Sectarian and Nonsectarian Violence: Mothers' Appraisals of Political Conflict in Northern Ireland.

Past research on peace and conflict in Northern Ireland has focused on politically-motivated violence. However, other types of crime (i.e., nonsectarian) also impact community members. To study the changing nature of violence since the signing of the Belfast Agreement in Northern Ireland the current study used qualitative methods to distinguish between nonsectarian and sectarian antisocial behavior. Analyses were conducted using the Constant Comparative Method to illuminate thematic patterns in focus groups with Catholic and Protestant mothers from segregated Belfast neighborhoods. Participants differentiated between nonsectarian and sectarian violence; the latter was further distinguished into two dimensions - overt acts and intergroup threat. Although both nonsectarian and sectarian antisocial behavior related to insecurity, participants described pulling together and increased ingroup social cohesion in response to sectarian threats. The findings have implications for the study of violence and insecurity as experienced in the everyday lives of mothers, youth, and families in settings of protracted conflict.

[1]  Sara Barratt,et al.  Marital Conflict and Children: An Emotional Security Perspective , 2011 .

[2]  J. Grube,et al.  The Roles of Mothers’ Neighborhood Perceptions and Specific Monitoring Strategies in Youths’ Problem Behavior , 2011, Journal of youth and adolescence.

[3]  Marcie C. Goeke-Morey,et al.  Longitudinal Pathways Between Political Violence and Child Adjustment: The Role of Emotional Security about the Community in Northern Ireland , 2011, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[4]  Phillip L. Hammack.  Identity as Burden or Benefit? Youth, Historical Narrative, and the Legacy of Political Conflict , 2010, Human Development.

[5]  Michael J. A. Wohl,et al.  Perceiving Your Group’s Future to Be in Jeopardy: Extinction Threat Induces Collective Angst and the Desire to Strengthen the Ingroup , 2010, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[6]  Z. Abdeen,et al.  Posttraumatic Symptoms, Functional Impairment, and Coping among Adolescents on Both Sides of the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict: A Cross‐Cultural Approach , 2009 .

[7]  L. R. Huesmann,et al.  A Social-Cognitive-Ecological Framework for Understanding the Impact of Exposure to Persistent Ethnic–Political Violence on Children’s Psychosocial Adjustment , 2009, Clinical child and family psychology review.

[8]  Alice C. Schermerhorn,et al.  Children and Political Violence from a Social Ecological Perspective: Implications from Research on Children and Families in Northern Ireland , 2009, Clinical child and family psychology review.

[9]  Peter Shirlow,et al.  Community Attitudes to Crime, Anti-Social Behaviour and Policing in the Greater New Lodge , 2008 .

[10]  B. Barber.  Adolescents and War: How Youth Deal with Political Violence , 2008 .

[11]  Michael J. A. Wohl,et al.  Remembering historical victimization: collective guilt for current ingroup transgressions. , 2008, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[12]  S. Stansfeld,et al.  Neighbourhood perceptions among inner-city adolescents: Relationships with their individual characteristics and with independently assessed neighbourhood conditions , 2008 .

[13]  I. Alp,et al.  War Exposure, Attachment Style, and Moral Reasoning , 2008 .

[14]  T. Betancourt,et al.  The mental health of children affected by armed conflict: Protective processes and pathways to resilience , 2008, International review of psychiatry.

[15]  B. Vaughan.  Belfast: Segregation, Violence and the City , 2007 .

[16]  N. Denzin,et al.  The SAGE handbook of qualitative research , 2005 .

[17]  O. Muldoon,et al.  Adolescents' perceptions of national identification and socialization: A grounded analysis , 2007 .

[18]  D. Bar-Tal.  Sociopsychological Foundations of Intractable Conflicts , 2007 .

[19]  E. Halperin,et al.  Collective Emotions in Conflict Situations: Societal Implications , 2007 .

[20]  Nicole Tausch,et al.  Cross-Community Contact, Perceived Status Differences, and Intergroup Attitudes in Northern Ireland: The Mediating Roles of Individual-level versus Group-level Threats and the Moderating Role of Social Identification , 2007 .

[21]  O. Muldoon,et al.  No War, No Peace: Northern Ireland after the Agreement , 2007 .

[22]  M. Burgess,et al.  Rebels' Perspectives of the Legacy of Past Violence and of the Current Peace in Post‐Agreement Northern Ireland: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis , 2007 .

[23]  B. F. Silva,et al.  Social Cohesion, Criminal Victimization and Perceived Risk of Crime in Brazilian Neighborhoods , 2006 .

[24]  A. Almedom,et al.  Social capital and mental health: an interdisciplinary review of primary evidence. , 2005, Social science & medicine.

[25]  A. Almedom,et al.  RESILIENCE, HARDINESS, SENSE OF COHERENCE, AND POSTTRAUMATIC GROWTH: ALL PATHS LEADING TO “LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL”? , 2005 .

[26]  Stephen Raudenbush,et al.  Social anatomy of racial and ethnic disparities in violence. , 2005, American journal of public health.

[27]  Lynda A. King,et al.  Focus groups in psychological assessment: enhancing content validity by consulting members of the target population. , 2004, Psychological assessment.

[28]  Jean Hartley,et al.  Case study research , 2004 .

[29]  J. Potter,et al.  Focus Group Practice , 2004 .

[30]  J. van os,et al.  Children's health-related quality of life, neighbourhood socio-economic deprivation and social capital. A contextual analysis. , 2003, Social science & medicine.

[31]  L. Jones.  Adolescent understandings of political violence and psychological well-being: a qualitative study from Bosnia Herzegovina. , 2002, Social science & medicine.

[32]  Patrick T. Davies,et al.  Child emotional security and interparental conflict. , 2002, Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development.

[33]  R. Punamäki,et al.  Resiliency factors predicting psychological adjustment after political violence among Palestinian children , 2001 .

[34]  Robin L. Jarrett,et al.  In the Mix, Yet on the Margins: The Place of Families in Urban Neighborhood and Child Development Research , 2000 .

[35]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  The neighborhoods they live in: the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes. , 2000, Psychological bulletin.

[36]  M. Slone,et al.  Coping Strategies and Locus of Control as Mediating Variables in the Relation Between Exposure to Political Life Events and Psychological Adjustment in Israeli Children , 1999 .

[37]  Jane Frankland,et al.  Some issues arising in the systematic analysis of focus group materials. , 1998 .

[38]  J. Kitzinger,et al.  Developing Focus Group Research: Politics, Theory and Practice , 1998 .

[39]  E. Cairns,et al.  THE CONFLICT IN NORTHERN IRELAND : CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, AND CONTROLS , 1998 .

[40]  Patrick T. Davies,et al.  Emotional security as a regulatory process in normal development and the development of psychopathology , 1996, Development and Psychopathology.

[41]  Richard E. Morehouse,et al.  Beginning Qualitative Research: A Philosophical and Practical Guide , 1994 .

[42]  L. F. Barrett,et al.  Handbook of Emotions , 1993 .

[43]  K. Kaniasty,et al.  A longitudinal study of the effects of various crime prevention strategies on criminal victimization, fear of crime, and psychological distress , 1992, American journal of community psychology.

[44]  R. Sampson,et al.  Community Structure and Crime: Testing Social-Disorganization Theory , 1989, American Journal of Sociology.

[45]  J. Averill,et al.  Disorders of Emotion , 1988 .

[46]  J. Coleman,et al.  Social Capital in the Creation of Human Capital , 1988, American Journal of Sociology.

[47]  G. Stricker,et al.  Handbook of Developmental Psychology , 1982 .

[48]  J. Bowlby.  Attachment and loss: retrospect and prospect. , 1969, The American journal of orthopsychiatry.

[49]  Alice C. Schermerhorn,et al.  ASSOCIATIONS BETWEEN MOTHERS' EXPERIENCE WITH THE TROUBLES IN NORTHERN IRELAND AND MOTHERS' AND CHILDREN'S PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONING: THE MODERATING ROLE OF SOCIAL IDENTITY. , 2011, Journal of community psychology.

[50]  B. Barber.  Making sense and no sense of war: Issues of identity and meaning in adolescents' experience with political conflict. , 2009 .

[51]  Greg Dimitriadis,et al.  Focus Groups: Strategic Articulations of Pedagogy, Politics, and Inquiry. , 2005 .

[52]  J. Valsiner,et al.  Handbook of developmental psychology. , 2003 .

[53]  Maureen M. Black,et al.  FACTORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE PERCEIVED NEIGHBORHOOD SCALE (PNS): A TEST OF LONGITUDINAL INVARIANCE , 2002 .

[54]  Stuart Oskamp,et al.  Reducing prejudice and discrimination , 2000 .

[55]  W. Stephan,et al.  An Integrated Threat Theory of Prejudice , 2000 .

[56]  D. Jacobson,et al.  A Psychological Perspective on Security , 1998 .

[57]  B. Wynne,et al.  Can focus groups access community views , 1998 .

[58]  J. Maxwell.  Designing a qualitative study. , 1998 .

[59]  R. Yin.  Yin, Robert K., Case Study Research: Design and Methods, 2nd ed. Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1994. , 1994 .

[60]  G. Clore,et al.  Affective causes and consequences of social information processing. , 1994 .

[61]  Arne Öhman,et al.  Fear and anxiety as emotional phenomena: Clinical phenomenology, evolutionary perspectives, and information-processing mechanisms. , 1993 .

[62]  Tom Carney.  Fourth Generation Evaluation , 1991 .

[63]  Bernhard Wilpert,et al.  Applied psychology : an international review , 1989 .

[64]  S. Folkman,et al.  Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York, NY: Springer; , 1984 .

[65]  J. Garbarino.  The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design: by Urie Bronfenbrenner Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1979, 330 + p. , 1980 .

[66]  S. Worchel,et al.  The Social psychology of intergroup relations , 1979 .

[67]  H. Tajfel,et al.  An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. , 1979 .

[68]  John Bowlby,et al.  Separation: Anxiety and Anger , 1973 .

[69]  J. Gray,et al.  The psychology of fear and stress , 1971 .

[70]  A. Strauss,et al.  The Discovery of Grounded Theory , 1967 .