Communal Interests Crucial to Marital Adjustment
About fifteen years ago, Kirkpatrick (1937) stated the following hypothesis: "Community of interests between married persons is an important factor in marital adjustment, and a measure of a community of interests may be a relatively innocuous index for measuring adjustment and for predicting the success of a relationship between two persons of the opposite sex" (p. 134). Other researchers (Taves, 1948; Frumkin, 1952) have substantiated the validity of this hypothesis, i.e., they have proven that a community of interests can be and is an index of marital adjustment. To measure the community of interests in marriage adjustment Kirkpatrick constructed what today is called The Kirkpatrick Scale of Family Interests. Simply stated, this scale consists of 60 interest items duplicated on two single sheets of paper. On the first sheet the respondent is requested to check those interests which he enjoys engaging in as personal interests. On the second sheet he is requested to check all those interests which he enjoys engaging in with his spouse. The adjustment score is readily obtained by dividing the number of personal interests by the number of personal interests which are also mutual interests, i.e., the double-check items. A question is raised concerning the interest items selected by each spouse as communal interests. Which are the most important communal interests in the light of social change ? More specifically, how do social scientists, teachers, students, and other educated persons feel about the significance of these interests to marital adjustment ?
A Direct vs. An Indirect Approach in Measuring Marital Adjustment
T HE PROBLEM is that of social measurement as a tool to help evaluate intimate personal relationships in the field of marital adjustment. So far the direct approach has been used almost exclusively in measuring marital adjustment, the better known standardized scales being those by Burgess and Cottrell, Terman, Locke, Popenoe, Adams, and Wallin. They are based on such inquiries as: "Do you and your spouse engage in outside interests together?" "Do you kiss your spouse every day, almost every day, quite frequently, etc.?" "Does your spouse confide in you?"' Although the indirect approach type of scale is no longer a novelty, its value has not been thoroughly explored. How adequate is an indirect approach? Can it really get at personal and intimate issues any better than the direct approach? What inherent advantages does the indirect promise over the direct approach scale? These questions have not been adequately answered. It is assumed as a working hypothesis that the indirect approach promises a more reliable and valid tool for marital measurement than the direct approach. Direct, specific, intimate questions are often useless because they will not be answered honestly or because they antagonize the examinee. The direct approach, because it relies heavily upon such explicit questions, is satisfactory only in those situations in which the examinee is cooperative and relatively disinterested in his score. For example, if a man applying for a job knew that his being hired depended upon his presenting a picture of marital tranquillity, he would tend, both consciously and unconsciously, to try
Initial Teacher Training: the French view
ABSTRACT This paper, against the background of trends in the development of initial teacher training in Europe as a whole, identifies and explains some of the recent, radical reforms which were introduced in France by a socialist government. These include the need to raise the status and the competence of the teaching profession; the creation of new teacher‐training institutions of university status (Instituts universitaires de formation des maitres); the introduction of common entry qualifications at degree level for both primary and secondary levels; the harmonisation and the extension to 2 years of the post‐degree teacher‐training course and the increase in emphasis placed on professional training, both theoretical and practical. These reforms provoked a storm of protest and an examination of the reasons for this reveals a multiplicity of crucial questions which have far‐reaching implications.