…...68
3 Quality of Change in Mother’s Dialogic Speech Development…….…….……….….81
4 Quality of Change in Mother’s Perspective Taking Development…..…….…..…..…97
5.1 Quality of Change in Mother’s Narrative Process Modes……………….…..………102
5.2 Quality of Change in Mother’s Involvement Modes..……...….…..…..……………106
5.3 Quality of Change in Mother’s Temporal Orientation……………..………………..111
6.1 Quality of Change in Therapist Interactional Process……………………..….……..117
6.2 Quality of Change in Therapist Dialogical-Relational Process….…..………………120
7 Quality of Change in Mother’s Family Relationship Meaning.……..………………130
8 Quality of Change in Mother’s Parental Caring Behavior Meaning .……....….…..…156
9 Quality of Change in Mother’s Coercive (Daughter’s Aversive) Behavior………....168
10 Quality of Change in Mother’s “Han” Transformation Processes..…………………178
ABSTRACT
The prevalent phenomenon of therapeutic cultural-linguistic dissonance impeding self-agency and empowerment with Korean immigrant clients involving child abuse problems, in the confining helping context of pathologizing, victimizing, and authoritative culture, indicates a need for an alternative approach to communicative multiple meaning construction in the less confining context of collaborative-constructive-connecting culture.
This study was designed to explore and evaluate one such process: Process for a Child Protective Service related Korean immigrant family to resolve child abuse problem and generate new meanings of parent-child relationship during therapy through therapeutic dialogical conversation. Using coding and theme analysis of the selected transcribed discourses of three therapy sessions of 1, 6, and 12 demonstrated the significant changes in client’s belief system of physical child abuse problem, the descriptive process of the problem, and the parental coercive behavior, as well as the nature of practice context. Both qualitative coding and theme analysis methods confirmed client’s communicative multiple meaning construction and the usefulness of therapeutic dialogical conversation with a Korean Immigrant family as an ethnic-cultural minority involving child abuse problem.
Implications for social work practice, policy, and research are presented. Recommendation for further research includes the suggestions for within-case analysis with whole twelve sessions, as well as for cross-case analysis with more specificity of client type. This may enhance validity and reliability, reassuring that the events and processes in one well-described setting are trustful and not wholly idiosyncratic. This study continued the social work legacy of evaluative practice and contextual client perspective in helping ethnic specific minority clients resolve cultural-linguistic dissonance and construct confident-communicative multiple meanings about serious social problem, such as physical child abuse.
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the proposed study is to explore and describe the linguistic-relational dissolution process by which 1) problem with physical child abuse can be resolved and 2) a new relationship meaning about parent-child can be generated for child protective services (CPS) referred Korean immigrant clients through therapeutic dialogical conversation from a postmodern multicultural language systems perspective.
According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States (1994), the reports of substantiated child maltreatment in Asian and Pacific Islanders has continuing increased from 1990 (6,408) to 1992 (8,007). Since the 1980s, Korean immigrant families have begun to find themselves perceiving their child maltreatment, especially physical child abuse (Song, 1986; Ahn, 1990; Lee, 1991), as very serious and participating in child protective services (CPS) involved the physical child abuse problems. These CPS Korean immigrant clients have encountered cultural-linguistic
dissonance in therapy processes. Two primary complications which often impede self-agency and empowerment with Korean immigrant clients are conflicting interpretation and disjunction. First, the discrete stories or narratives by child welfare and mental health professionals, which encapsulate Korean clients' experiences of physical child abuse problem in the United States are
often interpreted and described in conflicting ways as they do not sufficiently represent the lived experiences of actual events including physical child abuse. Second, under these circumstances, the significant and vital aspects of Korean immigrant clients' lived experiences of the child abuse contradict and do not reflect the dominant narratives/voices of the service providers.
The study has evolved from the author's interest in the interface and integration of child welfare policy, its implementing effects, child abuse theory and practice, and the lived experiences of Korean immigrant families involving physical child abuse problems.
In the postmodern spirit of the 1990s, a family member's experience of therapy might be one of a collaborative and empowering venture, with a solution evolving naturally out of the dialogical conversation, rather than monological and being prescribed or directed (Anderson, 1997; Anderson & Goolishian, 1988, 1991; Anderson, Goolishian & Winderman, 1986; Goolishian, 1990; Goolishian & Anderson, 1987).
The narrative/constructivist or postmodern movement of the 1990s has challenged the limitation of the modern approaches their epistemologies. The physical, cybernetic, biological, and sociological epistemologies that inform our clinical field have been criticized for their limitations
( Anderson, 1987, 1991, 1995, 1997; Anderson & Goolishian, 1988, 1991; Atkinson & Heath, 1990; Cecchin, 1987; Chessick, 1990; Dell & Goolishian, 1981; de Shazer, 1985; Flax, 1990; Gergen, 1982, 1985, 1991, 1994; Gergen, Hoffman, & Anderson, 1995; Hoffman, 1993, Kleinman, 1986, 1988; McNamee & Gergen, 1992; Sampson, 1981; Shotter, 1993; Watzlawick, 1976, 1984; White & Epston, 1990). It concerns much more to being a person than having a few oversimplified, characteristic ways of behaving. Postmodernism is concerned with the person in a situation and a variety of meanings which are depending on the situational and linguistic context. Accordingly, the rapid shift to an epistemology of the semantic and narrative results in a more hermeneutic and interpretive position regarding the data of the child welfare field, instead of dichotomizing child abuse as a disease.
The author argues that the current therapeutic culture involves the realities of multiple therapeutic systems with an emphasis on pathologizing, victimizing, and authoritative or interventive focuses. Therapeutic language within the discourse is a deficiency-based language and is often assumed to represent behavior and mental reality accurately (Anderson, 1997).
From the vantage point of cultural-linguistic dissonance, the current CPS delivery system needs to be critically examined for its counter-therapeutic effect among court-mandated cases of diverse cultural background (Aldebimpe, 1981; Billingsley & Giovannoni, 1972; Jonsson, 1994). Furthermore, Song (1986) suggested that existing child welfare service networks have not reached out to the Korean American community. Knowledge of preventive strategies to reduce the risk of child abuse is important, as is the ability to assist marginalized Korean clients in negotiating "multiple perspectives and accepting the relativity of meaning itself...in the relational context in which behavior is situated" (Gergen & Kaye, 1992, p. 183).
Thus there has been an ongoing need for an alternative conceptual framework that informs a therapy moving from a hierarchical to a horizontal, egalitarian, and collaborative effort to understand the therapeutic process more richly (Anderson, 1997, Anderson & Goolishain, 1986, 1991; Goolishian & Anderson, 1987, 1990, Goolishian, 1990). A postmodern collaborative narrative approach to therapy highlights the socially created meanings and narratives. It also helps to define our identities in terms of organizing and coordinating our mutual social behavior. This approach will help to understand the client's construct system and semantic meaning of child abuse problems, and to articulate the lived experience of child abuse. This also involves understanding of the way that clients relate and respond to each other in their every day lives in a world of events. And in working with CPS Korean immigrant families, it also will facilitate therapy process and relationship to create/recreate meanings and understanding and construct/reconstruct realities and self with a sense of freedom or feeling of hope (Anderson, 1997).
Several questions are raised here in pursuing the understanding of the dialogical conversation for new meaning creation from a postmodern multiple reality perspective. What makes therapy work for Korean immigrant clients coming from a culture whose cultural pattern of harsh physical punishment is often practiced and not the word of child abuse exist? What aspects of the therapeutic process enhance the possibilities for generating adaptive meaning and action relating to physical child abuse by CPS Korean immigrant families? This study will examine the usefulness of a collaborative narrative approach to therapy with CPS Korean immigrant clients.
Significance of the Study
This study is viewed as significant for several reasons. First, the absence of the empirical studies in Korean physical child abuse by use of qualitative methods, particularly from the interpretive/narrative perspectives makes this study timely. Such a model has not been tested with ethnic CPS families. Since no process studies using qualitative methods with the targeted population such as Korean have been conducted, this study will fill the gap in the empirical literature. Second, ethnic specific practice knowledge is in great demand for both prevention and treatment processes, to assist in negotiating multiple realities with the aim creating multiple meanings and shared understanding without threatening their integrity when working with CPS minority clients. Third, this study will make a significant contribution to the field of ethnically specific family violence study to advance the therapeutic process.