ERIC ED397261: Love, Sex and Waterskiing. The Experience of Pre-Marriage Education in Australia.

199 Pages·1992·3.6 MB·English

by  ERIC

DOCUMENT RESUME
ED 397 261
CE 072 095
AUTHOR
Harris, Roger; And Others
TITLE
Love, Sex and Waterskiing. The Experience of
Pre-Marriage Education in Australia.
INSTITUTION
University of South Australia, Underdale.
REPORT NO ISBN-0-86803-058-9
PUB DATE
92
NOTE
199p.; For a related document, see CE 072 094.
AVAILABLE FROM
Centre for Research in Education and Work, University
of South Australia, Holbrooks Road, Underdale, South
Australia 5032, Australia ($25 Australian).
PUB TYPE Reports
Research/Technical (143)
Tests/Evaluation Instruments (160)
EDRS PRICE
MFOI/PC08 Plus Postage.
DESCRIPTORS
Adult Education; Adult Programs; Attitude Change;
Church Programs; *Counseling Services; Demography;
*Educational Attitudes; Educational Benefits;
Educational Objectives; Educational Practices;
Educational Trends; Enrollment Influences; Family
Counseling; *Family Life Education; Foreign
Countries; National Surveys; Participant
Characteristics; *Participant Satisfaction; Program
Effectiveness; Questionnaires; Role of Education;
Tables (Data)
IDENTIFIERS
*Australia; *Marriage Education; Premarital
Counseling
ABSTRACT
Concerns over the high incidence of divorce and
domestic violence have prompted many Australian churches and some
nonchurch agencies to offer premarriage education programs (PMEPs) to
couples planning to marry. Unlike past PMEPs, which were often
didactic, Australia's present-day PMEPs tend to be learner-centered
programs that encourage participants to reflect on their
relationships and marriage and develop the skills needed to build
marriages. In the 1970s, educators and coordinators of Australia's
PMEPs formed two professional associations to protect, promote, and
improve premarriage education (PME). In 1991, the Australian Attorney
General's Department funded a comprehensive evaluat on of PME. Nearly
1,000 Australian couples who had participated in PMEPs during the
first quarter of 1992 were surveyed regarding their views of marriage
and PME and the effects of participation in a PMEP. The survey
results were synthesized into the following categories: teaching
about marriage; dimensions of premarriage education; PMEPs in the
1990s; demographic characteristics and attitudes of PMEP educators
and participants; the effects of participation in PME; and challenges
facing PME. (Forty-four tables/figures are included. Appended
are the
survey instruments and tables summarizing the survey results.
Contains 56 references.) (MN)
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Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made
from the original document.
*
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Love, Sex and
Waterskiing
The Experience of Pre-Marriage Education
in Australia
Roger Harris, Michele Simons,
Peter Willis and Anne Barrie
Adelaide 1992
© Centre for Human Resource Studies, University of South Australia, August 1992
ISBN 0-86803-058-9
Distributed by the Centre for Human Resource Studies,
University of South Australia,
Holbrooks Road, Underdale, South Australia 5032.
Please contact distributor for details of availability and price.
Layout and formatting by Jackie Costigan
Cover design by David Cope
Printing and binding by the University Printing and Publications Unit
4
page ii
(
,
Contents
Tables
v
Figures
vi
Acknowledgements
vii
Foreword
viii
Chapter 1: Introduction
1
Chapter 2: Teaching about marriage
5
Images of marriage
5
What is marriage education?
7
Development of pre-marriage education in Australia
10
Types of providers
15
Chapter 3: Dimensions of pre-marriage education
17
Pre-marriage education as a form of human relations
education
17
Pre-marriage education as a thurch based activity
18
Pre-marriage education as a type of life
transition education
21
Processes of life transition education
22
Life transition dimensions of pre-marriage education
24
Issues and questions in pre-marriage education
26
Chapter 4: Research design and strategies
28
Research design
28
Mapping the field
31
Exploring the PMEP experience and outcomes
32
Chapter 5: Pre-marriage education programs in the 1990s
38
Philosophies and aims
41
Organisation
43
Content
50
Processes
52
Types of programs
54
page iii
Chapter 6: The pre-marriage educators
58
Demographic characteristics 59
How they were recruited to work in
pre-marriage education
63
How they were trained for the role of
PME educator
65
How they described their way of working in PMEPs
66
What the educators are most concerned about
when they work in PMEPs
73
Chapter 7: The participant couples
79
Demographic characteristics
79
Who suggested they attend a PMEP
82
What they expected to gain from their PMEP
83
What marriage means to them
84
Aspects of their relationship that please them the most
89
Aspects about their relationship that they would
like to develop further
91
Chapter 8: The experience of pre-marriage education programs
95
Satisfaction with the PMEPs organisation
95
Satisfaction with the PMEPs' structure and experiences
98
Helpfulness of topics
101
Helpfulness of activities
104
Satisfaction with the overall quality of PMEPs
107
Educators' perceptions of their programs
109
Chapter 9: Changes experienced
1 1 :3
General outcomes
115
Commitment to relationship and marriage
130
Chapter 10: Conclusions and challenges
133
References
139
Appendices
145
page iv
Tables
Table 1:
Distribution of respondents by State/Territory
Table 2:
Agencies and groups providing PMEPs
Topics in PMEPs
Table 3:
Table 4:
Processes/Strategies used in PMEPs
Discipline areas of the marriage educators' post-secondary
Table 5:
qualifications
Table 6:
Titles of the marriage educators' post-secondary
qualifications
Table 7:
Occupations of the marriage educators
Table 8:
Participant expected gains by gender
Table 9:
Couples' satisfaction with organisation
Table 10:
Satisfaction with the organisation of the program by age
group
Table 11:
Couples' satisfaction with program experiences
Table 12:
Satisfaction with program structure and experiences by
age
group
Table 13:
Couples' perceived levels of helpfulness of topics to
their relationship
Table 14:
Current living arrangements by helpfulness of topics to the
couples' relationships
Table 15:
Couples' perceived levels of helpfulness of activities to the
relationships
Table 16:
Helpfulness of activities to relationship by relationship length
Table 17:
Helpfulness of activities to relationship by age group
Table 18:
Educators' satisfaction with the organisation of PMEPs
Table 19:
Ecilicators' satisfaction with topics covered in PMEPs
Table 20:
Educators' satisfaction with processes used in PMEPs
Table 21:
Percentages of respondents prepared to seek professional help
Table 22:
Degree to which programs matched participants'
expectations
Table 23:
Participant scores for Relationship Change Scale
Table 24:
Relationship Change Scale factors
Table 25:
Amount of change in relationship reported by
respondents
Table 26:
Participant scores for level of consensus
Table 27:
Level of consensus at follow-up
- a comparison between
married and unmarried respondents
Table 28:
Amount of change in ideas about marriage reported by couples
;1
7
page v
Figures
Types of marriage education
Figure 1:
Couples' response rates
Figure 2:
Participants' occupations by gender
Figure 3:
Participants' incomes by gender
Figure 4:
Participant's current living arrangements by age
Figure 5:
Couples' satisfaction with organisation by age
Figure 6:
Couples' satisfaction with program experiences by age
Figure 7:
Couples' perceived levels of helpfulness of activities by
Figure 8:
relationship length
Overall rating of quality of PMEPs
Figure 9:
Strength of recommendation of program to other couples
Figure 10:
Relationship satisfaction
Figure 11:
Couples' reported levels of consensus
Figure 12:
Total scores on Family Tasks Inventory for females
Figure 13:
Total scores on Family Tasks Inventory for males
Figure 14:
Household tasks for females
Figure 15:
Household tasks for males
Figure 16:
8
Acknowledgements
Love, Sex and Waterskiing is the culmination of a long held ambition of a large
number of people involved in the field of marriage educafion to undertake
research on how pre-marriage education programs are received by couples
who attend them and some of their possible outcomes. In this sense, the book
represents the endeavours of a large team of people to whom we would like
to extend our gratitude.
The research team would like to thank Senator Michael Tate, the Federal
Minister for Justice, for his vision in providing the funding for this research.
This project has been conducted under the auspices of the Marriage Education
Research and Development Officer (MERDO) position, established by the
Executive Committees of both the Catholic Society for Marriage Education
and the Australian Association for Marriage Education.
Special mention must be made of the support we have received from
our
colleagues at both Catholic Family Services and the Centre for Human
Resource Studies at the University of South Australia. Both organisations
supported the research in very real and generous ways by providing office
space and the other facilities needed to conduct the study.
We would like to thank a number of people whose direct involvement with
the study assisted us with the task of completing this research
over the last
twelve months. Don Edgar and Ilene Wolcott from the Australian Institute
of
Family Studies in Melbourne served as consultants to the project
acting as
valuable sounding-boards for us as the project proceeded. Moira Eastman,
in
addition to writing the foreword for this book and providing
us with valuable
input at various stages of the study, also lent tremendous personal
support
and encouragement to us
.
To the coordinators and leaders of the various pre-marriage education
programs around Australia, and all the couples who participated in the study,
we would like to extend our warm thanks for their willing cooperation during
the research.
Our thanks must also be extended to the team of people who assisted
us in
putting the book together
- Kath Burr and Jackie Costigan for their patience
(and endurance) in word processing and formatting the manuscript,
Karl
Dutton and his team in the Printing and Publications Unit at the
University of
South Australia for its production and David Cope for his wonderful design
on the cover.
Lastly (but by no means least) we would like to thank Susan, Kym, Eileen
and
our families who supported us through the late nights of writing and the
many
absences from home during the last year.
Roger, Michele, Peter and Anne
page vii
Foreword
A book on pre-marriage education raises a number of questions; questions
that to some would suggest there is no need to read this book. For example:
Is marriage a private or a public institution? If it is private, should
outsiders meddle in it at all? Why should governments spend taxpayers'
money on this unwarranted meddling?
Is it possible to evaluate pre-marriage education? And if it is not possible,
perhaps pre-marriage education should not be done at all as the possible
dangers may outweigh the potential good.
And what on earth would such education consist of? Rows of men writ ing
out one hundred times, 'I will not put work before my family', or women
promising to obey and not answer back and practising how to make apple
pie?
Some would question whether marriage is still important. Isn't it just a
piece of paper, a remnant of an old-fashioned ritual?
In any case, there is no doubt that marriage is an institution that is going
through change. How does one educate for marriage when there are such
different ideas of what marriage is?
A widespread belief is that the common practice of couples living together
before marriage is of itself the best preparation for marriage. Doesn't
living together do away with any need to devise gimmicky and unnatural
'courses' of marriage preparation?
I believe this is an important book that deserves to be read, and that the
answers to the above questions are not as simple and obvious as is sometimes
thought. I shall begin with the last question, that of living together doing away
with the need for pre-marriage or early marriage education.
A recent study by John Haskey in the summer 1992 issue of the U.K. journal
Population Trends has thrown this latter belief into question. Haskey shows
that of couples who married for the first time early in the 1980s, those who had
previously cohabited were 50 percent more likely than the others to have
divorced after eight years of marriage. Haskey himself points out that what
he is describing is a correlation. We do not know whether (and if so how) these
facts are causally related. But they do throw some cold water on the idea that
cohabitation in itself is a good form of marriage preparation.
page viii