NCJ Number
117828
Journal
Journal of Marriage and the Family Volume: 50 Dated: (February 1988) Pages: 281-291
Date Published
1988
Length
11 pages
Annotation
The initial article in this "Feedback" section assesses the Straus and Gelles data on family violence obtained in 1975 and 1985 surveys, and the second article presents Gelles' and Straus' response to the critique.
Abstract
The critique of Gelles' and Straus' study, which reported decreases in the rates of severe intrafamily violence toward wives and children, questions the findings on the grounds of methodology and interpretation. Sample selections for the 1975 and 1985 surveys differed; data for the former survey were collected via in-person interview, and data for the latter were collected via telephone interview. The critique notes that the telephone interviews would yield a significantly different sample than the in-person interviews, since many low-income families, who are at high risk for family violence, do not have telephones. Gelles and Straus respond that in-person interview samples also fail to have a sufficient sampling of low-income families due to the difficulty of contacting and completing interviews with such families. Thus, reason Gelles and Straus, the samples would not be significantly different. Straus and Gelles acknowledge some computational errors as identified in the critique but argue that they do not change any of the substantive conclusions. Gelles and Straus oppose the critique's preferences for including proportion of variance explained and confidence intervals. 6 tables, 11 notes, 31 references.