Longitudinal Research: African American Runaways.

The impact that childhood has on an individual can impact or influence their actions over their lives. Human development is based on the fact that to understand the individual and made sense of their life, and it is critical to understand their social, cultural, and biological context. This also implies that research to understand the fate of runaways and how the experiences in their childhood impact their lives later and how they raise their kids could take a long time.

In the year longitudinal research project on some aging aspects, the best sample would be composed of African American runaways (Tucker, Edelen, Ellickson, & Klein, 2011). While this is a common issue, there is a need to understand how their experiences and children impact how their lives become later. The influence of their past lives might also affect how they realize their children. The African American population is s high risk for teen runaways based on factors such as poverty and drug abuse in most families; this makes the community a good sample source for the research. In this research, my interests would be on childhood experiences, and how children face life as a runaway might impact their lives and that of their families. The relationship between how they raise their families and how they were raised would be an essential factor to consider and need to understand. By using a longitudinal approach, the topic would be well addressed. However, cross-cultural research would be more uncomplicated but would have some discrepancies with the type of information that is received from the respondents. Similarly, the chance to have contradicting information about the participants is highly likely in the case of cross-cultural research.

References

Tucker, J. S., Edelen, M. O., Ellickson, P. L., & Klein, D. J. (2011). Running Away From Home: A Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Risk Factors and Young Adult Outcomes. J Youth Adolesc. 40(5), 507–518. .