Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Adolescent Rehabilitation in an American Residential Treatment Center

在Rebecca J. Lester博士的指导下，研究生Katherine Hejtmanek将在一家主要治疗低收入和少数族裔青年的住院治疗机构进行一项关于美国文化价值观与康复过程之间关系的研究。居住治疗在美国社会中有着悠久的历史，用于住房和治疗被认为是社会不充分的青年。今天，它是20万边缘青年在迎接成年挑战之前最后和最激烈的社会服务。这个研究项目调查了被认为任性的青少年是如何被改造成被认为体面的成年人的。研究人员将对某一特定设施及其项目进行个案研究。她将研究该项目与更广泛的文化价值观和关于美国主流良好人格观念的社会辩论之间的关系。指导性研究问题包括：工作人员如何在日常生活中实施中心的官方道德责任模式，当他们进行包括康复在内的活动和互动时？工作人员和住院医生如何确定住院医生是否以及何时已经学习并内化了这个模型？为了回答这些问题，研究人员将在家中生活和工作。她将使用五种实地研究方法：参与者观察，对工作人员和居民的焦点小组访谈，对工作人员的半结构化访谈，对居民的生活史访谈，以及档案和文献研究。这个项目将在两个方面对社会科学做出贡献。首先，它将在方法上作出贡献，利用青少年自己的社会康复经验作为重要的数据来源。其次，本项目将记录宏观层面的文化价值观、微观层面的治疗技术和个人层面的经验如何相互告知以构建社会生活的过程。本研究的结果将有助于了解不同文化背景下其他针对被排斥青少年的社会康复计划的社会嵌入性。最后，本课题对研究生的人类学训练有一定的贡献。

Under the supervision of Dr. Rebecca J. Lester, graduate student Katherine Hejtmanek will undertake a study of the relationship between American cultural values and the process of rehabilitation at a residential treatment facility that treats primarily low-income and minority youth. Residential treatment has a long history in American society for housing and treating youth considered to be socially inadequate. Today, it is the final and most drastic social service provision for two hundred thousand marginalized youth before they meet the challenges of adulthood. This research project investigates how adolescents deemed wayward are rehabilitated to become adults who are considered decent. The researcher will undertake a case study of a specific facility and its programs. She will examine the relationship between the program and broader cultural values and social debates about mainstream American notions of good personhood. Guiding research questions include: How do staff members implement the center's official model of moral responsibility in daily life as they go about the activities and interactions that comprise rehabilitation? and how do staff and residents determine if and when the residents have learned and internalized this model? To answer these questions, the researcher will live and work at the home. She will use five field research methods: participant observation, focus group interviews with staff members and residents, semi-structured interviews with staff members, life history interviews with residents, and archival and literature research. This project will contribute to social science in two ways. First, it will make a methodological contribution by utilizing utilizes adolescents' own experiences of their social rehabilitation as a critical source of data. Second, this project will document the process by which how macro-level cultural values, micro-level therapeutic techniques, and individual-level experiences inform each other to construct social life. The results of this study will contribute to understanding the social embeddedness of other social rehabilitation programs for excluded youth in various cultural contexts. Finally, this project contributes to the anthropological training of the graduate student.