A study of semi-institutional and foster home placement in the social adjustment of adolescent girls: An evaluation of the social adjustment of twenty-six adolescent girls living in Amaranth Home and Helen Louise Home and of twenty-six girls living in foster homes known to the Children’s Protective Association in 1940
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A STUDY OP SEMI-INSTITUTIONAL AND POSTER HOME PLACEMENT IN THE SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT OF ADOLESCENT GIRLS: AN EVALUATION OF THE SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT OP TWENTY-SIX ADOLESCENT GIRLS LIVING IN AMARANTH HOME AND HELEN LOUISE HOME AND OP TWENTY-SIX GIRLS LIVING IN POSTER HOMES KNOWN TO THE CHILDRENfS PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION IN 1940
A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Social Work The University of Southern California
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Social Work
by Prances Jeannette Gunn June 1942'
UMI Number: EP66173
All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.
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Thesis of
F.v.anc.e.s...Jeajma.t.t.e..,.G.urm.....
This thesis, w ritten under the direction of the candidate’s F a c u lty
Com m ittee and approved
hy a ll its members, has been presented to and accepted by the F a c u lty of the G raduate School of Social W o r k in p a r t ia l fu lfilm e n t of the re quirements f o r the degree of
MASTER OF SOCIAL WORK
/
I
T ..
Faculty Committee
(shrtQufLAjTs
1
Dean
TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION...............
1
Statement of
the problem . '...................
1
Purpose of
the s t u d y .......................
1
Scope of the s t u d y ......................... Statement of organization
Into,chapters.
...
3
Review of literature .........................
4
Statement of
procedure .......................
6
Sources of
data.............................
6
Methods of procedure
II.
. . . . .
7
Treatment of findings.........................
9
Definition of terms u s e d .....................
10
DEVELOPMENT OF THREE CHILDREN'S AGENCIES . . . .
19
........
19
Helen Louise Girl's H o m e .....................
24
Children's Bureau of Los Angeles •
Amaranth Home of California................ . III.
2
.
28
SUBSTITUTE HOMES . .
33
MEASUREMENT OF SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT OF ADOLESCENT GIRLS BEFORE PLACEMENT IN
Factors influencing social adjustment........
33
Social history ..............................
35
Environmental history.......................
49
Cultural background..........................
55
H e a l t h ......................................
57
Mental ability ..............................
58
ii CHAPTER
PAGE Adjustment to previous home.................. .
59
Previous placements................................ 61 IV.
THE GIRLfS SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT IN SUBSTITUTE HOMES . The placement process.
. . . . . . .............
68 68 74
Social adjustment.................
H o m e ..................... .. ..................... 75 Personal factors ..............................
80
R e c r e a t i o n .......................................83 Cultural level
............................ 83
S c h o o l ........................................ Work habits.
84
.................................. 85
Adjustment to social conventions. . . . . . .
86
Social level ..................................
86
Sexual level ..................................
88
Emotional level. .
............................ 91
Balancing factors................................ 92 Adjustment to substitute home................. . 9 2 V.
CASE MATERIAL ILLUSTRATING SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT . . .
95
Girls displaying socially satisfactory adjustment ........
. . . . . . .
...........
96
Quiet, ,ftoo good” girls........................... 107 Girls expressing their difficulty in adjustment. by open c o n f l i c t ............................... 113 Delinquent or psychotic girls.....................119
iii CHAPTER VI.
PAGE
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING POSTER HOME AND SEMI-INSTITUTIONAL HOME PLACEMENTS FOR ADOLESCENT G I R L S ..............................
BIBLIOGRAPHY APPENDIX . . ............
122 134
. .
139
LIST OP TABLES TABLE I.
PAGE Relationship of Ages of Girls Among Types of Placement'.........................
II.
38
Relationship "between Size of Family, Ordinal 40
Place and Age of Girls Studied.............. III.
Relationship between Housing and Adjustment of Fifty-one Girls before and after placement.
IV.
. •
51
Relationship between Reason for Girl’s Separation from Her Own Home and Her Adjustment to Her Substitute Home . . .
V.
..............
59
Reason for Choice of Particular Substitute Home for Girl’s Placement.........................
VI.
71
Comparison of the Social Adjustment Girls Made to their Homes before Placement to the Social Adjustment Girls Made to Substitute Homes . . .
VII.
79
Relationship between Social Adjustment Displayed in School before Placement and Social Adjust** ment Displayed in School after Placement as Shown By Girls Studied.......................
VIII.
Personality Characteristics of Girls Studied.
IX.
Relationship between Age of Girls Studied and
90 ••
Degree of Maturity they Displayed in their Substitute Homes.............................. 101
97
TABLE X.
PAGE Correlation between Social Adjustment of Girls ■ to Substitute Homes and to the Factors studied .............
XI.
. . . . . . . . . . . .
106
Grouping of Girls Acc.ording to their General Social Adjustment In their Substitute Homes .
112
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A study was made of fifty-two adolescent girls between the ages of twelve and twenty years who were living in sub« stitute homes during the year, January 1, 1940 to December 31, 1940.
This included twenty-six girls in foster home
placements known to the C h i l drens Bureau of Los Angeles and twenty-six girls in semi-institutional placements; namely, thirteen in the Helen Louise Girlrs Home of Los Angeles and thirteen in the Amaranth Home of California in Santa Monica* The study was made to determine the degree of social adjust ment effected by these girls in their substitute home place ments. THE STATEMENT OP THE PROBLEM Purpose of the study*
Placement of adolescents in sub
stitute homes is necessarily a delicate operation.
The
adolescent period is notably one of ambivalence, childhood and ^adulthood both pulling at the personality, trying for supremacy.
The adolescent needs a sense of security that
only belonging to someone and having that person dependent upon him to a degree can give him.
The choice of a home of
which he may become an integral part is extremely important to his ultimate growth from the dependent child he once was
2 to the independent adult he is to become.
If placement in
substitute homes is to be satisfactory to the adolescent, a study of the types of homes being used and their role in the social adjustment of the young people placed in them should be significant*. The intention of this study is: (1) to describe the girl and her background as she was before she was placed in the substitute home in which she was observed for this study; (2)
to point out the reasons behind the choice of the parti
cular home in which she was placed;
(3) to determine the
social adjustment of the girl in her specific substitute home; and (4) to draw conclusions concerning the factors which are important in the choice of a suitable home for the adolescent girl.
In setting forth this material, it is
hoped that guides to the choice of the semi-institution or of the foster family specializing in the care of the adoles cent girl may be more clearly determined than they have been in the past. Scope of the study.
All of the adolescent girls placed
in foster homes by the Children*s Bureau of Los Angeles, thirteen of the sixteen girls at Amaranth Home, and thirteen of the twenty-two girls at Helen Louise Home were studied. This includes the major portion of Protestant adolescent girls placed in substitute homes by private agencies in the
3 Los Angeles Community Chest area in 1940*‘ STATEMENT OP ORGANIZATION INTO CHAPTERS Chapter I Is devoted to a statement of the problem and the procedure utilized in studying the problem.
As an in
troduction to the problem of substitute home placement, Chapter II includes short histories of each of the agencies from which case material was gathered (the Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles, Helen Louise Home and Amaranth Home) with a brief statement of their intake policies.
The criteria for
measuring the social adjustment of adolescent girls is dis cussed in Chapter III, especially as they relate to areas for measuring social adjustment.
These areas include the
home, school, recreation, work and habits formed, factors influencing the social adjustment of the girl, such as her parents’ attitudes and treatment and the reason for separa tion from her own home, her environmental history, the social distance between her present and past history, her health, her mental ability, and her present resources in the foster home, recreation and school.
An analysis of the social
adjustment of the fifty-two adolescent girls studied as measured by these criteria is then presented.
Chapter IV,
discusses the grouping of the girls into broad classifica tions as to their social adjustment in the substitute homes in which they were placed during 1940.
The last chapter,
4c
Chapter V, deals with a general consideration of the social adjustment of adolescent girls when placed in foster homes and in semi-institutional homes as illustrated by the above studies; and a prognosis is' attempted for foster homes and semi-institutions with an evaluation of their uses for place*ment of adolescent girls, REVIEW OP LITERATURE Much has been written on the psychology of the adoles cent girl, her behavior, and the treatment of her behavior problems.
There is also considerable information to be found
about foster family home and institutional placement of children in general but little relating directly to the adolescent.
Several brief articles have been written on the
comparative advantages and disadvantages of institutional and foster family home placement of children in general, these having been published chiefly during the period in the history of child placing when the emphasis was being shifted from the traditional institutional placement to the newer field of foster home care.
For the most part these articles deal with
the more superficial aspects of such placements, some defend ing the institutions on the grounds that they are more effi cient, the cost is less per capita for the care of a child and fewer staff members need to be employed so that each can be more highly trained.
There is also some discussion of the
fact that each child would have contact with a larger group of interested adults, giving him more choice in finding a person in whom he could confide.
This point of view has
"been presented by R. R. Williams, "Effects on Personality and Social Attitudes of Institutional Placement, "•*- and by S. Langer, "Developing Parental Relationships in an Institu tion".^
Advocating the foster family home movement to the
exclusion of practically all institutional care for children are two articles by Henry Dwight Chapin, "Homes or Institu tions ?,,s and "Family Vs. Institution"^ and an article by Elizabeth Bissell, "Effects of Foster Home Placement"*5 More recently a study, "Foster Home and Group Place ment",® has been made, which discusses the problem of pl§ce
R* R. Williams, "Effects on Personality and Social Attitudes of Institutional Placement", National Conference of Social Work Proceedings, 1928. p* 231. ® S. Langer, "Developing Parental Relationships in an Institution", National Conference of Social .Work Proceedings, 1929, p. 142. 5 Henry Dwight Chapin, "Homes or Institutions?", Review of Reviews, 80:49, July, 1929* 4 Henry Dwight Chapin, "Family Vs. Institution", Survey, 55:485, January 15, 1926. . ® Elizabeth Bissell, "Effects of Foster Home Placements" National Conference of Social Work Proceedings, 1928:238. ® "Foster Home and Group Placement", American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, July, 1940.
6 ment in general and concludes that both foster homes and institutions have a place in the total child placing program* A paper, “Poster Home Placement of Older Children11,7 was given at the Mid-western Regional Conference of the Child Welfare League of America in.Chicago in April, 1939 wherein Hyman Lippman set up some criteria for foster homes for children beyond the age of ten.
However, no material has been found
which bears directly on the semi-institutional or the foster family home placement of the adolescent girl* STATEMENT OF PROCEDURE Sources of data*
Most of the data concerning the
fifty-two adolescent girls in substitute homes in 1940 who were observed for this study, were secured from the case histories kept by the Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles, Helen Louise Girl’s Home, and Amaranth Home.
As has been
stated there is very little literature with direct bearing on the subject, so most of the material in the thesis is based on original investigation. The Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles keeps complete social records of each individual under their care, which gives a narrative history of their contact with the family.
7
Hyman S. Lippman, Foster Home Placement of Older Children. Child Welfare League of America pamphlet, January, 1940.
7 These records were opened to the writer, and in several in stances the case worker discussed the girl with the writer, and gave much valuable information not contained in the re cord. The Helen Louise Girl*s Home is administered under the auspices of the Church Federation of Los Angeles, Division of Social Service.
The Girls1 Department keeps a record of
each girl placed in the Home which gives the social history of the girl prior to the time she was placed and many of her present problems.
The assistant to the house mother at the
Home was very helpful in supplementing this material.
The
records of girls placed there by the Children1s Bureau were available from that agency. The Amaranth Home of California does not keep written records of the progress of girls in their home, but the matron and admissions supervisor gave very complete informa tion concerning the girls and the home.
From the Children*s
Bureau of Los Angeles records were available of the girls they place at the Amaranth Home. Method of procedure.
From all available records in
formation concerning each girl was collected on a schedule.®
® See Appendix, Outline for Study of Case Histories, P*
8 The information thus acquired might he classified under the general headings, personal information, the girl’s social history, information on the girlfs social adjustment to placement, and the prognosis for the girl’s future adjust ment to life as seen by the case worker.
In the area of
personal information, data concerning the composition of the girl’s family as to age, marital status, customary occupa tion, and other such factual material; an analysis of the girl’s personal appearance, and her state of health were in cluded.
The social history of the girl included her environ
mental history, cultural background, adjustment to her pre vious home, and the reason for which she was placed in the particular substitute home in which she was studied.
In
formation on her social adjustment reached Into her personal ity adjustment, her mental level, adjustment to school life, work habits, emotional level, adjustment to her sexual life, adjustment to conventions, her social level, recreational level, her adjustment to her present home, and a classifica tion as to her general social adjustment.
This classifica
tion, necessarily extremely broad in concept, includes (1) the girl displaying socially satisfactory adjustment, ’’too good” girl,
(2) the
(3) the girl expressing her difficulties by
open conflict, and (4) the delinquent or psychotic girl.
To
facilitate the use of records in this study, each girl was given a fictitious name by which she is designated throughout
the study. TREATMENT OP FINDINGS This study is primarily descriptive in nature “based upon a rather full analysis of the factors influencing the social- adjustment of the fifty-two adolescent girls con sidered.
The findings from this analysis are therefore also
descriptive in nature.
They picture the factors which were
influential in determining the social adjustment.of the girl and the background out of which grew the situation in which ^she was studied.
An;.analytic study is necessarily a detail
ed one, in which each individual is closely viewed.
There
fore, much detailed information was collected about each girl which could not fairly be rigidly classified.
For this
reason, the findings are for the most part not statistical but rather sketch individual problems in adjustment. Due to the nature of the study and the number of adolescent girls for whom placement was desired in the Los Angeles Community Chest area, the number‘of cases available was limited.
Therefore the statistical findings do not
possess a validity on which to base conclusions regarding all adolescent girls placed in substitute homes.
Since the
major portion of all non-Catholic, non-Jewish girls placed in foster homes and semi-institutions in the Los Angeles Community Chest Area in 1940 were studied, these figures can
10 answer for that group, hut no other.
To make a valid
statistical study of this problem girls of all religious faiths living in a wider geographical area .-would have to be covered.
In one community there is not a large enough group
of adolescents placed in comparable foster and semi-institutional homes at one time to warrant drawing valid statistical conclusions. DEFINITION OF TERMS USED An Adolescent is a youth during the period of his life between puberty and maturity, usually considered to be the period from fourteen to twenty-five years of age in a male and from twelve to twenty-one years of age in a female. Substitute home is any home in which a child Is placed away from his own home, be it a family home or institution, a temporary or permanent relationship.
It involves a new
set of emotional ties for the child, another parental re lationship, another family situation. 4 foster home, for use in this study, is the home of an established family in which a child is placed, his board being paid by his own family, relatives, or some other donor. In reality, it is a boarding home in which special emphasis is placed upon the forming of family relationships and emotional ties as if it were his own home.
It is one form
11 of substitute home and in California is licensed by the State Department of Social Welfare... An Institution is a substitute home, characterized by congregate living for a group of children.
This type of
home has only the framework of family life and does not usually provide a complete family situation*
It is operated
by an administrative staff and has a house mother and some times a house father, for a large group of children, all of whom are living at the home.
Some institutions are more
concerned than others with approximating home life for the children placed there, and divide the group of children into smaller groups which live in separate cottages, each having a house mother and sometimes a house father.-
An institution
in California is a corporation to care for children licensed by the State Department of Social Welfare for that purpose. A Semi-Institution is a substitute home for a small group (approximately twenty-five or less) of children living together.
As used in this study, a:home for a group of non
delinquent, adolescent girls constitutes a semi-institution. Such a home is characterized by congregate living and may resemble a cottage unit of a large institution.
There is a
house mother in charge, and a mother-child relationship may exist between the house mother and the children living in the home.
Semi-institutions are licensed, like Institutions,
12 by the State Department of Social Welfare. Social adjustment is a process wherein an individual comes into contact with other persons or groups of-persons and develops relationships with them and attitudes towards himself.
The extent to which one is able to make positive
adjustment and avoid maladjustment is dependent upon the degree'of wholesome integration of the personality that the individual has achieved.^
Through his contacts with other
people, through self expression in working at a task he thinks important, his way of meeting situations is influenced and developed.
The social adjustment the individual makes
in life is the measurement of his inner resources and his ability to discover and utilize with a measure of integra tion the resources available to him. Satisfactory social adjustment#
A satisfactory social
adjustment is one denoting the individual’s ability to meet his environment unafraid and squarely, neither shrinking from it nor underestimating it, but having a positive and realistic attitude toward it. -The various areas in which the girls are considered in this study, are combined in determining their total social adjustment.
9 York:
If the girl
William H. Burnham, The Wholesome Personality, (New D. Appleton and Company, 1932), pp. 435-6.
15 loves the members of her family, treats them with respect, yet is not over-awed by them (that is, her own personality does not shrink when she is with them) she is said to have made a satisfactory social adjustment in her home.
In per
sonal factors (including her general appearance, cleanliness, mode of dress and its importance to her, her poise, conver sation, daydreaming, and the strength of her drive for inde pendence and self-expression), if she achieves status and is socially acceptable in the group with which she lives and associates, she has a satisfactory social adjustment in that area for the purposes of this study.
In the area of
recreation, if she has a balance between individual and group, indoor and outdoor activity, is able to initiate play and yet can cooperate when others have suggested it, she is said to have made a satisfactory adjustment in her recreation.
Use of her leisure time in constructive pur
suits, and good use of English and discriminating choice of reading matter, moving pictures, and radio programs point to a satisfactory cultural level.
If she has made average
or better than average grades in school, participates in school activities and makes friends there, likes school and has a good attendance record, for use in this study, she has made a satisfactory adjustment to school.
Satisfactory work
habits are denoted by prompt, consistent completion of work, neatness, and a steady tempo in her work.
The social con
14 ventions considered to be satisfactory in this study are truthfulness, modesty, conscientiousness, a respect for the rights and reputation of others, and an ability to conform to .regulations• In determining a satisfactory adjustment to her social level, the girl should be able to get along with both indi viduals and groups, have at least several friends, most of whom are near her own age, and have a few friends from the home where she lived before her placement in which she was studied, especially if she has lived in the latter less than a year*
Her personality characteristics, such as tactfulness,
cooperativeness, independence, sense of fun and honesty are evaluated*
A satisfactory sexual level for the girls in this
study is one in which the girl has no known maladjustments or has expressed no problems such as an inability to accept guidance in that area by the person responsible for her well being*
Girls over sixteen who have developed no friends
among boys are not considered to have made a satisfactory adjustment in their sexual lives*
A satisfactory emotional
level for the girls studied includes.an ability to take criticism with a constructive attitude, to be consistent in making decisions, to have satisfying emotional ties and to have constructive and varied balancing factors in their lives*
15 Poor social adjustment Is one In which the individual is In conflict with other people, shows delinquent (anti social) tendencies, or in which other people’s opinions are over-important to him coloring his attitudes and actions to a degree which keeps him from making his own decisions.
The
total social adjustment of the girl is based upon her adjust ment to the various areas of her life.
For the girls studied,
a poor adjustment to the girl’s home is one in which she is in conflict with the members of her family, withdraws from her home situation or has made her home attachments overimportant in her life, these attachments becoming the major part of her Interest in life and distracting from her in terest in school, recreation, or social life.
The girl
adjusting poorly In personal factors may be careless or bold in her personal appearance, uncleanly or over-clean, she may worry continuously about her clothes or take no interest in them, she may have little or no poise and may daydream to the extent that daydreaming takes the place of real situa tions for her; or she may have an extremely strong or ex tremely weak drive for independence or self-expression.
A
poor recreational level is one in which the girl has little recreation or is completely absorbed in it, does not know what to do with her leisure time, likes Individual or group recreation exclusively, or shows no leadership or is domineer ing.
A poor cultural level for the girls studied includes
16 poor use of English or much slang, indiscriminate or little reading, an excessive interest or no interest in moving pictures and radio programs.
If the girl dislikes school or
it is so absorbing an area in her life that it is detrimental, - to her other activities, if she is over-studious or will not study at all, if she takes no interest in the activities at school or takes so much interest in them that her academic work suffers, or if she makes no friends in school or her school friends are over-important to her, becoming her main interest in school, she is said to have made a poor adjust ment in school.
In her 'work, if she is extremely inconsist**
ent and irregular or procrastinates with the major part of her work, she is area.
said to be making a poor adjustment in that
If she is not truthful, modest, or conscientious or
is over-modest or over-conscientious, worrying about these factors or if she does not respect the rights and reputation of others or cannot conform to regulations, she is said to have made a poor
adjustment to the social conventions.
Her
social level is poor if she has few friends of her own age or has so many friends and is so interested in them and J their activities that she feels^driveito be with them at all times.
If she is described by several of the personality
characteristics:
quarrelsome, boisterous, deceitful, sus
picious, withdrawn, domineering, irresponsible, excitable, sensuous or defiant, she is said to have maintained a poor
17 social level.
A girl over sixteen who has no friends among
boys, the girl who asks so many questions about sex that it shows she is interested in that area to the exclusion of others, or the girl with known sexual 'maladjustments is said to have made a poor adjustment to that area of her life. The girl who cries when criticized or ignores the criticism, is inconsistent in her decisions, or has no emotional ties or activities to give her balance at times of emotional stress, is said to have made a poor emotional adjustment. Personal factors'are the organization of the individual^ inherent qualities, physical condition, habits and ideas into the behavior pattern with which he meet3 his environ** ment • Social factors denote the human relationship which the individual has because he is a participating member of the various groups which make up society.
These factors develop
out of his contact with others, are not inherent in him nor imposed upon him by outside forces. Environmental factors are the conditions, influences, and forces which surround the individual. - All the persons, objects, and situations, material and non-material, with which he comes in contact and which influence his life are a part of his environment.
18 Middle class families, for use in this study are those who feel little financial strain for necessities but do not have enough money to buy luxuries.
They have available the
average cultural facilities -- school, current literature, periodicals, motion picture theatres, et cetera —
and have
enough money to take advantage of them to a moderate degree. Low income is a term which includes those families whose emotional and physical lives are colored by the strain of lack of money to meet more than the bare necessities of life—
shelter, food, and clothing.
To take advantage of
any other aspects of living is to deny themselves of these necessities.
They are financially independent as far as
-supplying the above necessities is concerned, but when ill ness, unemployment or other emergencies arise, they must de pend upon others to aid them in meeting the added expenses.
CHAPTER II THE DEVELOPMENT OP THREE CHILDREN’S AGENCIES Brief histories of the Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles (formerly the Children’s Protective Association), Helen Louise Home and the Amaranth Home of California are o
presented here to give the background out of which this study grows.
The development of children in certain sub
stitute homes must color the treatment of other children placed in those homes.
The policies of agencies determine
the facilities available to a particular child and determine his introduction to them.
The agency’s ability to interpret
the new situation to the child and to prepare him for change affects his reaction to a new experience. CHILDREN'S BUREAU OF LOS ANGELES1 The Children’s Bureau of Los Angeles had its beginning in 1906 as the Juvenile Court Committee, and in 1909 was in corporated into the Juvenile Improvement Association.
It v/as
a private or voluntary agency, governed by a self-perpetrat ing board of directors.
During this period it took an active
part in the enactment of child labor and protective legisla tion for children.
In 1912 it became incorporated as the
^ Ten Years of Promoting the Welfare of Children 19251935, (Children’s Protective Association, 2824 Hyans Street, Los Angeles, California, 1935). 37 pp.
20
Juvenile Protective Association, and working in close connec tion with the Juvenile Court for the next fourteen years, it assisted in attempting to eradicate conditions in the com munity harmful to children.
The staff was limited in number
and carried few cases, mainly those of children needing pro tection from neglect and abuse.
In 1924, when the Community
Chest was organized, the Association was requested -to en large its facilities and to develop a general child care ser vice.
Intensive case work was provided for children present
ing behavior problems, for unmarried mothers and their babies, and for protection of children from neglect, abuse, and un fit guardianship.
Because the Catholic and Jewish agencies
wished to care for their own children as soon as they could develop their services sufficiently, the field of this Association was limited to non-Catholic, non-Jewish boys and girls up to sixteen years of age.
The capacity of the staff
adequately to meet the needs of children, limited the terri tory covered.
Policies of cooperation were established with
other social 'agencies in the community to prevent duplica tion of services and to develop a more complete program of • services for the community. The child placing department was first organized in October of 1925.
At that time the Association was licensed
by the State Department of Public Welfare as a child placing agency, and was authorized to place children in foster board
21
ing homes.
The Association, cooperating with the Nursing
Division of the City Health Department, made social inves tigations of all non-Catholic, non-Jewish applications for permits to board children, and help to establish standards for suitable foster-boarding homes and,to reduce the number of those run primarily for financial gain.
Through the
cooperation of the Superintendent of the Los Angeles Schools, principals and teachers were urged to cooperate with the licensed child placing agencies instead of finding homes for children on their own initiative, without subsequent super vision.
Because of lack of funds in 1931 the Nursing Divi
sion of the City Health Department could no longer investi gate applications for permits to board children.
Therefore
the State Department of Social Welfare asked its licensed child placing agencies to accept this responsibility.
The
Association undertook this task with respect to non-Catholic, non-Jewish applications.
These foster homes are used not
only by this agency for the placement of its children, but also by the Child Placing Department of the Child Welfare Division of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Assistance for their wards. In December, 1928, the Association again changed its name, becoming the Children1s Protective Association in order to make clear to the community its true function. word ‘'Juvenile11 had become confusing to both clients and
The
22
public, connoting an authority not possessed because the public associated its name with those of the Juvenile De partment of the Crime Prevention Bureau of the Police De partment, Juvenile Hall, and-the Juvenile Court.
In 1941,
the Association again found it necessary to clarify its function to the community through a change of name, this time to eliminate the false impression of authority implied in the word, "Protective” , and became the C h i l d r e n s Bureau of Los Angeles. During the ten years of service given to the community by the Children’s Bureau between 1925 and 1935, twenty-eight per cent of the applications for placement of children out side of their own homes in the Los Angeles Community Chest Area were made to the Association, about one-third of which were accepted by the agency for placement.
It is interest
ing to note that over three-quarters of the children placed came from homes broken by death, divorce, separation, or desertion of one or both parents; over fifteen per cent were children of unmarried mothers; and only a little over eight per cent were children from established homes.
This bears
out a widespread belief that a breakdown in family life radically changes the child’s pattern of living and brings children to social agencies for the protection and guidance that a family gives under normal conditions.
It is also in
teresting to note that all but ten and a half per cent were
23 under high school age.
The adolescent group has been steadily
increasing as children between sixteen and eighteen years of age are less able to obtain employment and become self-sup porting.
More and more of these adolescents must be aided
by social agencies to continue their education until they are at- least eighteen years of age. The Children’s Bureau’s policy for placement of children established by the Board of Directors with the advice of the staff, is as follows: The Children’s Bureau believes every child’s place is in his own home, but, unfortunately, this is im possible many times, because the child’s parents are so unable to cope with life that they cannot maintain a home, or the child has developed such attitudes that he can no longer fit into his own group. To find a home, then, that is as nearly as possible as his own should be, is our problem. In order to do this, our first step should be a thorough knowledge of the child’s own family; its history, background, training, personnel, work his tory, health history and standing in the community. It is only by knowing these things that we can un d e r s t a n d the child, and judgel the assets and the liabilities of his own family and its ability to meet its needs in the future. It is only thus that we can justify ourselves in taking the situation with him in his own home has proven futile. The child himself must have equally serious con sideration, his character, personality, friends, in terests, school, and attitudes towards these....... We must know our child, — not merely his behaviour trends. We must know the underlying causes of his actions and attitudes before we can determine that his own home cannot meet his needs; before we can choose a home that will supply what is fundamental to him arid which his own home does not provide for him.
24 The foster family must he able to live up to the best in a child and sympathize with the worst* It must be a family where the child feels at home and a member of the group, but free to develop his own personality, knowing that he will be understood and helped*2 As stated in the BureauTs Intake Policies, one of the types of service rendered is the meeting of ,frequest for foster care placement, except placement for mentally defi cient or psychotic children, who require specially licensed home s •n HELEN LOUISE GIRLS1 HOME ' .The small institution for non-delinquent, Protestant, adolescent girls is rather unique, as few such homes are available to placement agencies*
In Los Angeles and vicinity
there are only two, Helen Louise and Amaranth Homes* The Helen Louise Girls1 Home was founded early in 1937 by Helen Louise Pepperdine (Mrs. George Pepperdine).
The
home is almost entirely financed by the George Pepperdine Foundation, an endowed philathropic organization.
Twenty-
two girls were in the Home at the time of the study*
Parents
2 Ten* Years of Promoting the Welfare of Children 19251935, (Children1s Bureau of Los Angeles), pp. 27-28. This policy was in effect in 1940 and has been confirmed by the Executive Secretary of the agency.
25 pay as much as possible up to twenty-five dollars per month for their daughterTs board, but this does not nearly meet the expenses of the girls.- The Home is under the administra tion of the Social Service Division of the Church Federation of Los Angeles, Girls1 Department. Whereas only non-delinquent, Protestant girls from fourteen years, six months to nineteen years of age may enter, the girls once enrolled are considered permanent residents until their education is completed.
Wherever the
situation warrants it is made possible for a girl to go on to college.
The Home is operated on the basic principle
that uan ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure11.
Its
capacity is twenty-two girls. Observations by case-workers using the Home in the placement of girls over a period of several years show that an efficient resident staff is maintained, consisting of a house mother, her assistant, and two women engaged in doing the housekeeping.
In addition to the resident staff, the
Home employs a woman physician who is in constant attendance,* A,cateress is sometimes called in to teach cooking and serv* %
ing, while a dressmaker occasionally instructs in sewing and clothes design.
An isolation cottage for sick girls is
provided. The girls are required each Sunday to attend some church and Sunday school of their own choosing, while health
26 ful Sunday recreation such as badminton and ping-pong is encouraged for Sunday afternoon and evenings.
The girls are
not allowed to go out with a boy until they are fifteen and then only during weekends. It is the aim of the Home to give each girl the moral and vocational training necessary to face the world before she leaves the Home.
The "Graduates11 of the Home are always
welcome to come back for counsel and advice.
Discharge from
the Home is considered on a case by case basis, no girl be ing sent away until some satisfactory plan is made for her. Only white girls are accepted and preference is given to residents of Los Angeles County.
They must be at least
normally intelligent and not delinquent. delinquents are considered.
Absolutely no sex-
A complete physical examination
is required before placement can be completed.
The only
social worker connected with the Home is from the Girls1 Department of the Division of Social Service of the Church Federation, but girls placed in the home by social agencies licensed to place children in substitute homes may be super vised by the agency placing them. The policies of the Helen Louise Girls1 Home are es tablished by its Board of Directors, a part of the Pepperdine Foundation.
The Girls1 Department of the Division of Social
Service of the Church Federation and the staff of the Home must abide by these policies, but there is a cooperative
27 working relationship between the Board.and. these two parties, the Home and the Church Federation.
Requests for divergence
from established policies and evident need for change in such policies are presented to the Board without reticence and are readily considered, with the final authority resting in the Board of Directors. Through contact with case workers and girls who have
*
known the Helen Louise Girls’ Home over a period of time, it is known that this Home is one in which many adolescent girls find themselves busy and interested.
Their house mother has
no technical training but has for over ten years dealt with adolescent girls.
She is understanding of their problems,
and many of the girls confide in her and show confidence in her judgment by following her suggestions and accepting her criticism constructively.
Her assistant is one of the more
mature girls living in the Home.
She performs the duties of
hostess in the absence of the house mother but in no way acts as a foster mother to the other girls.
She is friendly
and gracious but readily distinguished as one of the girls. Activities within the Home and School seem to claim most of the interest of the girls.
A few of the older girls
have jobs during the summer but most of them have no work except when they occasionally take care of children in the evenings.
The younger girls are not allowed to take jobs
because their activities in school and at home are considered
28 sufficient responsibility for them to carry. An atmosphere of culture and refinement is maintained in this Home,
The house is a remodeled mansion, one on a
street of wealthy homes built in the early 1900*s.
The
grounds of all these homes are beautifully landscaped and give an appearance of financial stability and gracious liv ing,
The Helen Louise Girls1 Home is comfortably and attrac
tively furnished, with good literature and pictures in evi dence in the common living rooms.
For most of the girls
placed here, this type of housing and the atmosphere of the Home are new experiences to which the girls react in varying ways. AMARANTH HOME OF CALIFORNIA The Amaranth Home of California in Santa Monica was founded by a women’s Masonic organization, The Grand Order of the Amaranth, and is operated by them, but the girls ad mitted to the Home do not have to have any connection with the Masonic Lodge,
About one-half of the parents pay from
ten to twenty-five dollars per month for the girls’ board, the additional expenses being carried by the Masonic women. None of the girls are considered as charity cases.
The
money paid by those parents able to contribute goes into a general fund and is not considered as payment for any speci fic girls’ board.
29 The Home accommodates sixteen girls from twelve to eighteen years of age and over.
Any girl who has ever lived
at Amaranth Home is always made to feel that it is her home, and that, if at .any time she has no place to go, she is welcome to stay there temporarily until she can make a satisfactory plan for herself.
Girls who have once lived at
Amaranth Home seem to keep in close touch with the matron by visiting and writing.
Discharge is on a case by case
basis and no girl is released from Amaranth Home without some satisfactory place to go.
Highschool,
junior college,
and college education is available to' every girl in the Home if she desires it. A matron and her assistant are the only members of the resident staff.
Very few medical facilities are offered by
the Home due to the fact that the matron attends the Christian Science Church and all the girls go with her.
Orders given
by family physicians are always carried out to the best of the matron1s ability, however.
No social worker is attached
to the home, the woman attending to admissions being the president of the Board of Directors of the Home, a member of the Grand Order of the Amaranth, and a housewife. .The. two agencies most fequently placing girls in the home, the Children's Bureau of Los Angeles and at times the Juvenile Court, use their own case workers when supervision is felt necessary for the good of the girls they place there.
The
30 majority of the girls living in the Home, however, have been placed there directly by a parent or relative and are under the supervision of no social agency. Girls to be eligible to the home must be residents of Los Angeles County, Protestant, and must not be behavior problems" after placement although they may have had some minor behavior problems before they were placed at the Home. Juvenile Court cases are accepted only when the girl is a. ward of the court for her protection, not when she has com mitted some delinquency.
Most of the girls placed are from
homes broken by death of one parent or divorce.
Usually it
is a father-daughter situation where the father does not believe himself adequate to raise an adolescent girl.
Prac
tically all placements in the home are for a period of years. In 1940 only five girls were admitted to the home.
One girl
was discharged after a residence of seven years. The policies of the Amaranth Home are established partially by the Board of Directors, a group of housewives, and partially through custom determined by the matron of the Home.
The intake policies are mainly the responsibility of
the Board, while the policies concerning the treatment of the Girls in the Home and the management of the Home are left principally to the discernment of the matron.
The division
of responsibility between the matron and Board is not sharply defined, being a matter of convenience rather than a deliber
31 ate plan.
Gradually, as the Home has continued in existence
more responsibility has been voluntarily taken by the matron, until she determines many of the policies of the management in the Home without consultation with the Board or inter ference from them* According to case workers and girls who have known the Home over a long period, the Amaranth Home seems to be a place where adolescent girls who are ready to make a break from their families find contentment.
The girls believe that
they have ample recreation and freedom; particularly those who find life dull in their homes, enjoy the excitement and fun of being with fifteen other girls.
The matron is genuin
ely fond of the girls and they of her, in a wholesome way. She-has had no technical training, but seems to have a common sense and a natural understanding of the girls and their problems.
She thoroughly enjoys the girls at the Home and
is always willing to give any amount of time in talking over their problems and interests with them.
She is positive,
firm, and has a sense of humor and understanding.
The girls
believe that she is fair in dealing with them and has no favorites. It is considered a privilege at the Home to be allowed to take a motherTs helper job in the neighborhood.
Girls
who are over sixteen are allowed to take work-home jobs in Santa Monica during the summer in order that they may earn
32 money for their own clothes, and then they may return to the Home when school opens in the fall.
The matron keeps in
touch with the girls during the summer.
During the winter,
the girls over fourteen are allowed to take jobs on Satur day, or occasionally during the evening, looking after children.
The matron conducts somewhat of an employment
bureau for this purpose.
The girls all seem to accept house
work of this sort as respectable work.
However, as a matter
of discipline, if the girls do not behave themselves or maintain their school work, they are not allowed to take these jobs. The Home seems to be able to help the girls keep a high standard of behavior and reputation in the neighbor hood, without the girls feeling too restricted.
The matron
lets most problems work themselves out by means of group feeling and discipline rather than by imposing authoritative rules on the girls. The Home is pleasant and attractive in its furnishings, and its cultural atmosphere is typical of the middle class of American home, with magazines and books of a popular kind in evidence.
Many of the girls placed here have come from
homes of the same cultural level and have no difficulty accepting the physical setting of their new home.
CHAPTER III MEASUREMENT OF SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT OF ADOLESCENT GIRLS BEFORE PLACEMENT IN SUBSTITUTE HOMES In order to consider the factors which are important to the social adjustment-of the adolescent girl, the various areas important in the lives of adolescent girls must be studied.
To accomplish this purpose, the areas studied have
been divided into factors influencing social adjustment. The statistical findings are not based upon a wide enough group of adolescent girls to be valid for all adolescent girls placed in substitute homes and the sources of these observations are so varied that it is difficult to state the basis for each evaluation.
The data were gathered from
case records of social agencies, interviews with the case workers, the house mothers, and the girls themselves. FACTORS INFLUENCING SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT The period.of adolescence is one in which a child is developed into an adult.
This period is variable in length
and in the age of the child at its onset or beginning.
Some
children manifest the beginnings of adolescence as early as the tenth year, while others show no signs of the onset until they reach the fifteenth or sixteenth year; but these are extremes.
A majority of children show the beginnings of
34 adolescence at twelve, thirteen or fourteen for girls; or at thirteen, fourteen or fifteen for boys.
The terms pub
erty and adolescence are often used apparently interchange ably, but the term puberty is properly applied to the period of three or four years during which a youth becomes thorough ly established in the development and functioning of the sex apparatus.
This period of puberty occupies the first three
or four years of the adolescent period.
Adolescence is a
longer period and includes the three-year period of puberty as well as a four or five year post-puberty period.
The
post-puberty phase of adolescence is devoted to the maturing of physical organs and tissues and the training of their powers.
By the time a young man reaches twenty-five and a
young woman reaches twenty-one years of age we expect them to show full maturity of every organ and of every physical and mental power.
The terms puberty and adolescence are
therefore not synonymous. Among the factors influencing the social adjustment of an individual are found the situations and resources which surround him— his contact with reality.
They are the ele~
ments affecting his life through his contact with them, and are not a part of his personality until after he has made them a part of himself.
When these factors touch the indivi
dual’s own personality and inherent qualities, they influence the manner in which he uses his innate abilities.
They are
35
the experiences which are most vital to the determination of that part of his social adjustment over which he has little control, and which he does not initiate.
They might be
called the causative factors influencing his later social adjustment• In an analysis of these causative factors, it was thought expedient to divide them into several areas; namely, the social history of the girl, her environmental history, her cultural background, the social adjustment she made to the home in which she lived before she was placed in a sub stitute home, the placement process, her health and mental ability, and the resources available to her in her substi tute home at the time this study was made. The social history includes the age of the girl under consideration, the size of the family of which she was a member, the number of people not members of her immediate family which were members of the household, her early treat ment, relationship to members of her family, and her behavior before placement.
These experiences influence the girl Ts
ability to get along with other people socially.
The only
child is a well known and long considered example of the. problem of ability to get along with others.
Because he has
never had to share his belongings or attention In the forma tive days of his life, he often finds it difficult to do so when he is more mature.
People other than the immediate
36
family living within a household may disrupt the child’s sense of possession and privacy, and color his emotional ties to his family.
He may develop a sense of belonging to
a larger group rather than developing family ties, or he may not develop emotional ties to any group whatever* In the group of fifty-two girls who were studied, nine were found to be the only child in the family.
Six of the
nine were placed in foster homes, three because they had needs which could be better met by a foster home than an other type of substitute home, and three by chance.
The
other three girls were placed in semi-institutions by choice because a relative pr friend happened to know about the home, and not because the semi-institution seemed to meet the girl’s need.
These nine girls averaged 14.8 years of age.
Six of them were in good health, eight had normal or superior normal intelligence and were in the grade in school corres ponding normally to their chronological age.
They averaged
2.3 substitute home placements previous to the substitute home in which they were studied and had been living in the substitute home in which they were studied on an average of eleven months.
Six of the girls had been rejected or neglect
ed in early life and three were over-protected by their parents.
At the time they were placed in the substitute
homes in which they were studied, three of the girls showed marked narcissistic behavior and two showed tendencies to
37 withdrawal from people and situations around them. ' Six were rejected by their parents at the time they were placed and seven had broken or were breaking their relationships with their families.
Pour had made satisfactory social adjust
ments in their own homes, while three were in conflict with their own homes.
One girl was a quiet, 11too goodft girl show
ing little individuality, while one girl was delinquent. As far as could be learned, the placement of the fiftytwo girls was not determined so much by their chronological age as by the policies governing the agencies placing the girls in substitute homes.
The Childrenfs Bureau of Los
Angeles cannot accept a case of a child over eighteen years of age.
Helen Louise GirlTs Home is limited to girls from
fourteen years, six months to nineteen years of age.
The
Amaranth Home of California can accept girls only from twelve to eighteen years of age.
This accounts for the fact that
the average age of the girls studied is slightly lower for Amaranth Home then for Helen Louise Home. In Table I we find that the average age of the girls studied at the Helen Louise Home was 16.69 years and at Amaranth 15.46 years, making an average of 16.07 years of age for all twenty-six of the girls studied in semi-institutional home placements.
The average age of the twenty-six
girls in foster homes was 14.23, a figure which is to some degree influenced by the eighteen year age limit set by the
TABLE I RELATIONSHIP OP AGES OP GIRLS TO TYPES OP PLACEMENTS ■Total number or placements Age
Foster Home Placements (Children1s Bureau of Los Angeles
Semi-Institutional Placements Total
Total
52
26
26
12-13
11 18 •18 4
9 11 6
2 7 12 4
14-15 16-17 18-19 Over 19
.1
Helen Louise Girl's Home
Amaranth Home of California
13
1
3 7 2; 1
13 2; 4 5 2
Average age of girls studied at Helen Louise Home
16.69
Average age of girls studied at Amaranth Home of California
15.46
Average age of girls studied in all Semi-institutional Homes
16.07
Average age of girls studied in Poster Homes) (Placed by the Children's Bureau of Los Angeles)
14.23
39 Children*s Bureau and by the restrictions of age limits of the semi-institutional homes.
The range of ages in each
group of girls studied corroborates these findings.
The ages
of the girls in the Helen Louise Home range from fourteen through twenty years old; and in the Amaranth Home, from thirteen through eighteen.
The ages of girls in foster homes
range from twelve through.seventeen years of age.
It is
likely that the foster home group is younger than the semi./ institutional home group due in part probably to the preva lent believe among case workers that a girl should possess a degree of maturity before being placed in a group housing situation.
There is not enough difference in the ages of the
various groups however, to have any significant influence upon the social adjustment of the girls studied. As shown in Table II, there is nothing unusual In the composition of the homes from which the girls come.
There
seems to be little in this area which would cause outstand ing behavior problems. size families, up.
The girls seem to come from average
similar to those in which most children grow
The older girls come from the largest families and are
among the youngest of the children In their families.
The
four eighteen and nineteen year old girls have families averaging 3.5 children and are the third in their families on an average.
Sharon, the twenty year old girl, comes from
a family of five children of which she is the fourth.
The
TABLE II •RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SIZE OF FAMILY, ORDINAL PLACE AND AGE OF GIRLS STUDIED
Age
Number
Average number of children per Family
Average Ordinal Place of Girl In Family Number of only Children Others
Total
52
2.71
9
1.67
12-13 14-15 16-17 18-19 Over 19
11 18 18 4 1
3. 2.06 2.89 3.5 5.
1 5 3 0 0
2.3 1.46 1.93 3. 4.
Average Age of. Girl Studied in Foster Home Average Age of Girl Studied in Semi-institutions Average Age of all Girls Studied Average Number of Children in Families of GirlsStudied in Foster Homes Average Number of children in Families of Girls Studied in Semi institutions Average number of children in families of all Girls studied Average ordinal place of Girls studied in Foster Homes among their siblings (excluding the only child) Average ordinal place of Girls studied ih Semi-institutions among their siblings (excluding the only child) Average ordinal place of all Girls studied among their siblings (excluding the only child)
14.23 16.07 15.15 2.12 2.92 2.71 1.62 1.73 1.67 o
41 The girls younger than eighteen are from families averaging from 2.06 to 3 children per family and the twelve and thir teen year olds are among the younger children in their fami lies, their average ordinal placement being 2.3 as compared to an average of 3 children in their families.
On the whole,
little significant correlation can be noted between the age of the girls studied with their ordinal placement, perhaps because the age range in the study is so limited.
The number
of people other than the girls parents and siblings living in the home was negligible and did little to influence the placement of the girls or their social adjustment. That the way in which the girl was treated in her early life is an influence in her reaction to life situations later is a fact discussed by many psychologists and psychiatrists, notably by Dr. Sigmund Freud.
That twenty-seven, or about
one-half of the girls studied, were neglected or rejected in their early lives by their parents and only four had no discernible mistreatment by their parents when they were young indicates the extent to which the girls had a basis in their early lives upon which later to build an unsatisfactory relationship with the world about them.
At the opposite •
extreme from neglect and rejection are seven girls who were over-protected or dominated by their parents to such a degree that they could not gradually develop anreaction to reality situations but rather met them unprepared when their homes
42 were disrupted toy circumstances, and substitute homes had to toe found for them. Of the neglected or rejected girls, eighteen were plac ed in substitute homes which were selected especially to meet their particular needs.
About one-half of the total, or four
teen, were placed in semi-institutions.
Six o f .the seven
over-protected girls were placed in foster homes, tout only two were so placed consciously because of their needs.
The
girls who were rejected or neglected in early life were slightly older than the over-protected group, averaging 15.2 years of age, as compared with an average of fourteen years for the over-protected girls.
Three, or nearly half of the
girls who were over-protected, were the only children in their families, while only six out of the twenty-seven neglected or rejected girls were only children.
There were fewer children
on an average in the families of the over-protected girls, 1.7 giving the parents more time to devote to each child than in the families of the rejected or neglected girls with their average of 2.9 children per family. The health of the girls in each group was good for over one-half of the girls.
Pour of the five cases of long hos
pitalization (most of which were for tuberculosis) and four of the five cases of mainournishment occurred in the group of girls which were neglected or rejected in their early lives. Over one-half of the girls who were rejected or neglected had
43 normal intelligence*
(I.Q,. from 90 to 110), while the over
protected girls were divided between the extremes of in telligence, four being very superior (120 to 140) and two being dull normal (80 to 90).
Over one-half of both groups
were in the grade in school which was normal for their chronological age, but seven of the ten girls who were re tarded in school were in the rejected or neglected group and two of the four girls who were advanced in school feel into the over-protected group. Twenty-three of the twenty-seven girls who were reject ed and neglected and four of the seven over-protected girls, emotionally were breaking away from their families, conflict ing with or withdrawing from the family group.
Practically
all (twenty-four) of the girls in the group who were neglected or rejected in early life were rejected by their parents at the time they were placed in the substitute homes.
Most of
the behavior problems displayed by the girls in these two groups were narcissism and withdrawal.
Eleven of the reject
ed or neglected girls were narcissistic, six withdrew from most people and situations and all displayed some behavior problem.
Two of the over-protected girls were narcissistic,
three withdrew from life about them, and only one showed no unusual behavior problems.
Both groups averaged slightly
over three placements apiece, the rejected or neglected group, 3.2 and the over-protected group, 3.1.
They each
44 averaged a stay of about a year1s duration in the substitute home in which they were living at the time they were studied, the rejected or neglected group averaging one year, one month and the over-protected girls averaging just one year* Rejected children have an added burden to the already complicated business of living*
They are unwanted, and do
not have the love and affection that brings security into the emotional lives of most people.
Often their parents
neglect or mistreat them, or, if they feel guilty about not loving their children as many do, they are over-demonstra tive in their affections without a real basis in feelings. Of the fifty-two girls studied, thirty-three felt re jected by their parents before they were placed in the sub stitute homes.
About half of these rejected girls were
placed in semi-institutions, as were about half of the girls who were not rejected.
The rejected girls come from slight
ly larger families, averaging 2.5 children per family than those not rejected, averaging 2 children per family.
Only
one of the rejected girls had close family ties at the time she was placed in a substitute home while over one-half of the girls not rejected had close family ties at that time. Pour of the five malnourished girls and four of the five girls who had had to have long periods of hospitalization were rejected by their parents.
The rejection of the girls
by their parents seems to have little correlation with their
45 mental and school level, their age, or the number of place ments they have had previous to the one in which they were studied*
The rejected girls average only eleven months in
the homes in which they were studied, while the girls not rejected averaged one year, seven months*
Only one-sixth of
the rejected girls made a satisfactory adjustment while twothirds of the girls not rejected made a satisfactory adjust ment to their own homes before they were placed in substitu te home s • Several behavior problems induced rather directly by the parents rejection of their daughters manifested them selves in the girl*s behavior patterns. studied felt no rejection.
Nine of the girls
The form of behavior most fre
quently exhibited by girls feeling rejected was emotional withdrawal from social situations, fourteen of the girls so reacting.
Thirteen became narcissistic, eleven defiant,
eight over-demonstrative, five sadistic, and one over-active. These forms of behavior were often used by the rejected girl to test out a new emotional situation, to learn whether or not she would be accepted in the new situation through all difficulties or whether she would lose the emotional tie to her substitute home when it was strained by problems.
She
has learned to mistrust her fellow man and not to make emo tional ties that will not be secure.
46 Only seven of the fifty-two girls studied displayed no unusual behavior problems.
Seventeen were narcissistic, five
were sadistic, twelve were withdrawn, three were over-active, five were over-demonstrative, and three displayed extreme neatness.
Five of the seven girls with no particular be
havior problems were in semi-institutions.
Twenty-four of
the forty-five girls displaying behavior problems were in foster homes.
Five of those showing no behavior difficulties
had close home ties.
Thirty-five of those girls displaying
behavior problems were breaking their emotional ties with their families.
Two-thirds of the girls with behavior pro
blems were rejected by their parents at the time they were placed, and none of the girls without behavior problems were rejected.
None of the girls without behavior problems had
any health problems either, while all the girls with health problems also displayed behavior problems.
All of the girls
who were retarded or advanced in school in relation to their chronological age had behavior problems. The girls without behavior problems had fewer substi tute home placements the present being the first for about one-half of the girls and their average number of placements being one.
For only a little over a third of the girls dis
playing behavior problems, the placement in which they were studied was their first, and their average was 2.7.
The
girls without behavior problems also had been in the substi-
-
47 tute homes in which they were studied slightly longer than the girls with behavior problems, the former averaging one year, seven months and the latter averaging one year, three months.
These situations may be due to the fact that the
girls with behavior problems are more difficult to handle so that the foster mothers are not willing to care for them as long, and the behavior problems may arise in part out of the feeling of insecurity and the unhappiness produced by the frequent and numerous changes of substitute homes* Twelve of the fifty-two girls studied had close home ties and twelve had no home ties when they were placed in the substitute homes in which they were observed. half of each group were in semi-institutions.
Over one-
Eight of the
girls who had no home ties were narcissistic or withdrawn while five of the girls who had close home ties showed no behavior problems.
The girls with no home ties had more
placement, previous to the homes in which they were observed than the girls who had close home ties, the former averaging 4.4 and the latter 2.
The girls with close home ties had
been in their substitute homes longer, however, averaging one year, four months as compared to the one year of the girls without close home ties* The similarity noted in family composition of the group of girls studied may be due in part to the-fact that the fifty-two girls studied represent only forty-four families.
There are six groups of sisters, all of them placed in their various homes by the Children1s Bureau of Los Angeles,
Eight
of them lived in foster homes, six in semi-institutions.
In
three cases, the two sisters were placed together in foster homes:
Jane with Ruth, Margaret with Terry and Louise with
Ernestine.
In. one family with three children, the youngest,
Lucille, was placed in a foster home, and the other two, Loretta and Phyllis, were placed at the Helen Louise Home. In the other two families the girls were separated due to discord between them but placed in homes as nearly parallel as possible.
Prom one family, Gail was placed at the Amaranth
Home and Virginia at the Helen Louise Home.
Prom the other
family, Dorothy was placed in a foster home and Augusta and Barbara were first placed together at Amaranth Home, but due to their inability to live together in harmony, Barbara was moved to the Helen Louise Home.
The policy at the Children* s
Bureau is to keep siblings together whenever possible if they are congenial and emotionally attached to each other.
When,
however, they stand in the way of each other’s adjustment, they are not placed together.
This series of sisters does
give us a group in which the girls come from similar back grounds.
It gives-a little stronger basis for comparison,
sisters being more apt to have similar experiences than others with backgrounds more varied among the group.
It is
obvious, however, that no two people, however close their
49 proximity, have the same series of experiences throughout their lives, and even if they did, it would be unlikely that they would interpret identical experiences in the same manner, or that those experiences would have the same meaning for the two individuals.
Therefore,
sisters, as any other two
people, vary in their reactions to situations they have in common as well as in separate experiences, With this in mind, let us look at the environmental history of the girls studied.
This includes their housing
before and after placement in substitute homes and the ad justment the girls were able to effect to their new housing situation.
It also includes the mobility of residence these
girls experienced before placement in substitute homes and the economic standard of their families.
The larger group
of the girls as shown in Table III, fourteen in number, came from homes with poor housing facilities, usually low rental houses or apartments, all of them dirty and unkempt; and were placed in substitute homes with excellent housing, middle class districts with plenty of room, both rural and urban being represented.
These girls made a satisfactory
adjustment to their new surroundings.
Pour girls coming from
^ Frank Nugent Freeman, ifHeredity and Environment in the Light of the Study of Twins1*, Scientific Monthly, January, 1937, pp. 13-19.
50
the same type of poor housing to the same type of excellent housing made a really excellent adjustment to their new surroundings, raising their own cultural standards to meet those of the home in which they were placed and becoming a part of the cultural life in the home, not just looking in from outside nor receiving all' the benefit from the standard of the home without contributing to it.
Two girls from the
same type of background and with the same standard of sub stitute home stood in awe of it for some time.
Six girls
came from the same type of poor housing into a substitute home of satisfactory but not as high standards as the above groups and all made satisfactory adjustments.
There was
nothing in their new situation to overwhelm them, the u n satisfactory elements in their former situation were altered, and they found little or no difficulty in adjusting to their new surroundings.
They were not given the chance to ex
perience as high standards as the above girls, but they also did not run the risk of being overpowered by the situation. One girl who came from the same poor housing situation was placed in another with relatives almost equally as crowded and lacking in funds as her own had been.
She continued to
make the poor adjustment she had made in her own home. Ten girls, the next to largest group, came from homes with satisfactory housing, homes which were clean and not crowded, many of them quite attractive, and were placed in
TABLE III RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HOUSING AND ADJUSTMENT OP FIFTY-ONE GIRLS BEFORE AND AFTER PLACEMENT8-
Number ■ of Girls
Housing Before Placement
1
Poor 13 tt it,
6
2 15 # 1 4 10 1
tt Satisfactory tt. tt Excellent tt!
9
4
Adjustment to Housing after . \ Placement
After Placement
Satisfactory Excell ent^tt tt Satisfactory Hi
Excellent Excellent tt
c
*Goode * f Negative Good' Overpowered& Negative Good Negative Negative Good
aOne girl from poor housing Before placement was placed in a poor housing situation and was very destructive of the furnishings in her substitute home*. ^ “Poor1* combines several of all of the following fac« tors: low Income, crowded (not enough sleeping rooms), un kempt, and meager cultural facilities.
c
"Satisfactory" combines several or all of the follow** ing factors: middle class, clean and adequate room for all living there. ^ "Excellent11 combines several or'all of the following factors: Middle class, or higher income, adequate cultural facilities, more than adequate amount of room, and attractive surroundings.• e "Good" connotates that the girl is comfortable In her surroundings and takes an interest in them. "Negative11 denotes destructive actions toward the house and furnishings or a withdrawal from them. ® "Overpowered" means awe-struck or meticulous about the housing and its furnishings so that they are overimport ant to the girl.
52 homes which had excellent housing and high cultural standards. All of these girls made satisfactory adjustments to their new surroundings.
Pour girls came from this same satisfactory
type of housing, were placed in substitute homes of much the same character and made satisfactory adjustments in case* There was little adjustment to be made to t h e 'type of home in which they were placed.
However one girl who was placed in
the same type of situation after being moved from her own quite satisfactory house made a very poor adjustment to her substitute home, complaining that it wasn’t ’^ i c e 11 enough, that she had wanted to go to a !,beautifuln house*
Eight
girls had lived in very excellent houses before they were placed, high standards of cultural level, middle class hous ing, very attractive in appearance; and they were placed in homes very similar in housing to their own.
All of these
girls made satisfactory adjustments to their new houses.
One
girl from such a home who moved into another such home carried over all the unhappiness she had felt in her own home and misused the furniture and other articles in her substitute home to such a degree that her foster mother became quite alarmed. The economic standard of the family colors much of its level of living.
It determines in most cases, the housing
the family is to have.
It also has something to do with the
mobility of the residence of a family.
It was difficult to
53 determine the exact income of the families of the group of girls studied.
Most of the girls were unable to give an
estimate of the financial status of the family, and the social workers and foster mothers had only a general idea. The classified incomes as stated here
are therefore only
the general conception of people in contact with the families as to what their incomes were, based more on the families* spendings than their earnings, and on their own interpreta tion of the very broad classifications —
relief, low income
and middle class, by which the economic standard of each family was judged.
That nearly one-half of the group studied
were placed in the low income classification is perhaps significant.
Financial difficulties hinder the ability of
a family to keep their members together.
Nearly all of the
other One-half of the families studied were from the-middle class group leaving but few families for the extremes.
Five
relief cases were noted, this number being low due in part perhaps to the cost of maintaining a girl-in a substitute home and the placement program of the public agencies for families in need of relief funds.
Only one family had more
means than those of the middle class group probably because such families who can afford it place their daughters in
p
* Classifications of economic standards of the fami lies studied as used here are defined in Chapter I, pp. 18.
54
boarding schools in the winter and camps in the summer when placement away from home becomes necessary. Mobility of residence may be a partial causative factor in the social adjustment of the girls studied.
Continuous
moving around has been given as a reason for the fact that five out of ten girls were retarded in their grade in school* When the family has moved about the country continuously, staying less than two years in each locality where they re sided, the mobility of their residence is said to be "un stable” for use in this study.
Those with "moderate" mob
ility of residence have lived from two to five years in each locality where they resided, and if they have lived for more than five years in their last place of residence, they are considered "stable".
In considering the mobility of the
residence of the families, we see that it runs somewhat par allel to the income of the family.
The largest group of
families of the girls studied, seventeen in number, were of low income and unstable residence.
This is the only group
which was large enough to be significant for the group studied.
However thirty-two of the fifty-two families
studied had unstable residence.
Sixteen families were living
in and around Los Angeles most of the g i r l 1s life, and four had been fairly stable in their place of residence. The cultural background or social heritage of the girls studied is a particularly important influence in the
girls lives only when it is unusual.
The locality in which
the girls1 parents were raised colors to some extent the understanding they have of the problems she is meeting. Their occupations indicate their abilities to a degree, .Their marital status is, of course, important as it creates the situation in most cases which makes necessary the girls’ placement in a substitute home.
In studying the cultural
background of these girls, the lack of information they were able to give about their grandparents, whether they were native or foreign born, what they did for a living, and any other information, was significant.
Only five of the girls
were able to give any information at all; but the girls Mhew more about their parents.
Nine girls did not know where
their mothers were born and twenty-four did not know where their fathers were born.
Ten did not know much about their
mothers and twenty had little information concerning their fathers.
This lack of knowledge of family background implies
very loose family ties, a strong causative factor in the substitute home placement of children.
’’Where there’s a
will there’s a way” Is true more often than not, and loose family ties do not lead to a will for keeping the family to gether.
Placement in ,a substitute home may be the best plan
for the child but for families with strong emotional ties it is hard to see the breaking up of their home as the solution to their problem.
Almost all of the girls come from native horn parents who are in unskilled occupations.
Only seven of the girls*
parents still had an established marriage relationship. Three girls* parents were not married to each other, one girl*s mother being married to someone else and her father being single, another girl*s father being married while her mother was single, and the third girl*s parents both being unmarried.
The remaining forty-two girls* homes were broken
by separation, divorce, desertion, or death of one or both of the parents, death being the largest group, breaking twenty-three homes, divorce second in size, breaking twelve homes.
While the broken home is undoubtedly the underlying
cause for many of the placements, there are many other pre cipitating causes which will be discussed later. In only a few cases did the cultural level of the in dividual have any very definite relationship to the cause of the broken home.
The mother of two of the girls was !fpoor
white trash1* from the South and the father deserted her on that basis.
The mother of another girl was Mexican, a fact
which the father repeatedly brought into the conversation, causing much strife within the family.. ^ The place of birth of the.girls studied seems to have little affect on their cultural patterns, all having been born in this country. Twenty-three were born in California, four in other western states making half of the girls studied from this part of
57
the country.
Ten were born in middle western states bring
ing with them much of the same type of culture as is found in the west.
Only three were from the East and five from
the South, bringing little of the culture of those regions with them as they came to the west as small children.
Seven
of the girls did not know the state in which they were born, having been out of contact with their parents since they were small children.
Three of these girls were being helped to
find out about their birthplaces at the time this study was m a d e •' The health of the girls is important in helping them to make a satisfactory social adjustment among the normally healthy people around them.
It is interesting to note that
while forty-five of the girls reported good health before placement, only forty-one of them continued to have good health after their placement in substitute homes.
Pour
girls, who had had serious illnesses before placement, w ere improved in health although they still were not strong*
Five
of the girls had not yet begun to menstruate, while eight were still irregular in their menstrual periods and thirtyfour of the girls studied were well established in that bodily function. The mental ability of the individual also affects his ability to adjust to new situations.
Intake policies of the
agencies involved in this study set a minimum limit for the
intelligence of the girl to be placed, but there is a wide range even within the limits, as indicated in Table IV.
The
intelligence quotients of the girls studied range from eighty-one to hne-hundred twenty-five and are quite evenly distributed along the way.
The average intelligence quotient
for the girls studied is 106.69.
The educational progress
shows fifteen were over age for their grade, five were under age, and thirty-eight were going along with their right class.
Moving around and mental dullness were the most pre
valent reasons given for deviating from the norm for the over-age group while three girls were under age because of mental superiority and two because of over-studiousness. The emotional* ; stress of substitute home placement has affected a few of the girls enough that they have gotten be hind in school despite their mental ability. The adjustment the girls made to their homes before they were placed in substitute homes set a pattern which the girls might easily follow in their substitute homes.
To
change an individuals attitude toward the home in which he is living, even though there be a change in homes, is a difficult job, to say the least; usually he has established in childhood a fairly firm idea of what he thinks a home is like and what he can expect from it, and it Is difficult to dislodge such a deep-seated conviction based on emotions rather than intellect.
Therefore the adjustment he makes to
TABLE IV RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN REASON'FOR GIRLfS SEPARATION FROM HER OWN HOME AND HER ADJUSTMENT TO HER SUBSTITUTE HOME
Reasons for Girlfs Separation from Her Own Home Total
Girlsr Adjustment to her Substitute Home Satis OverWith Active factory Important drawal Conflict
TOTAL
52
30
3
Home broken by death of mother Home broken by mother working
5 13
3 9
1
1 4
1
1
1
3
3
Conflict with step-mother
5
3
Conflict with step-father
1
Desertion of both parents
2
Death of both parents
3
2
1
Protection from parents
9
5
2
No home, established (unmarried mother) Behavior problem of girl
3 2
1 1
Home broken,: mother rejects girl Home broken by mothers desertion Home broken, father unable to provide home Home broken due to parents health problem ’
12 I. 4 2
.
7
2
2
1
1
1
1 2 1 1
60 his home in early life is important to him throughout his life.
In this study it would be of little value to learn
the social adjustment the girl has made to her substitute home without having some past record with which to compare it, some basis upon which to learn how far the girl has had to travel from her previous situation to come to the situa tion in which this .study finds her.
A girl who has never
had difficulties to which she must adjust has not come as far as the girl who has had many anti-social experiences which she has had to combat and who is perhaps not as well adjusted as the former girl but has made a satisfactory ad justment for herself.
That twenty-two or nearly one-half of
the girls studied were actively conflicting with their home situation and seven had withdrawn from their home contacts, implying discord in the home,
speaks for social reasons for
the placement of the girls elsewhere.
These girls must be
able to change their pattern of living and thinking in order to make satisfactory adjustments to their substitute homes in which they are in accord with the other members of the household.
In a discordant home, it is usually the child
who has to alter his way of life when placed in a substitute home, not the parent, due to the fact that the child’s pattern of discordant behavior is the only one he knows and therefore more established in his emotions.
To five girls,
their homes were over-important in their lives, so they had
61 a great adjustment to make when this home was taken from them.
The eighteen who have made satisfactory adjustments
to their homes, while it was a severe shock for them to have to make a substitute, had a good pattern established which would make a similar 'ad jus tment to their substitute homes easier. PREVIOUS PLACEMENTS The number of placements each girl had had before she was placed in the substitute home in which she was living at the time she was studied is important in relation to her total social adjustment in this home.
Her previous contacts
with foster homes have set a pattern of behavior even more difficult to change than that which her own home set.
Too,
a situation with a great many placements before this one is likely to give the girl a restless feeling, one In which she believes she may move to a different home at any time the slightest problem arises in her present home.
Or she may
develop a sense of Insecurity due to the fear of being moved to another home just as she forms ties with her present home. These feelings may interfere with the girl accepting her pre sent placement.
Two girls have had as high as thirteen
placements apiece including the present one. and have been moved about rapidly. had nine placements.
They are sisters
Their younger sister has
This has lead to a feeling of insecurity
62 on the part of all three of them.
The average number of
placements per girl studied in semi-institutions was 3.54 and the average number of placements per girl studied in a foster home 3.46.
These averages show little difference between the
two types of placement. The length of time the girls have lived in the substi tute homes in which they were observed is important as an indication of their adjustment to that home.
The average
length of time for which all the girls have lived in their substitute homes is one year and three months.
The girls
living in foster homes average one year, one month, while the girls living semi-institutions average one year, four months.
This difference is so slight that it would be un
likely that it would influence conclusions about either group. In comparing the kind of girls placed in foster homes with those placed in semi-institutions, we have discovered that the girls in foster homes have a lower average age, 14.2, than the girls in semi-institutions, 16.1. in Table II,
As seen
there was very little difference in the size
of the families of the girls in the semi-institutions and the foster homes, the average number of children, including
3 Cf. p. 40.
63
the girl being studied, in each family of the group of girls placed in the Helen Louise Home and the Amaranth Home being 2*12 and for the foster home group, 2,92.
The foster home
group had from one through five children, while the semiinstitutional group had one instance with six children in a family and another with seven.
Six of the children in the
foster home group were the only children in their families, while three in the semi-institutional group were from the same type of situation in their families.
The average
ordinal placement of the girl among her siblings is close for each group, being 1.6 for the foster home group and 1.7 for the semi-institutional group.
Eight of the girls of the
foster home group (excluding the nine families with only one child) were the youngest children in their families, while in the semi-institutional home group, seven were the youngest. Six of the foster home girls (still excluding families with only one child) were the oldest of the children in their families, while eleven of the semi-institutional home girls were the oldest.
These figures show a close similarity be
tween the two groups of girls, the physical composition of the homes being rather parallel for the two groups. The girls with or without health problems are rather evenly divided between the foster home and semi-institutional placements.
Of the-girls with no health problems, seventeen
were in foster homes and nineteen in semi-institutions.
Of
64 the girls with health problems, nine were in foster homes and seven i n .semi-institutions.
Three out of the five girls
who had had long periods of hospitalization were in semi institutions.
The girls in foster homes and semi-institu
tions had about the same mental ratings.
Twe n t y .girls.were
normal or superior normal in each group.
However, three of
the four dull normal girls were in foster homes and five out of the eight girls having very superior mentality were in semi-institutions.
Eighteen of the girls in foster homes and
twenty of the girls in semi-institutions were in the grade in which it was normal for them to be according to their chronological ages.
The girls retarded or advanced in their
school grade according to their chronological ages were about evenly divided between foster homes and semi-institu tions • In considering the treatment which the girls received at the hands of their parents in their early lives, we see that twenty-three of the girls in foster homes had serious divergences from the kind of treatment which we have grown to expect, a warm, loving, attentive relationship,
the par
ent concerned for the child*s well being, however, not living the child*s life for him.
Eighteen of the girls in semi-
institutions had serious divergences. early treatment:
Among these types of
rejection,-neglect, over-protection, family
conflict, strictness, or domineerance, we find that thirteen
65
girls in-foster homes and fourteen girls in semi-institutions were neglected or rejected in infancy and early childhood•Five girls placed in foster homes and one in a semi-institu tion were over-protected.
Only two girls in foster homes and
two in semi-institutions received the satisfactory type of care which has been described above. The behavior problems displayed by the girls before they were placed in substitute homes are rather evenly divid ed between those placed in foster homes and those placed in semi-institutions.
Of the forty-five girls displaying some
behavior problem, twenty-four were in foster homes and twentyone were in semi-institutions.
Of the seven girls who dis
played no behavior problems in particular, five were living in semi-institutions and two were in foster homes, probably due to the fact that case workers sometimes find it easier* to get a foster home to accept an unruly girl than it is to* get a semi~institution to accept one.
Of the behavior pro
blems displayed by the girls, narcissism was the most pre valent, ten of the girls in foster homes and seven of the girls in semi-institutions showing it.
In the next largest
group, withdrawal, we find seven foster home girls and five semi-institutional girls.
Seventeen of the foster home girls
had broken their relationship with the families, having no home ties, conflicting with the members of their families, or withdrawing from them.
Nineteen of the girls in semi-
66 institutions had broken their relationships with their fami lies at the time they were placed in the substitute home* Sixteen of the foster home girls and seventeen of the semiinstitutional girls were rejected by their parents at the time they were placed in the substitute homes in which they were observed* In considering the number of placements in substitute homes which the girls had had.previous to the placements in which they were studied, we find the average is the same for both the foster home and the semi-institutional girls who had no previous placements*
Only two foster home girls had
over six and as high as eight previous placements, while four semi-institutional girls had over six previous place ments, two as high as twelve.
Of the foster home girls,
twelve were placed in the substitute homes in which they were studied by a chance choice of the home while fourteen were placed as a part of a plan for the meeting of the girls’ special needs.
Fifteen of the semi-institutional
girls’ substitute homes were chosen by chance while eleven were fitted to the girls’ needs.
Both groups of girls had
been living in their substitute homes in which they were observed about the same length of time, the foster home group averaging one year, one month, and the semi-institutional group averaging one year, four months.
67 Thus we find the two groups of girls, those in foster homes and those in semi-institutions, are rather parallel in their backgrounds.
The foster home girls are slightly
younger than the semi-institutional girls,
they have had a
little harsher treatment in their early lives than have the semi-institutional girls.
More of the girls in semi-insti
tutions have had no previous placements than the girls in foster homes; and the girls in foster homes were placed more frequently according to their need while the girls in the semi-institutions were placed more frequently by chance.
In
other areas the two groups are almost parallel in the number of children in their families,
their health,
their intellig
ence and school level, their behavior problems, emotional relationships to their families before placement, their rejection by their families and length of time they had been living in the substitute homes in which they were studied. With so similar a background for each group, it will be in teresting to compare the social adjustments the two groups made after they were placed in different types of substitute homes
CHAPTER IV THE GIRLS* SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT -IN SUBSTITUTE HOMES In Chapter III we considered fifty-two girls as they were before they were placed in substitute homes.
We des
cribed the factors in their lives which might influence their social adjustment both before and after they were placed.
The substitute home placements which some of them
had experienced before the placements in which they were considered for this study were inspected for the influence they might have on the placements studied here.
Now that
we have seen the girls as they were previous to their place ment in substitute homes, we shall try to describe their re actions to their placements and the social adjustment they have displayed subsequent to placement. THE PLACEMENT PROCESS We have been describing the girls as they were when the necessity for placement in a substitute home over-took them.
In this section we will try to describe the placement
process and the immediate factors involved in it.
Later we
hope to discover how the fact of placement and the type of substitute home used has affected the girls in their social adjustment.
69
The placement process ih Itself is a factor influenc ing behavior in the substitute home.
This process is, in
reality, the girls introduction to her new situation.
It
is through this experience that the girl gets her first impression of the new home, often a lasting impression.
She
makes her first impression on the foster mother and the other members of the substitute home during the placement period also.
The first pattern of interaction among the
members of the new home and the girl coming to live with them is put into action.
It is therefore very important
that this process be auspicious. The first step of the placement process is, of course, the thought that has been put into the decision to make some placement plan.
This is completed before the problem comes
to the attention of the agency.
The first step in which the
agency, which is to make the placement and supervise the girl In her substitute home after the placement has been made, has any part is the referral of the girl for placement.
The
source of request for placement indicates the source of the decision to make such a plan. ferred by their mothers. of request for placement.
Sixteen of the girls were re
This was the largest single source Fathers were the next largest
source, with six such referrals.
Relatives came next with
five, then the school with four.
A psychiatrist, the Bureau
of Public Assistance, the Family Welfare Association, the
70 Court, police department,
siblings,
step-mothers, and friends
each referred two girls.
The Los Angeles Health Department,
Los Angeles General Hospital, Travelers' Aid Society, Proba tion Department and Juvenile Hall each referred one of the girls studied.
The Children's Bureau of Los Angeles placed
all twenty-six of the girls who were in foster homes and nine of the twenty-six in semi-institutional homes.
The
Church Federation placed ten of the girls in the Helen Louise Girls' Home and the Amaranth Masonic Order placed seven of the girls studied in the Amaranth Home. The reason for the choice of the particular substitute home in which the girl was placed is difficult to ascertain, the choice being in the hands of the case worker placing the girl, the homes available to the agency,
the foster mother
or board of directors of the home chosen, and the girl her self, with the person or agency making the request for place ment.
However, the case workers' reason is usually the de
ciding one, so these are presented in Table V.
Twenty-five
of the girls were placed with their needs in mind while twenty-seven of the girls were placed merely by chance in the homes in which they were studied.
That five of the seven
girls- who showed no behavior problems and twenty-two out of forty-five girls displaying behavior problems were placed merely by chance and not as a-part of a plan for the treat ment of the girls' needs indicates that the case workers
71 TABLE V REASON FOR CHOICE OF PARTICULAR SUBSTITUTE HOME' FOR GIRLS1 PLACEMENT
PLACEMENTS REASONS Total
foster home
semiinstitutional
TOTAL
,52
26
26
By Need:
25
14
11
Needed individual training
9
9
Needed companion
5
--
Needed home ties
3
3
3
1
Needed discipline
.
—
5
2
Mature girl
2
Had' home ties
2
He alth problems
1
1
27
12
15
Parents desire for particular placement 14
3
11
Failed to adjust satisfac torily in previous types of placements
4
1
3
No reason given
9
8
1
By chance:
2 2
—
72 are not utilizing this situation as a treatment process to the degree which they might. The status of the natural parents of the girls at the time of their placement in substitute homes showed only four homes where hoth mother and father were there to siipervise the girl.
The mother was the supervisor in twenty-five cases,
a step-mother in six cases, a relative in four cases, a sibl ing in three cases, a step-father in two cases, and a neighbor in one case.
The situations in the homes show to a great
degree the reason behind the placement of the girl away from her own home. The reasons for which the girls studied were separated from their own homes were numerous.
Only the underlying
causes are recorded here, the precipitating and contributing causes being too numerous and varied to mention.
Twenty-seven
homes were broken due to the death of the mother, the mother working because she was separated from the father for some reason,
the mother rejecting her daughter or deserting her,
the father being unable to provide a home for his daughter due to the mothers1 absence, or the health problem of both parents.
Six girls were placed away from home due to conflict
with step-mothers or step-fathers.
.Five girls were in sub
stitute homes because of the death or desertion of both parents.
Nine girls were removed from their homes for pro
tection from their parents, having been neglected or mis
73 treated.
Three girls had no established home because their
mothers and fathers were not married to each other.
All
these fifty girls were placed away from home because of situations in no way under their control.
Only two girls of
the fifty-two studied were placed away from their own homes due to their own behavior problems.
In comparing the
reasons the girl was separated from her own home with her adjustment to that home, little correlation was noted.
In
cases of the girls whose parents deserted or rejected them or they were having trouble with a step-parent, none of the girls were behaving satisfactorily.
They evidently resented
the rejection of their parents and that feeling entered into their home adjustments.
In cases where the homes were broken
by death or strife between parents and presented no cause for a belief that the girl was not wanted by the parent, nearly one-third of the girls, twelve out of twenty-seven, made a satisfactory adjustment,
the other two-thirds being
unhappy due to the strife or difficult in the home.
Of the
two girls who were removed from their homes due to their misbehavior one withdrew emotionally from her home, the other came in active conflict with those around her, both reacting in their own way to their belief that they were unwanted at home.
Of the nine girls who needed protection from their
parents, only three had adjusted satisfactorily there, the other six voicing their displeasure through the medium of
74 withdrawal and active conflict* SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT In the life of an adolescent girl there are many areas in which her social adjustment can he- measured*
The major
areas, vital to her personality as a whole include her home;; personal factors such as her personal appearance, poise and personality qualities; her recreation; her cultural level; school with respect to academic work,
social life, activities,
emotional life, and attendance; her work habits; her adjust ment to the conventions of society such as truthfulness, modesty, conscientiousness, her attitude toward the rights and reputation of others, her ability to conform to regula tions; her adjustment to her sexual life; her emotional level; and the balancing factors which she uses in maintain ing a well rounded emotional life*
In these areas she lives
her daily life; therefore these were the areas selected for analysis in this study.
In measuring the girls* adjustment
in the various areas of her life, her adolescent ambivalence becomes obvious.
In some areas she may be quite mature while
•in others she is quite immature.
In still others areas she
may be -quite mature at one time and immature at another* This ambivalence is difficult to measure, a close contact with the girl being necessary over a fairly long period of time if it is to be discernable*
Poster mothers and case
75 workers were most helpful in giving this information. The home is an important area in which to mea s u r e the social adjustment of the girl, due to the amount of time she spends there and the fact that her familiarity with the place gives her freedom from inhibitions and an opportunity to be natural.
In classifying the girls*
social adjustment to their
homes, they fell rather naturally into four broad groups. Those called usatisfactory*1 in this study were in harmony with the others members of their households, were a part of the family group emotionally, and took part in the activities of the household.
The girls classified as having **over-
important11 home ties were those who were attached to their home life to the near exclusion of all other interests, such as school, recreation, et cetera.
Half of these girls were
over-demonstrative, one was narcissistic, and one-third were withdrawn.
The girls classified as "withdrawn** from their
homes were the girls who avoided home life and home relation ships as much as possible.
The girls reported to be in open
conflict with their homes were those who were quarrelsome and could not live in harmony with the other members of their household. The general adjustment the girls displayed in their own homes before they were placed has been discussed.
That nine
girls in foster homes and nine girls in semi-institutions had adjusted satisfactorily to their own homes, while seventeen girls in each group had made unsatisfactory adjustments gives
76 us a comparative basis from which to judge the adjustment the girl makes in her particular type of substitute home. The general social adjustment displayed by the girls studied in their substitute homes shows only minor differences between the two types of placement.as far as the girls studied are concerned.
Of the thirty-one girls showing a
satisfactory adjustment to their substitute homes, eighteen were foster homes placements and thirteen, semi-institution al placements.
The latter fact may be due in part, to the
lack of time the house mothers in the semi-institutions have to devote to each individual girl.
Pour of the six girls
showing active conflict were in foster homes, due to some extent to the strain against authority which is found in most adolescents and which is easier-to accept when it is a matter of group control.
Two of the three girls to whom their sub
stitute homes were over-important were from semi-institution al homes, the excitement of the group housihg situation pro bably adding glamour to the home for the g i r l . . In comparing the social adjustment of the girls studied in their own homes and in their substitute homes (Table VI) it is interesting to see how nearly parallel are the two types of placement under consideration.
In comparing the
adjustments of all the girls we see that most of them have improved or remained at least at the same level of adjustment to their home after being-placed in substitute homes.
In
77 her home, the adolescent girl shows more ambivalence than in any other area perhaps, because she is less on guard there and is able to give reign to her true emotions to a greater degree than elsewhere.
During her adolescence there is much
of the little'girl in her approach to her home, yet she wishes to be treated as a woman, or as the more mature person she seems to be in other areas at school and in her social life* Therefore, her family cannot understand her.
She often times
cannot understand, herself, and much disharmony results.
An
understanding parent or foster parent may help her bridge this span until she matures.
As has been shown in Table VI,
most of the girls either made the same kind of adjustment or improved in their adjustments with placement.
The prepara
tion of the foster mother to understand adolescent girls may lend significance to this fact.
Twenty-one girls made the
same adjustment to their substitute homes as to their own homes, while seventeen girls improved.
Nine girls merely
changed from one unsatisfactory reaction to another.
Only
five girls did not make as good an adjustment in their sub stitute homes as they had made in their own homes, and all of them had been rejected children.
This regression in home
adjustment was in all probability their revolt against their parents and the world for not wanting them. Bearing out this contention that the girls on the whole
78 improved or at least stayed at the same level when placed in substitute homes, we find, if we compare the reasons for the girlfs separation from her own home to her adjustment in her substitute home, as in Table VI,’ that many of the girls lost their sense of rejection and discord after they were placed in substitute homes.
As has been stated, about two-thirds
of the girls continued their patterns of adjustment as they had formed them previously, voicing their reactions to their difficulties.
However, nearly one-third of the girls began
to seek other ways of behavior and new patterns of home life when placed in substitute homes* In comparing the girls in foster homes with those in semi-institutions in their rate of chance in the adjustments they have displayed in their own homes and their substitute homes, ten of the girls in the foster, homes improved, while seven of the semi-institutional girls improved.
Eleven of
the girls in foster homes made the same adjustment to their substitute homes as they had to in their own homes, while ten of the girls in semi-institutional homes continued with the same type of adjustment.
Six semi-institutional girls merely
changed from one-unsatisfactory type of adjustment in their own homes to another in their substitute homes, while three of the girls in foster homes changed from one unsatisfactory type of adjustment to another.
Only two of the foster home
group and three of the semi-institutional group Ijad made
79 TABLE VI COMPARISON OP THE SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT GIRLS MADE TO THEIR HOMES BEFORE -PLACEMENT'AND THE SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT THE GIRLS MADE TO SUBSTITUTE HOMES
Adjustment to Homes Before Placement Total
Adjustment made to Substitute t Home sa Satis over-inir With Active factory nortant drawal Conflict
Total Substitute Home Placements Total
52
Satisfactory Over-important Withdrawal Active Conflict
30
3
13 1 18 4 1 5 — 3 7 10 1 22 Semi-Institutional Placements
Total
26
Satisfactory Over-important Wi thdrawal Active Conflict
9 1 3 13
13
2
6 —
1 6
12
7
2
2
—
3 7
1 4
9
2
2
1
1
—
1
2 5
1
Poster Home Placements Total Satisfactory Over-important Withdrawal Active Conflict £L
26
17
1
3‘
5
9 4 4 9
7 4 2 4
1
— —
1 _ _
— — —
1 2
1 3
Classifications defined in Chapter I, pp. 13-17*
80 satisfactory adjustment in their own homes and unsatisfact ory adjustments in their substitute homes, A well adjusted adolescent girl is interested in her personal appearance.
She has some degree of poise, the out
ward display of her emotional balance due to her feeling of security in the fact that she looks well and is growing into a mature person.
Of the girls studied, twenty-six or half
of the girls showed these characteristics to some degree. Ten of these twenty-six girls were also attractive and possessed good poise. poise.
Three were neat, showing excellent
They showed self-possession in practically every
situation they would find themselves. had good poise.
Three were neat and
These showed self-possession in situations
they expected to meet.
Six girls were careless in their
appearance, five of whom showed poor poise. little self-possession in any situation. neat and attractive but had poor poise.
These observed
Sixteen girls were Of the four girls
who were unattractive or bold, two were possessors of good poise, two were poorly poised. had poor poise,
Of the twenty-three girls who
sixteen were attractive, and neat and only
seven were unattractive, careless, or bold in appearance. Therefore, it would seem that these girls were possessed of a greater pride in their personal appearances than they had ability to transfer that pride to the field of poise.
The
girls in foster homes seem to have about the same amount of
81 poise and their
personal appearance rates about the same as
for girls in semi-institutions.
In
classifying the girls
according to their poise, eight semi-institutional girls and five foster home girls show excellent poise, eight each of foster home or semi-institutional girls rate “good11, and ten semi-institutional girls and thirteen foster home girls were poorly'poised. Regarding the girls personal appearance, fifteen semiinstitutional girls and twelve foster home girls were attract ive, eight semi-institutional girls and seven foster home girls were neat, one semi-institutional and five foster home girls were careless, two semi-institutional girls were u n attractive and two foster hoi£e girls were bold in appearance, making a rather similar group of girls in each type of sub stitute home as The early
far as their general appearance goes. treatment the child receives at the hands of
his parents must necessarily affect his personality adjust ment in later life.
Therefore, it is interesting to note
the kind of treatment the girls received in their early years and the personality traits that they have developed now which were evidently influenced by that treatment.
As
•has been discussed, fifteen of the girls were rejected by their parents in their early years, and twelve were neglected. Six were over-protected.
Four had had a satisfactory home
life, and four were in open conflict with their parents.
82 Three
knew the strictness and one girl was completely domi*~
nated
hy her parents.
Of the personality affected by this
early treatment, defiant behavior was brought about in the largest group of girls, thirteen in number, while eleven girls have withdrawn from their present surroundings to a notable degree.
Seven girls showed no particular influence
to theirearly treatment in their present adjustments. girls
The
in foster homes, as has already been stated, had
harsher treatment in their early lives than the girls in semi-institutions.
However, their personalities do not seem
to be similarly affected, both groups displaying similar be havior problems. Besides the effect of early treatment on the personali ty
of the girl, her conversation, the amount of daydreaming
she does, her drive for independence and self-expression, all give an indication of the social adjustment the girl has made in her personality.
Twenty-eight of the girls included
only tangible subjects in their conversations, being neither mature nor immature.
Thirty of the girls were daydreamers
to some extent, a trait common to adolescence.
Twenty-two
had a strong drive for independence and self-expression and twenty-one were dependent in character.
These factors illuS'
trated an ambivalence in the girls' personality, a trait which has been previously discussed in this chapter.
83 In the realm of recreation, we find more positive ad justments.
Sports and reading were the most popular forms of
recreation.
More of the girls preferred recreation which is
individual .in character to team play.
Twenty-four of the
girls showed some leadership tendencies while twenty-six showed little or no leadership, both groups being evenly divided among foster home and semi-institutional girls. Fourteen girls did not have sufficient recreation outlets, eight from semi-institutions and six from foster homes.
The
remainder seemed to have a fairly well developed recreation al life. The cultural, level of the girls studied is also definite in character.
In this study the cultural level of the girl
includes her use of English, her reading material and choice of moving pictures and radio programs.
A high cultural level
consists of good use of English and a discriminate choice of literature.
An average level consists of good use of English,
popular reading and moving pictures.
A .low cultural leve^.
includes much use of slang and indiscriminate choice of reading and pictures.
It is to be expected that girls com
ing from homes where they are neglected or rejected, where there is lack of supervision and a small income, would not have a very high level of culture.
Twenty-one of the girls
displayed a rather low level of culture in their choice and amount of reading, moving pictures, and radio programs#
84 Twenty displayed an average approach to these activities, reading popular literature, magazines, and the like, listen ing to popular radio programs, and seeing the popular moving pictures in their neighborhood theaters*
The eleven girls
with high cultural standards were girls who read much classi cal literature, were fond of classical music and similar activities*
The girls in semi-institutions displayed a
higher cultural level than the girls in foster homes.
Eight
of the semi-institutional girls and only three of the foster home girls displayed high cultural standards*
The average
group was evenly divided between foster homes and the semi institutions*
Thirteen of the foster home girls and only
eight of the semi-institutional girls displayed a low level of culture* The school adjustments of the girls are harder to class ify.
The various aspectsof life at school —
academic and
social activities, emotional response, and attendance —
call
forth several different adjustments from the same girl.
How
ever, the girl usually makes some sort of total adjustment to her school life, her academic,
social and emotional life
at school being intertwined and dependent upon each other to some extent.
The girl who has difficulty in keeping up her
academic work will probably dislike school and will make her friends away from school, leaving a poor social adjustment to school.
This also may be true in reverse, the girl who
85
makes the good academic adjustment making a good emotional and social adjustment to school.
The emotional adjustment
the girl has made to her home and life outside of school usually carry over into her school life also.
Thirty-eight
girls, as indicated in Table VIII, maintained the same ad justment in their school life after they were placed in sub stitute homes.as they had maintained before placement. Eight of the girls improved their school adjustment and six regressed to a poorer adjustment.
For four girls school
became oyer-important after they were placed in their sub stitute homes.
The semi-institutional girls made a little
better school adjustment on the whole, twenty of them making satisfactory adjustments as compared to sixteen foster home girls♦ The girls studied showed remarkably -good work habits considering their emotional state.
Some of the girls had
learned frto bury themselves in their work,11 to make their work an outlet for pent-up emotions.
That the majority of
the girls were regular rather than irregular in their work, and were consistent, prompt, and neat shows that they have learned to work'and put their efforts to productive use* The semi-institutional girls and the foster "home group were similar with seventeen semi-institutional girls being steady workers to sixteen foster home girls, and twenty semi-insti tutional girls being consistent, prompt and neat as compared
86
with nineteen foster home girls* The adjustment made by the girls to conventions as dictated by society is indicative of the emotional stability of the girl and her desire to be socially well-adjusted. That the majority of the girls have made satisfactory adjust ments to the conventions —
displaying truthfulness, modesty,
conscientiousness, good attitudes toward the rights and re putations of others, and ability to conform to regulations -implies that they are trying to make a good social adjustment and are not unbearably unhappy in their substitute homes. More of the semi-institutional girls made a satisfactory ad justment to the various social conventions considered than foster home girls*
Twenty of the semi-institutional girls
and thirteen of the foster home girls were truthful.
Twenty-
five of the semi-institutional girls and eighteen of the foster home girls were modest.
Twenty-one of the semi-in-
stitutional girls and seventeen of the foster home girls were conscientious.
Twenty-two of the semi-institutional girls
believed in the rights of others as compared to twenty foster home girls.
Eighteen girls from each group were able to
accept regulations. The adjustment of the adolescent girl in the area of her social relationships is more difficult to measure than in the more tangible areas of the home, the like.
school, recreation and
Whether she prefers to be with one person at a
87 time or with a group of people or likes both kinds of com panionship is indicative of her adaptability to people.
The
number of friends she has further implies her ability to get along with people.
In correlating these two factors, we
find that the girls who prefer group or both individual and group companionship are the girls who have many friends and the girls who prefer individual companionship are the girls with few friends on the whole.
More foster home girls, ten
in number preferred both individual and group companionship than the serai-institutional girls, only six in number.
Fif
teen of the serai-institutional girls had many friends while only eleven of the foster home girls had many friends.
Most
of the girls* friends were contemporaries but a few preferred older or younger companionship.
Twenty-five semi-institution
al girls* friends were contemporary in age while only twentyone of the foster home girls* friends were. While most of the girls had not continued their friends ships with the friends they had had before their placement in substitute homes, twelve had continued seeing and writing to a few friends and six had carried over several friends Into their new homes from their old homes.
Eighteen of the
foster home girls had carried over no friends as compared to fifteen of the semi-institutional girls. The personality characteristics of the girls studied, in Table VIII, point to a degree of sociability with coopera
88
tion as the most prominent characteristic.
The next largest
groups were independent, a characteristic easily understand able in a group of girls whose ties with their own homes have been so disrupted.
Thirteen semi-institutional girls com
pared to ten foster home girls were cooperative and eleven semi-institutional girls compared to seven foster home girls were independent. In the area of the girlsT adjustment to their sexual life, measurement must be stated in terms of known facts. The number of boy friends the girl has, the frequency with which she has dates, her expressed problems, and her known maladjustments indicate to some degree her adjustment in this area.
However, many girls are reticent about discuss
ing sex and its personal meanings, and it is difficult to reach a definite conclusion concerning adjustment to her sexual life.
However, we do know that of the fifty-two
girls studied, nineteen had no boy friends, sixteen had many, and only three had one steady boy friend.
Ten semi-institu-
tional girls had many boy friends, but only six foster home girls did.
Twenty-six never had dates, five because they
were too young- to have dates and one because her mother would not let her go any place alone with a boy.
Twenty-
one of the twenty-six girls never having dates were from foster homes.
Twelve of the girls had the maximum amount
of dates allowed and nine more had frequent dates.
Thirty-
89 six of the girls expressed no problems, three could not accept the rules by which they were governed, two had dif ficulty in controlling their sexual relationships, took undue interest in sexual matters.
and two
Seven semi-institu-
tional girls and nine foster home girls expressed problems. Thirty-nine of the girls had no known sex maladjustments. Helen Louise Home accepts no girl with such maladjustments and Amaranth Home accepts only those with very minor maladjustments which would be easily controlled with understand ing handling by the foster mother.
Only three of the semi-
institutional girls had known maladjustments, while ten of the foster home girls did.
In matters relating to their
friendships with boys, twenty-six of the girls were under the complete authoratative control of their foster mothers, six had understanding and sympathetic control by their foster mothers, and seven were still controlled by their own parents even though they were living in substitute homes.
Twenty-
two of the girls found the control over them easy to accept, six found the control difficult but tried to accept it, and seven revolted openly against such control.
This is one
area in which the ambivalence of the girl is quite noticeable. She is in the learning stage, gaining a knowledge of herself in a new area which is just developing; yet she wishes to be treated as if she were completely mature and sure of her self in this area.
90 TABLE VII RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT DISPLAYED IN SCHOOL BEFORE PLACEMENTS AND SOCIAL.ADJUSTMENT DISPLAYED IN SCHOOL AFTER PLACEMENT AS SHOWN BY G-IRLS STUDIED
Social adjustment displayed after placement
*
Total'’* Number Girls
Social adjustments displayed -before placement Satisfactory
Poor
Total Placements TOTAL
52
34
18
Satisfactory Poor Over important
36 12 4
28 2 4
8 10
Foster Home Placements 26 17
TOTAL Satisfactory Poor : Over important
16 8 2
13 Z2 2
9 3 6 —
—
Semi- institutional Placements ■ TOTAL Satisfactory Poor Over important
26 -
17
9
20 4 2
15
5 4
2
—
The emotional level of the adolescent girl is also difficult to measure due to the many interacting elements in her emotional life and the changing character of her personality.
To state definitely that she is mature or immature
is impossible.
However one might say that she is more mature
than immature, or the reverse, or that she is definitely ambivalent.
Nineteen of the girls studied were quite imma
ture, fourteen of these girls being from foster homes. Seventeen were more mature, thirteen of these being from semi-institutions.
Sixteen were definitely ambivalent and
were evenly divided between foster homes and semi-institutions. The ability of the girl to take criticism, her consistency in making decisions, and the placement of her emotional ties are all factors which make up her emotional adjustment. Thirty-four of the girls took criticism constructively, this number being evenly divided between foster homes and semi institutions; thirty-six were at least fairly consistent in making decisions, nineteen of these being from semi-institu tions; and thirty of the girls, seventeen from semi-institu tions and three from foster homes, continued to place.their emotional ties within their parental homes, al'so had emotion al ties in their substitute home.
Only eight of the girls
confined their emotional ties to people outside of their homes, five from semi-institutions and three from foster homes.
There seems to be no very definite correlation as
92 shown in Table IX between the age of the girls studied and the degree of maturity they have reached.
In the youngest
group, the twelve and thirteen year olds, we find that they were either ambivalent or immature.
The girls eighteen,
nineteen and twenty years of age were all rather mature. The outside interests the girls have used as balancing factors in their emotional lives are important in understand ing the social adjustments the girls have made.
That school
is at hand for all of the girls probably accounts for a great number, thirty-one, using it as a balancing factor. Club work, the arts (writing and music), church work, re- creation, religion, the holding of offices, and dates are the other balancing factors found in that order. had no balancing factors in their lives*
Ten girls
Twenty-eight of
the girls studied needed balancing factors as a means of surcease from emotional strain at times of stress; seventeen found a need for self agrandizement; fourteen needed a sense of authority; and three needed to secure emotional ties. As stated earlier in this chapter thirty-one girls made a satisfactory adjustment in their substitute homes, for three it became over-important,
twelve withdrew from
their homes, and six were I n ’active conflict with their ' homes.
Forty-eight girls, according to their own statement,
thought they were making satisfactory adjustments to their substitute homes.
Evidently seventeen girls thought they
93 were making a better adjustment than they actually were. This fact implies that some of the girls did not have a real conception as to what a satisfactory home adjustment could be. In correlating the social adjustment of the girls studied to their substitute homes with each of the other areas of their lives which were considered in Table X, a definite pattern is found to have developed.
The largest number of
girls studied adjusted satisfactorily to their substitute homes and made satisfactory adjustments to each of the other areas of their lives which were studied except the homes in which they lived previous to their placement in substitute homes to which they adjusted poorly. The data seem to indicate that one type of substitute home placement has slight advantage over the other.
On the
whole, the adjustment is not much different for either type of placement.
In the areas of personal factors, recreation
and work habits it made practically no difference which type of placement the girl had.
In the area of her home adjust-
ment more foster home girls were inclined to improve their home adjustments after placement than were the semi-institutional girls.
Thirteen girls in semi-institutions made
satisfactory adjustments to their substitute homes as com pared to seventeen foster home girls who made a satisfactory adjustment.
The semi-institutional girls tended to make
94 better adjustments in the areas of their cultural level, school, social conventions, social, tional level.
sexual, and their emo
CHAPTER V CASE MATERIAL ILLUSTRATING SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT In Chapter III an attempt has been made to show the background which was influential in the adolescent girl!s substitute home placement, .and the factors which seem to have contributed most to success in placement.
In Chapter
IV, we attempted to determine the total social adjustment which adolescent girls have actually made when placed in foster homes and semi-institutions, and In this Chapter'we wish to Illustrate this material with life histories of several of the girls studied.
In order to facilitate this
attempt, the girls have been grouped as to their social ad justment as measured by the criteria set forth In the pre ceding chapter.
These classifications are necessarily ex
tremely broad in scope, the degree of the adjustment the girls have made being widely varied in nature.
To place in
rigid classifications any factor in the lives of human beings is at best an inequitable task.
So many differences.in the
experience and background of each individual color the social distance between his former situation and his present one that it is almost .impossible to determine how far he has had to travel to reach his present state.
His native ability to
adjust has been so subtly modified throughout his life that to compare his adjustment with that of another individual Is
96 really not quite fair.
However, if we are to draw any con
clusions concerning the advisability of one form of treatment over another for situations in which human beings find them selves, we must concern ourselves with broadly classifying their reactions to situations as nearly parallel as can be found. In grouping the girls studied according to their total social adjustment, four broad classifications have been selected as shown in Table yiH;(l) girls displaying socially satisfactory adjustment,
(2) quiet, fftoo good11 girls,
(3)
girls expressing their difficulties in adjustment by open conflict, and (4) delinquent or psychotic girls. GIRLS DISPLAYING SOCIALLY SATISFACTORY ADJUSTMENT The girls displaying socially satisfactory adjustments are not those who never make mistakes or-.are never unhappy. They have their problems, their moments of unhappiness, but they are able to face these problems and meet them squarely in most instances.
They are girls who have friends, engage
in many activities and are well rounded In their philosophy of life.
They make good adjustments to their foster mothers
and others in their foster homes.
Twenty-one girls of the
fifty-two studied are included in this classification, nine from foster homes and twelve from semi-institutions.
The
life stories of two girls, one from a foster home and one
'TABLE VIII * PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTICS OP GIRLS STUDIED
Personality Characteristics
Frequency with which girls studied display these characteristics
Cooperation'
23
Independent
18
Tactful
12
Pun-loving
11
Boisterous
10
Quiet
9
Defiant
8
Quarrelsome
7
Withdrawn
7
Deceitful
5
Excitable
5
Irresponsible
5
Domineering
3
Suspicious
3
Sincere
2
98 from a semi-institution, are offered- here as illustrations* Beryl, fourteen years old, lived at the Amaranth Home during the period this study was being made.
She had come
with her mother in the spring of 1940 to the Children1s Bureau of Los Angeles to' make a plan for her placement in a substitute home.
At the time, she was living with her
mother in one. room in the home where her mother was employed as a domestic.
The living conditions were crowded, and the
m other’s work took so much of her time that she*was unable properly to supervise Beryl.
They came to the ,Children*s
Protective Association asking for placement in a boarding school, but due to the lack of finances, the plan could not be carried out.
When presented with information concerning
what was available in substitute homes they chose the semi institution for adolescent girls.
Beryl already had strong
home ties which she had no need to replace, and this sort of substitute home seemed to suit her needs. Home of California had a vacancy,
The Amaranth
so she visited the Amaranth
Home and decided immediately that she would like to live there• Berly*s father and mother were divorced .nine years ago, due to their continuous quarreling.
The mother had Beryl
and her brother, four years younger than she, at that time. Since then her ifether has remarried and has a son by his second wife.
He is living with his second family in the
99 middle west where he is a high school teacher.
At the time
of the divorce the mother was awarded custody of the children and thirty dollars a month for the support of the children. The mother remarried after the divorce but has since divorced her second husband.
She hoped that her first husband would
never know of her second marriage because he would then ob ject to supporting the children.
However, during her second
marriage, he gradually stopped sending the money, and she made no attempt to secure the money because she had adequate support for the children at that time. divorce, however,
After her second
she found she was unable to continue to
support the children without aid from their father, and she was making an attempt to get funds from him at the time she placed Beryl.
Even though the economic standard of the
family was strained, the mother maintained a high level of cultural standards in their home, making available good literature and helping the children in their choice of mov ing pictures. Attractive and vivacious, Beryl is very interested in her personal appearance.
She is clean and neat, choosing
her clothes with good taste,
Her complexion is good, and
she wears only a moderate amount -of cosmetics. poised.
She is well
Her health is good and she menstruates regularly,
although she does have cramps each month at that time.
She
maintains a high cultural standard, reading a great deal of
100
excellent literature, her latest being Tolstoy.
She goes
to see historical moving pictures occasionally.
She likes
both popular and classical music and often listens to the radio.
In her leisure time, she listens to the radio, reads
or spends her time talking with her friends, especially boys.
She belongs to no organized groups except the church
choir which meets weekly but spends most of her social hours in unorganized groups.
She shows a good deal of leadership
among young people her own age.
She talks mostly of boys,
clothes, moving pictures, books and other such subjects as do most adolescent girls, and she daydreams quite a lot, planning for her future career as a nurse.
She displays a
strong drive for Independence and self-expression.
The
policy of her mother that children should not be too closely guided but given a chance to develop by themselves has led Beryl to be independent. She prefers group to individual society and has many friends her own age at school. like her.
All the girls in the Home
She still sees a few of her friends at her motherfs
home when she visits there each weekend.
She has several
boy friends of her own age and has dates- with them frequently. She wants more dates than she is allowed to have at the Home but accepts with good grace the fact.that she is unable to have them.
Her sexual knowledge is complete and she has no
known maladjustments.
The house mother at the Home has com-
101
TABLE IX RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AGE' OP GIRLS STUDIED AND DEGREE OP MATURITY THEY DISPLAYED IN THEIR SUBSTITUTE HOMES.
Age of Girls-
Total number of girls
To.tal
52
12— 13 14— 15 16— 17 18— 19 Over 19
11 18 18 4 1
Degree of Maturity Mature Ambivalent TOTAL PLACEMENTS 17
16
19
5 '7
3 5 8
8 8 3
: 4 l POSTER HOME PLACEMENTS
Total
26
12— 13 14— 15 16— 17 18— 19 Over 19
9 11 6
4
8
14
3 1
3 2 .3
6 :e 2
SEMI- INSTITUTIONAL PLACEMENTS Total
26 ‘
12— 13 14— 15 16— 17 18-19 Over 19
2 7 12 4 1
13 2 6 4 1
8
5
3
23 2 1
■5
102
plete control over her which Beryl accepts easily.
She is
quite mature for her age, takes criticism well and is quite consistent in her decisions.
She is truthful, modest, con
scientious, has a good attitude toward the rights and repu tations of others, and conforms to regulations easily.
She
rarely asks for special dispensations, being cooperative and tactful in her manners. . She uses her music and.her' school work as balancing factors as a means of securing surcease from emotional strain at times of stress and from a desire to achieve.
She has made a fine adjustment to school, having
an excellent academic record.
(Her intelligence quotient
is one hundred eleven), an excellent attendance record, and a good social and emotional adjustment.
She is cooperative
with her foster mother.and all the other girls in the home and warmly affectionate with her own mother.
She herself
believes that she has made a good adjustment to her foster home and to her own home.
Her greatest problem is financial
and when she is able to support herself she will have little difficulty. At the time of this study, Ruth, sixteen years of age, was placed in a foster home with her older sister Jane, seventeen years old.
Her father had been in contact with
the Family Welfare Association who referred him to the Children1s Bureau of Los Angeles when he asked for placement for the girls.
They had been living in an orphanage but were
103 too old to continue living there*
This was the third place
ment for Ruth and the fifth for Jane.
Both of the girls
needed individual training and a mother1s understanding care. Their mother was deceased and their father could not make a home for them.
He lived in crowded, dirty, bachelbr:!e‘s quar
ters. The family maintained a very low economic standard, the father "being a general laborer.
The father*s parents
were intelligent and educated people; the mother’s were of low standards and uneducated but were respected by their children.
The couple came to California from the middle
west when the children were young.
The mother was said to
be feeble-minded and had a reputation for being immoral be fore her marriage.
The father was an inadequate, ineffectual
sort of man. Ruth is careless in her appearance which is of small importance to her.
She is clean and in good health, menstru
ating regularly and without pain.
She has very little poise,
and feels rather lost with other people.
She uses poor
English, with a small vocabulary and much slang. very little.
She reads
She spends her leisure time playing with the
other girls in the foster home.
When she was first placed
in this home she had no conception of what to do with her leisure time.
She still has difficulty initiating play but
is cooperative in play suggested by others*
In her early
104 life she was neglected and developed no initiative or imagin ation, • She daydreams very little and has little drive for independence and self-expression.
Her conversation centers
on boys, health, others in the foster home*
She brings her
health and vocational guidance problems to the social worker supervising her foster home. She has few friends outside the home and school, and she prefers individual to group companionship.
She has kept
in contact with a few of her friends from the orphanage. Her friends are her own age.
She is just beginning to take an
interest in boys and as yet has had no dates. With an intelligence quotient of eight-five, Ruth is > slow mentadly.
She is one year retarded in school but works
hard and steadily makes a good academic adjustment, liking school and having a good attendance record.
Her ohly activ
ity is her school work at which, if she is to complete it, she must work steadily and long. Ruth has a little girl attitude and is very dependent on everyone, especially her foster mother.
She is able to
accept criticism constructively, is consistent in making de cisions, is truthful, modest, conscientious.
She has a good
attitude toward the rights and reputation of others and is able to conform to regulations easily.
She has a good re*
lationship with others in her foster home and with her own father, although she seldom sees him. . She believes she has
105
made a good adjustment to her foster home and her own home. Her ability to adjust to other people will be of great ser vice to her when she is called upon to support herself. As we have seen, Beryl and Ruth have made a satisfac tory adjustment to their substitute homes.
It is interest
ing to note the average background of the twenty-one girls included in this classification.
They average 15.8 years of
age, and are from.families averaging 2.4 children per family* Pour of the girls are the only children in their families* Eighteen of the girls were in good health, only three having health problems.
Sixteen of the girls were of normal or
normal superior intelligence and nineteen were in the grade which was normal according to.their chronological age.
Their
early treatment included eight girls rejected or neglected by their parents and four over-protected by them.
Six of the
seven girls studied who showed no particular behavior pro blems before they were placed in substitute homes were In this group.
All three of the girls who displayed extreme
neatness were in this classification. were narcissistic.
Five of the girls
Twelve of the girls had broken their
emotional ties to their families before they were placed and seven still had close home ties.
Only eight of the girls
were rejected by their parents at the time they were placed in substitute homes. first placement.
For ten of the girls, this was their
They averaged 1.3 previous placements,
106 TABLE X CORRELATION BETWEEN SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT OP GIRLS TO SUBSTITUTE HOMES AND' TO THE FACTORS STUDIED
Social Adjustments to Substitute Homes (a) Social Adjustment to Other Factors Studied (a)
Satisfactory Satisfactory
i
Poor
Poor Satisfactory
Poor
Parental Home
14
17
5
16
Personal Factors
17
12
10
3
Recreation
22
8
10
12
Cultural level
21
9
10
12
School
24
6
12
10
Work Habits
24
7
13
8
Social Conventions
27
3
11
11
Social Level
26
4
12
10
Sexual Level
17
13
9
13
Emotional Level
25
5
10
12
Balancing Factors
20
10
9
13
fa)
Classifications defined in Chapter If PP* 12-17.
107 however#
Thirteen of the girls had been placed in their
particular substitute homes merely by chance.
They had been
living in the substitute homes in which they were observed an average of one year, five months.
Here we see that this
group of girls have not had unusual backgrounds# QUIET "TOO GOOD*1 GIRLS Of the fifty-two girls studied, ten were classified as quiet "too good" girls, five of which were from semi-insti tutions and five from foster homes.
These girls-have with
drawn from the situations which they are called upon to meet, are dutiful and pleasant, but have not the spirit of achieve ment which leads most adolescent girls into small essays of one kind or another.
Loretta and Doris tend to illustrate
this type of adjustment. Loretta was living in the Helen Louise Girl*s Home when this study was made. placement.
A.t seventeen this was her fifth
Her sister Phyllis, was also at the Helen Louise
Home, and her sister Lucille, was in a foster home.
She had
previously been living in a foster home where she was unable to meet the cultural standards of the. home, having an in telligence quotient of ninety-one, and since she is an overlysensitive, easily hurt type of girl, into her shell.
she only withdrew farther
It was thought by her aunt, who brought her
in for placement, that she might be drawn out socially a
108 little if placed with other girls her age. The mother deserted the father and four children to live with another man.
She was from Tennessee and was des
cribed as Npoor white trash11.
The father was hurt in 'the
World 'War and since has developed tuberculosis and is living in a veteran’s hospital on a veteran’s pension.
He has tried
several times to establish a home for the children but has been unable to succeed. Clothes are of no importance to Loretta and she appears extremely messy and dirtyher menstruation regular.
Her health is good, hovfever, and She possesses very little poise.
She has a very limited vocabulary, uses a great deal of slang, reads very little, and is indiscriminate in her choice of motion pictures and radio programs.
She spends her
leisure time listening to the radio and going to movies by herself.
She has no group recreation, but prefers entirely
individual activities.
She has few friends-, mostly younger,
but she prefers to be alone. is very dependent.
She daydreams a great deal and
She was neglected in her early childhood,
having no supervision, and she now has no sense of propriety and she complains to the case worker supervising her at the Helen Louise Home that she is being slighted by the girls in the home and by the house mother.
Her conversation is very
limited, school and radio programs being the main topics. She is not at all interested in boys.
109 In school, Loretta is one semester behind, due par tially to her mental dullness and partially to the mobility and insecurity of her home.
She is almost failing in her
academic work, has no social life at school, enters into no activities and generally dislikes school but attends regular ly.
She does her school work’ only when it is absolutely
necessary. of her own.
She cries when criticized and makes few decisions She seldom has any difficulties with other *
people, either ignoring them and staying out of their com pany or doing their wishes.
She is withdrawn and cool toward
the house mother and the other girls in the Home but fairly affectionate toward her father and siblings.
She believes,
however, that she has made a fairly good adjustment in the substitute home due to the fact that she never has any out ward difficulties with anyone there.
She needs emotional
ties but will have a difficult time finding them due to her withdrawal from society. Doris, twelve years of age, was brought to the Children!s Bureau of Los Angeles by a family friend.
Her father was
deceased and her mother in a state hospital for the insane. She had been living with her older brother in his bachelor1s quarters in downtown Los Angeles and had been having sexual relations with him.
This was her sixth placement, her life
heretofore being one of moving from place to place at her brother!s whim.
There was enough money left in her inherit
110
ance to take care of her until she became self-supporting but because of her brother’s careless use of the money, it will soon be gone. This particular home was chosen for Doris because it was believed that it could supply the warm, friendly interest of a foster mother she so sorely needed to give her secure emotional ties. class home.
There were no other children in this middle
Doris’ personal appearance worries her but
little, and she is almost unconscious of it.
She is not
very clean about her person, is undernourished, and has not yet begun to menstruate.
She has fairly good cultural
standards, having a good command of English and reading a great deal, mostly fiction.
She is undiscriminating in her
choice of motion pictures and radio programs.
In her
leisure time she reads, listens to the radio, daydreams, and plays with the neighborhood children.
Mistreatment and
malguidance by her brother have led her to be shy, timid, and withdrawn.
She brings no problem to the case worker
supervising her foster home nor to her foster mother. talks only about tangible, reading.
safe subjects like school and
She prefers the individual companionship of younger
children and has few friends. people.
She
She is very tactful with
Seemingly Doris is not interested in boys, but in
reality she is afraid to talk with them.
She is completely
cowed and obeys her foster mother or anyone else without a
I l l
murmur*
She is truthful, conscientious, and modest because
she is afraid to be otherwise* Doris has an intelligence quotient of one hundred, and makes good academic and attendance records in school.
She
is indifferent to school and has no social life there.
She
is a steady worker and makes school a balancing factor in her emotional life.
Religion is also important to her.
She is
pleasant to her foster mother and everyone around her and be lieves she has made a good adjustment to this home when in reality she is afraid to do anything not socially acceptable. These ten quiet, fttoo good” girls average 15*1 years of age and come from families averaging 3.3 children. one of the girls was the only child in her family.
Only
Six of
the girls had good health, and four had health problems, three of which were mainourishment.
Seven of the girls had
normal intelligence and eight were in the grade in school which was normal for their chronological age.
Five of the
girls had been neglected or rejected by their parents in their early lives and six had shown tendencies to withdraw from people and situations as they met them before they were placed.
Seven of the ten girls were making a break' from the
emotional ties of their families when they were placed in substitute homes. parents.
Eight of them were rejected by their
They averaged 2.6 previous placements; for only
two girls this substitute home was their first.
Half of
112
TABLE XI GROUPING OF GIRLS ACCORDING TO THEIR GENERAL SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT IN THEIR SUBSTITUTE HOMES
CLASSIFICATION Total
PLACEMENTS Foster Homes
semiInstitutions
TOTAL
52
26
26
Girls displaying Socially satis factory adjust ment
21
9
12
Quiet, 1,too good*1 girls
10
5
5
Girls expressing their difficultie s in adjustment hy open conflict
18
9
9
3
3
0
Delinquent and Psychotic girls
113 them had been placed in the particular substitute homes in which they were studied as a part of a plan for the treat ment of their specific needs.
They had been living in these
particular substitute homes an average of one year, four months• GIRLS EXPRESSING THEIR DIFFICULTIES IN ADJUSTMENT BY OPEN CONFLICT Eighteen of the fifty-two girls studied were grouped in this classification.
They were evenly divided between
the semi-institution and foster homes, nine coming from each group.
Classified in this type of adjustment are girls with
minor behavior problems.
They make unpleasant the lives of
others in the home in which they live, but their misbehavior is not serious.
Barbara and Phoebe illustrate this classi
fication. At the time this study was made Barbara,
seventeen,
had had thirteen placements in substitute homes and was liv ing in Helen Louise Girls1 Home.
Her sister, August, had
-also thirteen placements and was living at the Amaranth Home. Their sister, Dorothy, had had nine placements and was liv ing in a foster home.
Barbara and Augusta had been placed
in the Amaranth Home together and had quarreled so incess antly that Barbara was removed to the Helen Louise Girls* Home and Augusta remained at the Amaranth Home.
The mother!s parents lived in Scotland, where her mother had died with cancer in 1922. excess.
Her father drank to
The father’s parents were from New York and had a
family of twenty-two children.
His father was married twice.
The mother was horn in Scotland and the father met her over seas during the World War when she was a nurse..
The mother
had a mental breakdown after the birth of Barbara, and was diagnosed as an exhaustive psychosis arid psychosis manic depressive at that time.
She later recovered from that break
down only to have another complete breakdown eight years later in 1931. sane.
She is now in the state hospital for the in
Before his w i f e ’s second breakdown,
vorced the mother and has since remarried.
the father di He has now de
veloped active tuberculosis, has been removed to a veteran’s hospital where he receives a veteran’s pension. merly an entertainer.
He was for
The mother loved the children passion
ately but was unable to care for them adequately.
She let
them do anything they willed, exercising no control over them The father loved them but because of his tuberculosis could not fondle them and only corrected them. an aversion for him.
They have developed
They lived for a while with their step
mother, but finally she decided she could no longer manage them.
Barbara was untruthful, undependable, and associated
with Mexican girls.
It was felt that group placement would
give her the right kind of companionship,
so she and Augusta
115 were placed in Amaranth Home.
She made a good adjustment to
the home, hut she and Augusta quarreled continuously, and when a group of the girls (Barbara among them) decided that they needed more freedom and were given the chance to go to the Helen Louise Girls * Home, Barbara was removed to the new home.
She was growing restless at the Amaranth Home and
likes constant change. Barbara is a very attractive girl and takes much pride in her appearance.
She worries about the suitability of her
clothes and when she will be able to have new ones.
She is
clean in habits and in good health at present, although she suffered from active tuberculosis in 1932 and again in 1936, both times being placed in sanatariums. well poised.
She is unusually
She has an excellent command of English but
her choice of literature, motion pictures, and radio programs is indiscriminate.
Her leisure time is filled with dances,
clubs, dates, and athletics.
She draws well too.
She is
looked up to socially at school and is quite a leader.
She
prefers individual society to group and the companionship of boys to that of girls.
She has many friends of her own age
and slightly older in school and has kept up her friendship with the girls at Amaranth, going back to visit them on week-’' ends occasionally.
Her early rejection by her father seems
to have given her an inner drive for independence and change and makes her restless.
She is boisterous and deceitful,
116 always wishing to have fun and getting it at the expense and in defiance of anyone in authority.
She has six or eight
hoy friends all at the same time and wants to go out every night.
Since this is not allowed, there is much conflict
between her and the house mother. but unwillingly.
She accepts this control
She gets bitter and angry when criticized
and is quite inconsistent in making decisions.
She displays
the nlet me alone and I !ll let you alone11 attitude toward others, their rights and reputation.
She has an intelligence
quotient of one hundred nineteen and is retarded in school one year because of illness and moving around.
She receives
college recommended grades and is very prominent in school activities.
She likes school, and her attendance is good.
She is sporadic in her work.
She is cool and unemotional to
the house mother and has many bitter quarrels with her and other girls in the home, from time to time.
She believes
that she has made a good adjustment to this,home, all her emotions being released in her conflict.
She is gradually
making an adjustment to other people and her restlessness is slowly becoming minimized. Phoebe, thirteen years of age, lived in a foster home, her fifth placement, when this study was made.
Her mother
was dead and her father was unable to make a home for her. She had been living with him in his crowded, unclean, bachelor1s quarters.
She needed a home where she could
adjust gradually.
She had been indulging in sex play and
needed guidance by someone capable of handling adolescents. This home seemed to fill the needs of the girl. Phoebe is a very attractive girl and her clothes are important to her.
She is beautiful, tall and slender with
a great deal of poise.
Her health is good now although she
was in a sanitarium with tuberculosis in 1932. good English but reads not at all. time in club activities.
She uses
She spends her leisure
She was petted and spoiled as a
small child and now finds it hard to obey. independent, boisterous and noisy. she is given time to day dream.
She is extremely
She becomes !,mopey*t when
She likes boys better than
girls, and girls d o n ft like her because she is loud and rough.
She has many friends of her own age.
to like her so she gives them presents.
She wants girls
Once she took some
jewelry to give to the girls, but was repentent and admitted her theft.
She has several boy friends but is too young to
have dates with them.
She had been sleeping with her father
while she was home, but there is no indication of misbehavior She is willing to accept the control of her foster mother, even though she finds it hard to take criticism.
She has
an intelligence quotient o f :one hundred twenty-four and is slightly ahead of her chronological age in school.
She makes
satisfactory academic and social adjustments in school, though her citizenship was poor in her early school life and
118 she now has excessive absences.
She likes her foster home
and wishes never to be moved, finding no fault with it until she is criticized, when she begins to wonder whether this is the right home for her. Barbara and Phoebe have been illustrative of .the eight** een girls in this group who have been in open conflict with their environment.
They average 15.1 years of age and are
from families averaging 2.6 children.
Three of the girls
are the only children in their families.
Ten of the girls
have good health, but four of the five girls with histories of hospitalization are in this group.
Nine of the girls are
of normal intelligence, four are normal superior and four are very superior.
Eleven are in the grade of school which
is normal for their chronological age.
Thirteen of the
girls were rejected or neglected in their early lives, nine were narcissistic and four sadistic at the time they were placed in their substitute homes.
Fifteen, or five-sixths
of the girls, were breaking their emotional relationships with their families at the time of their placement in their substitute homes.
The same number were rejected by their
families when they were placed in their new surroundings. This group averaged the highest number of previous place ments, 4.1 of the four classifications of the girls, only four of the group making these their first substitute homes.
119 Eleven of them had these particular homes chosen to meet their specific needs.
They had been living in these substi
tute homes an average of one year. DELINQUENT OH PSYCHOTIC GIRLS Only three of the fifty-two girls studied were in this classification.
They were all placed in foster homes.
are the girls with serious behavior problems.
These
Due to the
policies of the semi-institutions, girls of this type cannot be placed in them.
Madalyn illustrates this type of girl.
Madalyn, fifteen, was living in a semi-rural foster home in which she was placed for supervision at the request of the police department.
Her mother and father, both ex
cessive drinkers, were divorced and the custody, of Madalyn was given to her father. not well now. child.
Her mother had tuberculosis and is
She has remarried and is disinterested in the
Madalyn cannot get along with her father, quarreling
with him much of the time.
She dislikes him violently and
has little regard for her mother.
When she lived with her
father, they occupied an unattractive, two room apartment, being given relief funds intermittently.
As a matter of
convenience, Madalyn*s father placed her with some of his friends.
She had need of strict supervision and this home
is untrained and not understanding.
Therefore, the Children1s
Protective Association must give special supervision.
120
Madalyn is very attractive, wears an extreme amount of cosmetics and ignores all criticism. and in good health.
She is well poised
She uses a great deal of slang and reads
no more than is absolutely necessary.
She spends all her
leisure time in the company of boys, her only apparent in terest.
In her early life, she was- neglected and emotionally
deprived.
She displays an amazing amount of truancy, steal
ing, disobedience, defiance and willful behavior. little ambition or initiative.
She shows
She is nervous, restless,
over active, and irresponsible.
She has few friends of her
own; those she does have are older than she is*
She has
many boyfriends and has as many dates with them as she is permitted.
She is suspected of having sex relations with
the boys, but no one seems to have any information to this effect.
The foster mother has no control over Madalyn, and
Madalyn seems to approve heartily of' this arrangement. has little respect for authority.
Her intelligence quotient
is ninety-three and she is a year behind in school. dislikes school so stays away.
She
She
This, of course, gives her
little chance to make a good academic record.
She is cool
toward her foster mother and others in her foster home and dislikesher own parents.
However,
she believes she has made
a good adjustment both to her. foster and own home.
In the
opinion of the case worker supervising her, this girl has had
121
so much, delinquency that it is unlikely that she will ever wholly make a socially acceptable adjustment. These three delinquent girls, as illustrated by Madalyn, average 14.7 years in age and were from homes averaging 2.7 children.
One of the three was the only child of her family.
Two had good health, one having a severe case of obesity. Two had normal intelligence, and one was dull normal.
All
three were retarded in school according to their chronologi cal age.
Their early treatment was scattered in variety;
one rejected, one had history of family conflict, and the otherTs early history was unknown.
Two of the girls were
narcissistic and one sadistic at the time they went to live in their substitute homes. their families at that time.
All three were in conflict with Two of the girls were rejected
by their parents at the time they were placed in their foster homes.
For one of the girls, this was her first substitute
home, and a number of previous placements for the girls averaged 1.3.
One was placed in her particular foster home
according to her needs, while the other two homes were chosen just by chance.
The girls had been living in the foster
homes in which they were observed for this study an average of one year, six months.
CHAPTER VI SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS CONCERNING- FOSTER HOME AND SEMI-INSTITUTIONAL HOME PLACEMENTS FOR ADOLESCENT GIRLS This chapter presents a summary of the factors found to he important in the choice of a satisfactory home for an adolescent girl.
A comparison is made of foster home and
semi-institutional placements from which is drawn conclusions concerning the advantages and disadvantages of each type of placement• To say that nine of the fifty-two girls studied made satisfactory adjustments to their foster homes, while twelve of the girls placed in semi-institutions adjusted satisfac torily would not he sufficient hasis for the statement that semi-institutions are a better type of placement for adoles cent girls than are foster homes.
In Chapter III, in the
discussion of the factors influencing social adjustment, the girls were described as they were before they were placed in their substitute homes.
They received two types of treatment,
placement in foster homes and placement in semi-institutions. Their reactions to these two types of treatment in the area which we set up as measures of the social adjustment of the individual were described in Chapter IV.
In order to dis
cover which kind of treatment is more valuable, what type of girl adjusts better in a foster home and what type of girl
123 reacts more favorably to a semi-institutional home, we must compare girls with like backgrounds and like abilities ineach group classified as to their total social adjustment according to the type of treatment they received. Considering the adjustment the girls had made to their own homes before they were placed in substitute homes, we remember that eighteen had adjusted satisfactorily for five, their homes were over-important to them; seven had emotion ally withdrawn from their home situations; and twenty-one had been in open conflict with other members of their homes. Nine of the eighteen who had adjusted satisfactorily were placed in foster homes and nine in semi-institutions.
Of
these nine girls in foster homes, four had satisfactory total social adjustments, and four were in open conflict with their environment and themselves.
Five of these girls made satis
factory total adjustments after they were placed.
This
points to the tendency for girls who have already made good adjustments in their own homes to adjust more easily in semi institutions than in foster homes, other factors being equal. This may be due in part to the fact that six of the girls in foster homes and seven of the girls in semi-institutions had close emotional ties to member of their own families.
The
girls in foster homes who still had family ties had to accept another set of family ties also, while the girls in semi institutions did not.
124 Of the five girls whose homes were over-important to them, four "believed they were rejected by their parents at the time they were placed in substitute homes.
There was a
tendency to place these girls in foster homes, four of them being placed in foster homes and only one in a semi-institu tion.
Only one girl made a satisfactory total social adjust
ment in each type of placement, so there is little basis for considering either type of home superior for girls with this problem.
For the seven girls emotionally withdrawing from
their homes, we find the foster home type of treatment slightly superior.
With four of the girls in foster homes
and three of them in semi-institutions, we find two of the girls in foster homes and one of the semi-institution girls making a satisfactory total social adjustment.
Among the
twenty-two girls who were in conflict with their own homes, we find a tendency to place them in semi-institutions. Thirteen were in semi-institutions, while nine were in foster homes.
Five made satisfactory social adjustments in the semi
institutions while only one made a satisfactory total social adjustment in foster homes. living in foster homes.
All three delinquent girls were
These girls have shown a tendency
to make better total social adjustments in semi-institutions than in foster homes. When considering the status of the emotional ties the girls had with their families immediately before they were
125 placed in their foster homes, we find twelve girls with a close emotional relationship to their families and twelve girls with no home ties.
There was a tendency to place hoth
groups of girls in semi-institutional homes.
From the girls
with close home ties, five were in foster homes, seven in semi-institutions.
From the girls with no home ties, three
were in foster homes and nine in semi-institutions.
The
girls with close home ties tended to make more satisfactory social adjustments when placed in semi-institutions, five of the girls placed there making satisfactory social adjust ments as compared to two of the girls placed in foster homes. The girls with no home ties tended to make more satisfactory adjustments in foster homes, two-thirds of the girls placed there making satisfactory adjustments, while only one-third of the girls placed in semi-institutions made satisfactory adjustments.
Five out of the six girls who were over-pro
tected by their parents were placed in foster homes where four of them made satisfactory total social adjustment. When we consider the various behavior problems display*-* ed by the girls, we find that narcissistic girls tend to adjust about as well in foster homes as in semi-institutions, although there is a tendency to place them in foster homes. Ten of the seventeen narcissistic girls wer^ living in foster homes, only three of whom made satisfactory social adjustments. Of the seven living in semi-institutions,
only two made
126 satisfactory social adjustments. sadistic tendencies,
Of the four girls, with
two living in foster homes and two liv
ing in semi-institutions, none made satisfactory social ad justments so there seems to be little difference regardless of the type of treatment they received.
Of the twelve girls
withdrawing from life, five were in semi-institutions and seven in foster homes.
Three of the girls in foster homes
made satisfactory social adjustments after they were placed in their substitute homes while only one made a satisfactory social adjustment after placement in a semi-institutional home.
These girls who have withdrawn from their environment
show a tendency to make social adjustments more easily when placed in foster homes.
The three girls who were over-
active were unable to adjust in either type of placement, two being placed in foster homes and one in a semi-institu tion.
It made little difference which type of placement the
five over-demonstrative girls received, but there was a ten dency to place them in semi-institutions.
Only one was in a
foster home, where she made a satisfactory total social ad justment.
Of the four in semi-institutions, two made satis
factory total social adjustments. The girls who displayed extreme neatness tended to ad just more readily in\semi-institutional homes. four girls displaying this characteristic,
There were
two of whom were
in foster homes in which one was.able to make a satisfactory
127 social adjustment; and two were in semi-institutions where they both made satisfactory social adjustments. Of the seven girls who displayed no particular behavior problems,
two were in foster homes and five were in semi-
institutions, showing a tendency to place them in semi-insti tutions,
The girls also showed a tendency to adjust better
in semi-institutions than in foster.homes, all five adjust ing satisfactorily in the semi-institutions, while only one of the foster home girls made a satisfactory social adjust ment.
It is interesting to note that none of the girls with
out behavior problems were rejected or had health problems, and that all the girls with health problems also had behavior problems.
Also all of the girls who were retarded or ad
vanced in school had behavior problems. When the girls were classified according to their in telligence quotients, four were found to be dull normal; and eight, very superior intelligence.
Three of the dull normal
girls were placed in foster homes, one in a semi-institution. This shows.a tendency to place the girls in foster homes, and the girls whowed a tendency to adjust more readily in foster homes, two making satisfactory social adjustments there, while the girl in the semi-institution was still in conflict.
Of the twenty-two girls with normal Intelligence,
there was a slight tendency to place them In foster homes, although they seemed to adjust more readily In semi-institu-
128 tions.
Twelve of the girls were in foster homes, three of
whom made good total social adjustments.
Of the ten girls
in semi-institutions, four made good social adjustments. Of the eighteen superior normal girls, eight were in foster homes, ten in semi-institutions,
showing a slight tendency
toward the placement of these girls in semi-institutions. The girls also showed a tendency to adjust better in the group situation, three foster home girls and six semi-insti tutional girls making good total social adjustments.
There
was a tendency to place the girls of very superior intelli gence in semi-institutions, but they seemed to make about the same adjustments in either place.
Three were in foster
homes, five in semi-institutions. The grade level of the girls according to their chronological age, grouped them into nine girls retarded in school, four advanced, and thirty-nine whose grade in school was normal according to their chronological age.
The r e
tarded girls did not make satisfactory adjustments in either type of home, five were placed in foster homes, two of whom were delinquent, and four were placed in semi-institutions. The four girls who were advanced in school, .those in a grade beyond their chronological age, tended to make a more satis factory social adjustment in foster homes.
Two were placed
in semi-institutions, neither making a satisfactory adjust ment, and of the two in foster homes, one made a satisfactory
129 adjustment.
The thirty-nine girls who were in their normal
grade at school were evenly placed, nineteen in foster homes and twenty in semi-institutions. and twelve semi-institutional adjustments,
Seven foster home girls
girls made satisfactory total
showing a tendency for these girls to adjust
more readily in semi-institutions than in foster homes. Thirty-six of the girls had no health problems, while sixteen had health problems.
A tendency was noted to put
girls without health problems in semi-institutions and those with health problems in foster homes.
Seventeen of the
girls without health problems were placed in foster homes. Nineteen girls without health problems and seven with health problems were in semi-institutions. As we have seen in Chapter III, the girls vary from those who have had no previous placement to those who have had twelve.
Seventeen of them had had no previous substitute
home experience,
twenty-nine had had from one to six substi
tute homes previous to the ones in which they were studied and six had had from seven to twelve previous placements. Of the group with no previous placements, three girls were in foster homes and fourteen were in semi-institutions. Nine of the semi-institutional girls- and only one of the foster home girls made satisfactory social adjustments. the girls with one to six previous placements,
For
the tendency
was to place them in foster homes, but they seemed to adjust
130 about as well in either type of placement.
Twenty-one of
the girls were living in foster homes while eight were in semi-institutions.
There was a tendency to place the six
girls with seven to twelve placements in semi-institutions, but they had ceased to adjust to either type of placement, * none of them making satisfactory adjustments.
Pour of the
girls were in semi-institutions while two were in foster home s • There was a tendency to place girls who were only children in foster homes and those with siblings in semi institutions.
Both groups tended to adjust more readily in
the semi-institutional homes. forty-three had siblings.
Nine girls were only children,
Six of the only children were
placed in foster homes, three in semi-institutions.
Of the
six in foster homes, two made satisfactory social adjustments. Twenty of the girls with siblings were placed in foster homes, twenty-three in semi-institutions.
Of the twenty in foster
homes, seven made satisfactory social adjustments.
Of the
twenty-three in semi-institutions, ten made satisfactory social adjustments. In summary, we may say that although the number of girls studied and the statistics'upon which comparisons are based are small, certain tendencies were noted regarding the type of girl making satisfactory social adjustments most readily in semi-institutions and foster homes.
131 Girls making the most satisfactory total social ad justments after being placed in semi-insti.tutions were (1) those who made satisfactory social adjustments in their own homes or were in conflict with members of their own families, (2) those who were extremely quiet, ticular behavior problems,
(3) those who had no par
(4) those who had normal or sup
erior intelligence and were in the grade in school normal for their chronological age, problems,
(5) those who had no health
(6) those who had strong emotional attachments to
their own homes, or (7) those who had lived in no substitute homes previous to the one in which they were observed in this study. The girls reacting more favorably in foster homes than in semi-institutions were (1) those who were emotionally withdrawn from their own homes and life in general,
(2) those
with dull normal intelligence, or those who were advanced beyond their chronological ages in their grade in school, and (3) those with no emotional ties to their own homes. The girls who tended to adjust with equal ease in either foster homes or semi-institutions were (1) those to whom their own homes w e r e .over-important,
(2) those who were
narcissistic or over-demonstrative in their behavior before they were placed in foster homes, intelligence,
(3) those with very superior
(4) those with health problems, or (5) those
with from one to six experiences of living in substitute
132 homes before they were placed in the ones in which they were studied here. Girls who could not make a satisfactory adjustment in either type of placement tended to be (1) those who were sadistic or overTactive,
(2) those retarded in their grades
in school according to their chronological ages, and (3) those who had been placed in seven to twelve substitute homes before they were placed in the one in which they were observ ed here. Substitute home placement is a type of treatment which can never be done away with.
Situations,
such as we have
reported in the fifty-two cases studied, arise and the pro blems must be met by another home.
Therefore, we must pre
pare ourselves to meet the placement problem intelligently. Further study of the factors which aid or stand in the way of the satisfactory adjustment of the individual.concerned, especially of the adolescent, would be helpful.
In general,
more of the total group of girls studied made satisfactory total social adjustments after being placed in semi-institu tions than in foster homes.
Perhaps more purposive choice
of a substitute home through further study of the individual before placement would make clearer the factors entering in to the individuals*
adjustments in the substitute homes.
A study such as this was based on too small a number of cases to warrant drawing more than tentative conclusions,
and could,
133 therefore, be little but descriptive in character.
Further
research concerning each of the factors influencing the girls social adjustment on a wider numerical and geographical basi3 would be valuable.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY A.
BOOKS
Arlitt, A. H., Adolescent Psychology* Book Company, 1933. 250 pp.
New York:
American
Baylor, Edith M., and Elio D. Monachesi, The Rehabilitation of Children. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939. 650 pp. Blanchard, Phyliss Mary,- The Care of the Adolescent Girl. London: K. Pari, Trench, Trubner and Company Ltd., 1921. 201 pp. Burgess, E. W . , The Adolescent in the Family, a publication of the White House Conference Committee on the Family. New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1934. 473 pp. Child Study Association, Parents Questions. New York: Harper and Brothers Publishers, 1936. 312 pp. Dexter, Robert Cloutman, Social Adjustment. Knopf,'1927. 424 pp.
New York;
Dimock, Hedley S., Rediscovering the.Adolescent. Association Press, 1937. 287 pp.
A.A*
New York:
Foster, Sybil, "Mental Health Needs in Children1s Institu tions", Readings in Social Case Work 1920-1958, Fern Lowry, editor: New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. Kirkandall, Lester A., Factors Related to the Changes in Adjustments of High School Pupils. "lew York: Bureau of Publications, Teachers College, Columbia University 1937. 90 pp. Richmond, Winifred Vanderbilt, The Adolescent Girl: York: Macmillan Company, 1925. 212 pp.
New
Rogers, Carl, "A Good Foster Home: Its Achievements and Limitations", Readings in Social Case Work 1920-1958, Fern Lowry, editor; New York: Columbia University Press, 1939. pp. 417-36.
136 Sayles, M. B., Substitute Parents. Fund, 1936. 309 pp.
New York:
Terman, l»ewis Madison, and Maud A. Merrill New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1937. B.
Commonwealth
460 pp.
PERIODICALS AND PAMPHLETS
Baxter,"Adah, “The Adjustment of Children to Foster Homes: Six case Study1*, Smith College Studies in Social W o r k , 7:191,. March 1937. Northampton, Mass. Smith College for Social Work. Bissell, Elizabeth, “Effects of Foster Home Placements11, National Conference of Social Work Proceedings, -1928. 238-45 pp. “Boarding Mother Speaks” , Survey, 49:241, November 14, 1922. Chapin, Henry Dwight, “Family vs. Institution” , Survey, 55:485-88, January 15, 1926. “Homes or Institutions” , Review of Reviews, 80:49-51, July, 1929. Doron, M.S. and B. C. Reynolds, Selection of Foster Homes for Children, Child Welfare Series Monograph #1. Foster, Frances E.,. “Basic Principles in Case Work Treatment of the Adolescent” , The Family, p. 184, October 1939. “Foster Home and Group Placement” , American Journal of Ortho psychiatry, July, 1941. Foster, Sybil, “Coordination of Institutional care for Children with other Services in the Community” , National Conference of Social Work Proceedings, 1936: 548:61. Freeman, Frank Nugent, “Heredity and Environment in the Light of the Study of Twins” , Scientific Monthly, 44:13-19, January, 1937. Greenacre, Phylis, “Special Problems of Boarding Home Work” , The Family, p. 150, July, 1940. Johnson, Lillian, “Case Work with Children in Institutions” , National Conference of Social Work Proceedings, 1940: pp. 335-437 '
137
Danger, S., "Developing Parental Relationships in an Institu tion", National Conference of Social Work Proceedings, 1929. pp. 142-437 Lippman, Hyman, S., Foster Home Placement of Older Chllren, Pamphlet of the Child Welfare League of America, 1939. Neuman, F., "Effects on the Child in %n Unstable House", National Conference of Social Work Proceedings. Parkhurst, G., "Standing in the Place of Mother", Good Housekeeping, 108:22-23, May 1939. Peller, Lily, "Psychological Implications in Institutional Life for Children", The Family, p. 139. July, 1939. Portnoy, Deborah S., "Use'of Case Work Skills in Home Finding" The Family, p. 320-24, February, 1940. Taylor, R., "Care of Children in Foster Homes", National Conference of Social Work Proceedings, 1924: 125-38. Ten Years of Promoting the Welfare of Children 1925-1955 Children’s Protective Association, 2824 Hyans Street, Los Angeles, California, 1935. 37 pp. Webster, L. Josephine, "Foster Children and the Changing I.Q.", The Family, p. 257. ' December, 1931. Williams, R.R., "Effects on Personality and Social Attitudes of Institutional Placement", National Conference of Social Work Proceedings, 1928, 231-38. United States of Foster
Department of Labor, Children1s Bureau, Home Care,Publication #216, 306 pp.
United States Home Care 289 pp.
Department of Labor, Children’s Bureau, Foster for Dependent Children, Publication #136,
-C .
A B C ’s
UNPUBLISHED -MATERIALS
Carpenter, Gean Alice, "Some Factors relating'to Method and Outcome of Case Work of Adolescent Girls", Unpublished Master’s thesis, Smith College of Social Work, Northamp ton, 1939. 193 pp.
13 8
Leohardy, Alma, ”An Experimental Study in Social Adjustment of a Selected Number of High School Students11, Unpublish ed Masterfs thesis, The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1937. 150 pp. Nicolson, Gertrude French, 11Investigation of Problems of Normal High School Girls11, Unpublished Master1s thesis, The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1937. 150 pp. Plairs, M. A *, ’’Personal and Social Adjustments of Girls Who Were Placed in Work Homes by the Girl’s Placement and Supervision” . Church Federation of Los Angeles, during the period of January 1936-1938. pp. 379. Samuels, M. W., ”A Study of the Effects of Foster Home Place ment on a Selected Number of ’Rejected’ Children” . Unpublished Master’s Thesis, The University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1939. 193 pp.
APPENDIX
SCHEDULE PACE SHEET INFORMATION
Family
Name or Number
Approx imate Address
Age
Educ • School Grade
Country Custom # time # of or State Marital ary Oc visit Placeof birth Living Status cupation Client ments
Client Mother Sibl ings
Others
Placement made by at request of ___ CASE # __________
(Agency)
141
ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORY A.
Housing 1.
Past
2*
Present
3*
Adjustment
B.
Mobility of residence
C.
Economic standard of family
ADJUSTMENT TO PREVIOUS HOME A.
To parents or foster parents
B.
To siblings
1*
#
2.
Emotional relationship.
C.
Why separated from own parents
D.
Sense of rejection by real parents 1.
Narcissistic behavior
2.
Sadistic behavior
3.
Withdrawal
4.
Over-demonstrative behavior
5.
Other
‘ REASON FOR PLACEMENT IN PARTICULAR HOME PERSONAL APPEARANCE A.
Clothes 1.
Importance to the girl
2.
How she wears them
3.
B.
C.
Taste in choosing them a,
Who chooses them
b.
Who pays for them
Cosmetics 1•
Amount worn
2.
Importance to her
Hair 1.
Attractiveness
2. Cleanliness D.
Complexion
E.
General cleanliness
P.
Poise
HEALTH A.
General
B.
Serious illnesses
C.
1.
Past
2.
Present
Menstruation
CULTURAL BACKGROUND A.
Past 1.
2.
Grandparents a.
Where "born
b.
Occupation
Parents - marital status
143
R.
a.
Where horn
b.
Occupation
c.
Social adjustment
Present cultural level 1.
Use of English
2.
Reading
3.
4.
a.
Type
b.
Amount
Movies a.
Type
b.
Amount
Radio programs a.
Type
b.
Amount
RECREATIONAL LEVEL A.
How she spends her leisure time
B.
Individual recreation
G.
Group recreation
D.
Balance among types of recreation
E.
Leadership shown
PERSONALITY ADJUSTMENT A.
How her early treatment has affected her personal adjustment 1.
Early treatment (petting, cruelty, etc.)
1 43
2. B.
Personality traits affected (boasting, timidity, pride, etc.)
Her topics of conversation 1.
Type
2,
Problems brought to worker
C.
Daydr e aming
D.
Drive for independence and self-expression
BALANCING FACTORS A.
Kind 1 . Religion
B.
2.
Church work
3.
Club work
4.
School
5.
Office holding
6.
Art or music
7.
Other
Need for
above
1.
Means of securing
2.
Means of self-agrandizement
3.
Means of surcease trouble
4.
Other
authority
from emotional strain at times of
SOCIAL LIFE A.
Group or Individual society preferred
B.
Number of friends
144
1.
School
2.
Outside
C*
Carry-over of friends from previous home
D.
Age of friends
E.
Personality characteristics 1.
Tactfullness
2.
Quarrelsomeness
3.
Cooperation
4.
Others
ADJUSTMENT TO SEXUAL LIFE A.
Number of boy friends
B.
Number and frequency of dates
C.
Expressed problems
D.
Amount of knowledge
E.
Known maladjustments
F*
Control by foster mother 1.
Amount
2.
Kind
3.
Acceptance by girl
MENTAL LEVEL A.
I .Q.
Bi
Grade in school compared with chronological age 1.
Reasons given if over age a.
Illness
14 5
2.
b.
Moving around
c.
Mental dullness
d.
Other
Reasons given If under age a.
Mental superiority
b.
Over-studiousness
c.
Other
ADJUSTMENT TO SCHOOL LIFE A.
Academic
B.
Social
C.
Activities
D.
Emotional (likes or dislikes)
E.
Attendance
WORK HABITS A.
Completion of work 1.
Consistence
2.
Promptness
5•
Neatness
B.
Temperament in work
C.-
Procrastination; excuses, etc.
EMOTIONAL LEVEL A.
Infantile reactions and attitudes carried over into adolescence 1.
Nail biting
146 2*
Playing with face and mouth
3.
Spitting
4.
Temper tantrums
5.
Irresponsibility
6.
Others
B.
Ability to take criticism
C.
Consistency in decisions
D.
Emotional ties 1.
Outside or inside foster home
2.
Remain with own home
ADJUSTMENT TO CONVENTIONS A.
Truthfulness
B.
Modesty
C.
Conscientiousness
D.
Attitudes toward the rights and reputation of others
E.
Ability to conform to regulations
ADJUSTMENT TO PRESENT HOME A.
Poster mother
B.
To others in home
C.
To own parents (if in contact)
ADJUSTMENT GIRL PEELS SHE HAS MADE A.
To foster mother
B.
To others in home
147
C.
To own parents (if in contact)
GROUPING AS TO ADJUSTMENT A.
Girl displaying socially satisfactory adjustment
B.
Quiet, **too good1* girl
C.
Girl expressing her difficulty in adjustment hy open conflict
D.
Delinquent or psychotic girl
PROGNOSIS FOR GIRL*8 FUTURE ADJUSTMENT TO LIFE AS SEEN BY CASE WORKER