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Multiculturalism and Social Work | San Francisco State University

Ethnicity and hope in children.
Author: Callahan, Barbara Miller
Author Background: U Kansas, US
Date 7/2000
Type Dissertation
Journal Title: Dissertation-Abstracts-International:-Section-B:-The-Sciences-and-Engineering
Volume/Pages Vol 61(1-B): 523
Publisher
Subject Matter Research, Gender, Racial and Ethnic Differences, Childhood; School-Age; Adolescence, African American, Latinos, Native Americans
Population
Pedagogies
Abstract This study examined the levels of hope in children from African American, Caucasian, Hispanic, and Native American groups. Asian American and Multi-ethnic groups were dropped from the study because of low numbers. The study included 1122 students who were grouped into four categories according to their grade level. The 377 Primary School students were administered the Young Children's Hope Scale developed by McDermott and Snyder (1996). The Children's Hope Scale developed by Snyder et al., (1991) was administered to the 745 students comprising the Intermediate, Middle, and High School groups. These scales consist of two factors, Agency Hope and Pathways Hope, which combine to create a Total Hope score. To analyze the Primary level data, a One-Way ANOVA was used. For the Intermediate, Middle, and High School groupings, MANOVA analyses were conducted for the Agency and Pathways Hope scales and a Simple Factorial Analysis was used to analyze the Total Hope data. Homogeneity of variance and post hoc Scheffe and Tukey HSD tests were run on all data. Analyses compared ethnic groups and gender groups at the four levels. At the Primary School level, no significant differences were found for ethnicity. No significant gender differences were found in the four Level groupings. Significant differences were found between the four ethnic groups on both Agency Hope and Pathways Hope Scale scores at the Intermediate, Middle, and High School levels. African American students reported the highest levels of Agency Hope, Pathways Hope, and Total Hope until the High School level where they dropped to the second and third place. Caucasians reported the highest level of hope at the High School level but consistently reported the second highest level of hope on all three scales prior to that. The Native American population rather consistently reported the third highest level of hope of the four groups. Hispanic students reported the lowest levels of hope across Agency Hope, Pathways Hope, and Total Hope scales and across all four grade levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2000 APA, all rights reserved)
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