Learning Journal 5: Finding Articles

My goal for this weekend has been to find articles that would be useful for my project proposal.  Not only am I looking for things about aggression in children, but I am also searching for articles that will pull culture into the context as well.  I have had a little luck, but unfortunately have not been able to find anything on Tonga so far.  My biggest question right now is whether there is just not much research done on aggression in Tonga, or if I am just not finding them.  I have a few more sources to check out that could be helpful and hopefully I'll be able to find more about the Tongan culture in those.  


As far as developing my project, I am still concerned about the logistics and about how the Tongan people will respond to being asked questions about there aggressive behaviors. My current idea is to give students in 6^th grade, 9^th grade, and 12^th grade classes (approximately 200 in each grade) a questionnaire to complete concerning relational aggression.  Part of the goal is to not only determine what Tongan children do when they are upset with their peers, but also to determine if they feel relationally aggressive acts are done to hurt, or demonstrate anger towards, other students.   There will be four open ended questions given to determine the forms of aggression:    1.What do most boys do when they are mad at another boy? 2. What do most boys do when they are made at a girl?  3. What do most girls do when they are mad at another girl?  4.  What do most girls do when they are mad at a boy?  Children will write their responses on a questionnaire handed to them in the classroom setting.  Forms will be sent home with the children to obtain parental consent before children participate in the study.

Ideally, I would also like to add in to that mix some interviews with parents or teachers to see how they perceive aggression amongst the children.  It would be nice if I could interview children and parents as well to see what kinds of discipline children receive and see if there are any correlations between harsh punishments and higher levels of aggression.  I still have a lot of work to do though.