Karen S. Myers-Bowman

• Kansas State University

One source of cultural messages for adolescents is the novel. According to Reader Response theory, readers interact with the text to construct meaning. This process makes novels an effective tool for facilitating parent-child communication. The current qualitative study examined the parent-child relationships portrayed in The Twilight Saga. Five th...

Abstract Globally more women have been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS and are more likely to be stigmatized than men, especially in male-dominant societies. However, gender differences in the experience of HIV-related stigma have not been extensively explored. Researchers explore the gender differences in HIV/AIDS-related stigma experiences here. Intervie...

Many scholars have defined family life education (FLE), and some have differentiated it from other family-related fields. For example, Doherty (1995) provided a definition of the boundaries between FLE and family therapy; however, we believe those criteria can be improved. We explore the professions of family life education, family therapy, and fam...

The current study focuses on data collected from children in the United States shortly after the Yugoslavia-NATO conflict. Fifty-six children in two Midwestern states were asked to draw a picture of peace and a picture of war. Two major themes, peace as interpersonal interactions and peace as negative peace, emerged from the qualitative analysis of...

Despite the increase of research with military families, less is known about the experiences of those parents who have adult children deployed overseas for military operations. This article presents parents’ experiences of having adult children deployed to combat zones. Qualitative data were gathered through an Internet-based survey during 2010. An...

This qualitative investigation explores the experiences of both children who were physically restrained in a juvenile facility and that of the adult professionals who restrained them. Among the major themes identified were the rationalizations of safety and noncompliance for restraint use by the adults. Children associated fear, anger, and retrauma...

Early childhood educators are in a unique position to provide peace education to young children and have been called to do so by their professional organizations. This article is intended to support early childhood educators in these endeavors by providing an overview of young children’s conceptions of peace, war, and peacemaking strategies. In add...

This article presents children’s descriptions of peace and war from two very different sociocultural environments: Belgrade, Yugoslavia, and the midwestern United States. Interviews were conducted shortly after the 1999–2000 NATO-Yugoslavian active conflict; therefore, one meaningful contrast between these two contexts is the exposure these childre...

Despite the apparent ease and regularity with which adults label individuals and groups as "the enemy," little is known regarding how children understand this concept. The current qualitative study examined the concept of enemy as understood by 105 3- to 12-yr.-old children from two sides of an international conflict--Yugoslavia and the United Stat...

Describes a content analysis of sexually explicit Internet material at three times (1995, 1996, and 1998), which found that material became more explicit between 1995 and 1996 but declined somewhat between 1996 and 1998 and that these sites had no barriers to access. Addresses implications for family-life educators. (SK)