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Introduction
Every day there are children all over the world who struggle with feeling powerless or oppressed and do not know how to tell the people that can help them. The purpose of our project was to not only explain the types of situations that can make children feel powerless but also bring more awareness to them. The three main ideas that we focused on were child abuse and childhood sexual abuse, children with disabilities, and children who were adopted or in the foster care system. We wanted our research to elucidate the feelings and effects that these situations may have had on the students here at the College of Coastal Georgia. We strongly believe that there is not enough support or help offered to children affected by situations like the ones previously listed.
Methods
Our primary method of research was an IRB-approved survey consisting of 35 questions that we created using Qualtrics. The first questions that we asked were demographics like age, race, and gender. Asking demographic questions is important in studies like this because it gives the investigators a good idea of what type of people are taking their survey. For example, in our study, we found that the majority of people who took our survey were white, female, and aged 18-24. That specific group seems to be the most common for surveys like this one. We also asked questions that directly related to our research. Our focus was on situations in which children feel powerless, or oppressed, like child abuse or child sexual abuse, disabilities, and adoption or the foster care system. Examples of questions that we asked include: “Do you think CSA is perpetrated by someone the victim knows?”, “Do you think people with disabilities struggle with everyday activities?”, and “Do you think adopted kids struggle with fitting in with others?” Asking these types of questions gave us the specific research results that we needed for this scientific study. Due to the smaller size of our college campus and the small pool of people that actually took the survey, our results may not have been as insightful as they could have been. Generally, the larger the group of people and the more answers given, the more accurate and precise the information and results will be. Should we further our research on this topic, we would broaden the number of people that see and take the survey. We would also ask more questions pertaining to the specific topics so we could get even more data to help support our research.
Results
Demographics:
Our group had one-hundred and fifteen (115) total people take our survey within the week that it was posted. Everyone was a United States citizen, most were from Georgia, and forty-two (42) were students at the College of Coastal Georgia. The majority of our surveyors were caucasian, female, heterosexual, and aged 18-24. According to the results, forty-five (45) people were aged 18-24, fourteen (14) people were aged 45-54, thirteen (13) people were aged 35-44, seven (7) people were aged 25-34, seven (7) people were aged 55-64, and three (3) people were aged 65-74. Female was the most popular gender in this survey with a count of sixty-six (66) female surveyors, then twenty (20) male surveyors, and two (2) non-binary surveyors. We had a high majority of seventy-eight (78) people identifying as white or Caucasian, four (4) identifying as African American, two (2) identifying as, one (1) identifying as Native American or American Indian, one (1) identifying as Asian, and three (3) identifying as a different identity, like mixed. In order from most to least, we had people take our survey from Georgia, Michigan, and Kentucky, the numbers being 85, three (3), and one (1) respectively. When asked about their sexual orientation, most said heterosexual at a count of sixty-five (65), then twelve (12) were bisexual, four (4) were gay, two (2) were lesbian, and there were one (1) each of pansexual and asexual. Of our surveyors, thirty-seven (37) are single or never married, thirty-six (36) are married, eleven (11) are in a domestic partnership, and five (5) are divorced. Thirty-five (35) people have some college education but do not have a degree, twelve (12) people graduated from high school or have some equivalent like their GED, twelve (12) people had an Associate’s degree, nine (9) people have a Bachelor’s degree, eight (8) people have a Master’s degree, six (6) have not graduated high school yet, four (4) people have a Doctoral degree, and three (3) have a professional degree. Most of our surveyors are working, enrolled in college and taking classes, or both. Thirty-six (36) are working full-time (40 hours a week or more), thirteen (13) are working part-time and are also full-time students (at least 12 credit hours), thirteen (13) are just full-time students, eight (8) are both working full-time and are students full-time, five (5) are self-employed, three (3) are both working part-time and are students part-time, three (3) are looking for work, three (3) are just part-time students, two (2) are working full-time and are students part-time, two (2) are retired, and one (1) preferred not to answer. Twelve (12) of our surveyors make less than $10,000, ten (10) make $30,000-$39,999, ten (10) make $100,000-$149,999, nine (9) make $150,000 or more, eight (8) make $20,000-$29,999, seven (7) make $40,000-$49,999, seven (7) make $50,000-$59,999, seven (7) make $60,000-$69,999, seven (7) make $70,000-$79,999, four (4) make $10,000-$19,999, four (4) make $90,000-$99,999, and two (2) make $80,000-$89,999. We believe that if we had a larger group of people to take this survey, possibly even a more controlled group of people, the results of these questions may have been different.
Forms of Oppression:
In this section, we would like to talk about some of the different forms of oppression that children might face. We asked our surveyors what forms of oppression that they think children face, and very few (3.81%) believe that children do not face forms of oppression. The list of forms includes sexism (18.69%), racism (19.03%), violence/abuse (21.80%), ableism (11.76%), classism (14.19%), and ageism (10.73%). The percentages previously listed next to the options indicate the amount of people that selected that option. We also asked about which gender they think is affected most by each form that we listed. The bar graph about this question is included on this Webtext and shows all of the results, so we are going to focus on the more interesting results. The graph showed that 60% of people claim that girls were affected more by sexism and 1.33% claim that men are affected more. In the topics of racism, ableism, classism, ageism, and others, the majority said that both ages face those kinds of oppression. We asked the people that took our survey to give us suggestions about what should be done to help prevent childhood oppression. A lot of people agreed that parents need to do better to protect their children and to teach their children not to be mean to other children. There were also quite a few suggestions about offering more therapy and other supportive options to children whether it be in school or in the community. Most of the suggestions were good, real suggestions, and a few are even humorous. A couple of people suggested an option that we really liked. They stated, “It is simple. Treat them with kindness and an open mind, like you would want to be treated.” We liked this one because it essentially says that children want to be treated like they are equal to adults, they want to be listened to. Having an open mind when talking to children and not being ageist is definitely a good way to get children to talk to adults when they feel they need help.
Child Abuse/Childhood Sexual Abuse:
Child abuse and childhood sexual abuse are unfortunately very common forms of oppression that children face all the time. For this project, we specifically asked about childhood sexual abuse because it seems to be the type of abuse that is talked about the least. We found that 75.71% of people believe childhood sexual assault happens to females, 17.14% believe it happens to both, and only 7.14% believe it happens to just males. That percentage definitely makes sense because most people personally know many women who have been sexually assaulted and not as many men that it has happened to. Though that does not mean it only happens to women, it just does not happen to men as often. We also found that 52.86% of people determined that the age group 6-10 is affected most by sexual assault, 30% of people chose ages 11-15, 10% chose ages 2-5, and only 7.14% of people chose ages 16-17. When asked to decide whether childhood sexual assault happens often on a scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree, 44.29% chose strongly agree, 35.71% chose somewhat agree, 10% chose neither agree nor disagree, 5.71% chose somewhat disagree, and 4.29% chose strongly disagree. The majority of these surveyors agree that childhood sexual assault happens pretty often. On another scale of strongly disagree to strongly agree, we asked if they believe only females are affected. 48.57% strongly disagreed, 34.29% somewhat disagreed, 11.43% neither agreed nor disagreed, 1.43% somewhat agreed, and 4.29% strongly agreed. It is often revealed that the perpetrator is someone that the child knows. Our research reinforced the previous statement when 95.71% chose yes after we asked if they believed the perpetrator was someone the child knows. This type of oppression is one that can cause a lot of long-term side effects, like PTSD, anxiety, depression, and various other mental illnesses. It is important that this topic be talked about more so there can be more help and support for children who have to go through this.
Disabilities:
For our research, we wanted to know how children feel or if they struggle with having a disability. One in ten children in the world has a disability. That is over 240 million children worldwide. From our survey, we found that when we asked: “If people with disabilities struggle with everyday activities”. We got a variety of answers: 37.14% said sometimes, 12.86% said half the time, 32.86% said most of the time, and 17.14% said always. Along with that when asked, “If they knew anyone with a disability” with yes or no answer choices: 77.14% said yes, and 22.86% said no. Another question that was asked was “Do you think children with disabilities have a hard time making friends” the answer choices were yes, no, and maybe. 58.57% chose yes, 1.43% chose no, 40% chose maybe. One other question we asked was, “Do you think children get bullied for having a disability”. The answer choices were yes, no, and maybe. 84.29% chose yes, 1.43% chose no, 14.29% chose maybe. There are a lot of instances where children with disabilities are seen differently and treated poorly. For example, children without a physical disability don’t have to worry about getting to play on the playground, swings, slides, etc. Although a child with a physical disability won’t be able to play on the playground or swings. Another example is a child with autism, other learning impairments, and others. They have a disadvantage at learning compared to a child without a disability.
Adoption/Foster Care:
There are quite literally millions of children in the foster care system, waiting to be adopted, or are already adopted. For our research, we wanted to know how it makes children feel and if children struggle a lot with being adopted. We found that 62.86% of our surveyors either are adopted or know someone who is. A lot of the time when a child is adopted they feel as if their biological parents didn’t want them. Our research proved that when 82.86% of people chose yes or maybe when asked if being adopted makes children feel unwanted. We asked if adopted children are seen the same as children who aren’t adopted or in the foster care system and 72.47% of people said yes or maybe while 27.54% said no. There are a lot of situations where adopted kids or kids in the foster care system are seen differently. For example, oftentimes in elementary school, our teachers had our parents come in and talk about their jobs. Children waiting to be adopted or in foster care or wouldn’t be able to experience that because they usually don’t have anyone to come in and represent them.
Discussion
There were no articles that showed more than just one form of oppression, so we used articles that talked about individual topics. We found very few articles that show proof of how children experience oppression and feel powerless when dealing with abuse or sexual abuse, which goes to show exactly how it is not talked about often enough. In our research, we found that around 80% of people agree that childhood sexual assault happens often. Fantuzzo and Mohr stated that there are no scientifically credible sources to prove the prevalence of childhood sexual assault (23). We all agree that because there are little to no sources about this topic there won’t be an accurate amount of information and results to go off of. Children won’t get the help that they need if it isn’t brought to enough people’s attention. We also found in our research that 77.14% of people know someone who is struggling with a disability. Hebbeler and Spiker found that around 44.2% of children ages 3-5 have a speech or language impairment, 37.1% have some type of developmental delay, and 18.7% have other types of disabilities. They also found that 40.7% of children ages 6-9 have speech or language impairments, 7.8% have developmental delays, and 51.5% have other types of disabilities. Many children have disabilities and they can impact their physical and social lives. The sources that we did find helped support our research.
Conclusion
When doing the research for this project we all learned a lot about children facing oppression, and the different situations that can make children feel powerless. We learned that child abuse was the main situation in which children have to deal with oppression, and most everyone agrees that children are in fact oppressed in some ways. Other ways include racism, sexism, ageism, sexism, ableism, and classism. Many people gave great suggestions on how we could help children who need it, like more therapy options to be available and teaching parents how to protect and help their children. We found it interesting that the majority of people who took our survey were young women. As our survey asked questions about hard topics for some people, we had to be mindful of the questions we asked and the wording of those questions. We would really like this project to bring awareness to all of these situations that children may face when they are young.
Works Cited
Fantuzzo, John W., and Wanda K. Mohr. “Prevalence and Effects of Child Exposure to Domestic Violence.” The Future of Children, vol. 9, no. 3, Princeton University, 1999, pp. 21–32, Accessed December 2021.
Hebbeler, Kathleen, and Donna Spiker. “Supporting Young Children with Disabilities.” The Future of Children, vol. 26, no. 2, Princeton University, 2016, pp. 185–205, Accessed December 2021.
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