Conducting a Criminological Survey in a Culturally Diverse Context Lessons from the Zurich Project...

A R T I C L E S

Volume 4 (3): 271–298: 1477-3708DOI: 10.1177/1477370807077183

Copyright © 2007 European Society of Criminology and SAGE Publications

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Conducting a Criminological Survey ina Culturally Diverse Context

Lessons from the Zurich Project on the Social Development of Children

Manuel EisnerUniversity of Cambridge, UK

Denis RibeaudUniversity of Zurich, Switzerland

A B S T R A C T

West European societies have become increasingly culturally diverse. In this articlewe discuss two issues that arise when conducting criminological research in diversecontexts, namely threats to study validity as a result of (a) ethnic differences inparticipation rates and (b) lack of cross-cultural equivalence of questionnaires inmulti-language contexts. We demonstrate how these problems were handled in the z-proso study, a prospective longitudinal criminological study involving 1240families in Zurich, Switzerland. Results suggest that recruitment efforts can sig-nificantly increase participation rates, particularly among minority members. Asexpected, higher participation rates are associated with a qualitative improvementin the sample: parents who needed to be personally motivated to participate tendto have children with higher rates of problem behaviour than do parents whoparticipated spontaneously. Highest rates of problem behaviour were found forthose children whose parents did not participate. Finally, the multi-method analysisreveals significant discrepancies in parent rating of child problem behaviour amongmigrant parents compared with teacher and interviewer rating. Closer scrutinyindicates that such differences are likely to be a result of socially desirable responsebehaviour among low-education parents.

K E Y W O R D S

Cross-Cultural Criminology / Ethnic Minorities / Longitudinal Study / ResearchDesign / Study Participation.

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Introduction

Over the past few decades West European societies have become increas-ingly culturally diverse, especially in the large cities and in disadvantagedneighbourhoods. This diversity partially explains the increased attentionthat criminological research pays to minorities, particularly since the 1990s(for general recent overviews, see Marshall 1997; Tonry 1997; for the UK,see e.g. Garland et al. 2006; Smith 2005; for France, see Mucchielli 2003;for Germany, see Pfeiffer et al. 2005; for Italy, see Barbagli 1998). Yet therecent growth of interest is only partly matched by a corresponding increasein awareness of the methodological challenges that arise from conductingresearch in diverse contexts.

In this paper we therefore discuss core issues of research design thatemerged from the sociocultural diversity of the target population in theZurich Project on the Social Development of Children (hereafter z-proso). ‘Z-proso’ is a longitudinal study of a cohort of 1240 children (and their parents)in the city of Zurich. The project is theoretically rooted in a criminologicallife-course perspective (Laub and Sampson 1993). It is combined with therandomized implementation of two universal interventions aimed at reducingproblematic behaviour in childhood and later delinquency (for more detailson the study, see Eisner and Ribeaud 2005). In this study, more than two-thirds of the study children have an immigrant family background (i.e. atleast one caregiver immigrated into Switzerland). Moreover, about 55 per-cent of the primary caregivers in the target sample are not native German-speaking. The largest language groups are Albanian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Portuguese, Turkish, Spanish, Tamil and Italian.

Similar degrees of cultural diversity associated with social disadvantageare common in many large European cities. They give rise to at least twomajor challenges in designing and implementing a survey-based study: Howcan acceptable study participation rates be achieved among disadvantagedsociocultural groups? And what are the consequences of cultural diversity fordeveloping a questionnaire that can be administered across languages andsociocultural groups?

Low response rates and lack of cross-cultural equivalence

These issues are related to two basic requirements for good social scienceresearch (see e.g. Rutter 2005). The first is that the data available for analy-sis provide unbiased information about the underlying population on whichconclusions are drawn. Although the process of drawing probability samplesis well known and relatively easily controlled, the major practical threat to

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validity here is a selection bias owing to non-participation and non-response(for an overview, see Groves et al. 2002). This problem is aggravated in cul-turally diverse research contexts because levels of non-response often differsignificantly between groups (see Couper and Leeuw 2003).

The second requirement is a valid measurement. In studies that in-clude sociocultural minorities, the most important threat here is lack ofcross-cultural equivalence. Cross-cultural equivalence – broadly measuringthe same thing in the same way and equally well across cultural groups – isneeded for many research questions, including, for example, comparisonsof levels of problem behaviour across groups, assessments of group-specificrisk factors, and evaluations of intervention effects (for an overview, seeHarkness 1998).

Low response rates

All inferential statistics assume that the observations available for empiricalanalysis are representative of the underlying population from which thesample is drawn. Probability sampling is the procedure by which unbiasedestimates of the unknown population parameters can be achieved.

In principle, this is unconditionally true only if all respondents selectedby the sampling procedure actually participate. However, non-participation ofa proportion of the targeted respondents is common, either because they couldnot be contacted or because they refused to participate. Since non-respondentsusually do not represent a random sub-sample of the targeted sample, the like-lihood that both univariate estimates and estimates of relationships amongvariables are biased increases with a growing proportion of non-respondents(Couperand Leeuw 2003; Groves et al. 2002). This is particularly a problemif the likelihood of non-participation is associated with one or several of thetarget variables of a study. In criminology, such situations are the rule ratherthan the exception. For example, low socioeconomic status is generally relatedto a lower study participation rate, as well as to an increased risk of victim-ization. The consequences of this are that estimates of victimization rates forany study population with low participation by disadvantaged groups will beseriously biased.

Across Europe, ethnic minorities are more difficult to contact and aremore likely to refuse participation in most types of survey-based research(Couper and Leeuw 2003; van Goor et al. 2005). A major exception areschool-based surveys that do not require the active consent of the parents(e.g. Oberwittler 2004; Ribeaud and Eisner 2006), but they are limited in theage range of the target populations. Table 1 shows gross response rates for anumber of criminological studies. The data suggest that, even in well-fundedresearch, the minority response rates often fall below 50 percent. Moreover,

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the difference between overall and minority participation rates can easilyexceed 20 percentage points. With such discrepancies in participation rates itbecomes almost impossible to determine whether any finding involving com-parisons between sociocultural groups reflects true underlying patterns orwhether it is simply a methodological artefact.

There are four principal explanations for the lower participation ratesof sociocultural minorities. Disturbingly, each is potentially associated withbias in assessing core criminological target measures such as victimization,fear of crime, or offending.

One factor is the existence of language barriers, especially among first-generation immigrants. In Great Britain, for example, about 23 percent ofimmigrants born in China, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan have no functionalskill in English and 70 percent cannot function fully in an English-speaking


Table 1 Total and minority response rates in selected European studies

Response rate (%)

Overall Minority Source

Experimental studiesNürnberg-Erlangen Child 62 46a Personal communication

Development Study

Longitudinal studiesPeterborough Adolescent 75 62 Personal communication

Development StudyGerman Child Development 55 36b Infas (2004)

Panel

Self-report studiesOffending, Crime and Justice 74c 49d Sharp and Budd (2005: 18)

Survey, UK, 2003

Victimization surveysBritish Crime Survey, 2003–4 73c 48d Bolling et al. (2004: 12)National Victim Survey, 60 40e Feskens et al. (2004)

Netherlands, 1998

Note: Studies differ in the ways the response rate is defined. To facilitate comparison, ‘responserates’ were always computed as the percent participating in the survey in relation to the targetsample.a Turkish Booster Sample.b Booster sample of Turkish parents.c Core sample.d Minority boost-sample.e ‘Non Western foreigners’.

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social environment (Carr-Hill et al. 1996). Among specific sub-groups theability to understand the majority language can be even more limited. Forexample, a study by Rudat (1994) shows that, among Bangladeshi womenaged 30 to 49 (i.e. potential respondents in a study on child development),only 21 percent spoke English, 15 percent could read English and 4 percentused English at home.

Second, members of sociocultural minorities occupy particularly vulner-able positions. For example, they may have suffered from persecution in theirhome countries, their legal residency status in the host country may be un-decided, or they may have had adverse experiences with immigration author-ities. This is likely to lead to greater distrust of the study’s goals and a lack ofconfidence in the effectiveness of data protection, especially if a study touchesupon sensitive issues (Johnson et al. 2002: 66).

Third, significant proportions of some minority groups have a restrictededucational background, limited literacy and no previous experience withsocial science studies. Written explanations of study goals may therefore notbe read and oral explanations may be poorly understood. Since low educa-tion levels have generally been found to be associated with higher non-response rates across many studies (e.g. Stoop 2005: 66), one would expectlower minority participation rates to the extent that average levels of educa-tion are low.

Fourth, genuinely cultural factors can play a role, although little isknown about their importance relative to the previous factors (Johnson et al.2002). Yet it is plausible that cultural norms relating to, for example, theperceived propriety of giving private information to strangers affects thelikelihood of participation.

Lack of cross-cultural equivalence

Lack of cross-cultural equivalence is a second major potential source of biasin research that involves sociocultural minorities. Cross-cultural equivalenceis an umbrella term for a large array of types of equivalence, various authorshave suggested different ways of organizing them into main groups (see thediscussion in Johnson 1998). We distinguish three main types, namely con-ceptual equivalence, measurement equivalence and scalar equivalence.

Conceptual (or interpretive) equivalence

Conceptual (or interpretive) equivalence refers to the extent to which aninstrument captures the meaning of a concept equally in various cultures(Buss and Royce 1975; Lam et al. 1998; Straus 1969). Conceptual equiva-lence is usually a major concern during the questionnaire development phase.


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In particular, an instrument may lack conceptual equivalence across groupsbecause the same items may not equally represent the underlying target con-struct. For example, emotional attachment of parents to their children typ-ically includes, in standard instruments, an item measuring whether the parent‘takes the child in his/her arms’. Yet the extent to which this item representsemotional attachment may vary across cultures and some culture-specificexpressions of attachment may remain unaccounted for. Secondly, concep-tual equivalence is a critical issue when a questionnaire is translated into a tar-get language. In this context, achieving conceptual or semantic equivalenceimplies that the wording of a specific question (including the response scale)retains the same meaning and intensity across cultures after translation.

Measurement equivalence

Measurement equivalence refers to the psychometric functioning of a scaleand its items across cultures. Measurement equivalence is assumed if theitems of a scale can be shown to contribute equally to the latent constructacross cultures. It is usually assessed by means of confirmatory factor analy-ses and item response analysis. Lack of measurement equivalence can be aresult of poor translation, of inadequacy of the original item wording (e.g.non-transferability of a complex grammatical structure), or of differential cul-tural salience of specific items. Rosay et al. (2000), for example, examined thereliability and validity of 16 risk and protective factors for delinquency andsubstance use across gender and ethnic groups. They found that half of the 16factors were not equally reliable measures across ethnic groups (i.e. the meas-urement model could not be constrained to be invariant across ethnic groups).

When controlling for reliability differences, all risk and protective fac-tors were predictive of delinquency and drug use for all gender and ethnicgroups. However, eight factors were found to have lower predictive valid-ity for ethnic minority youths compared with Caucasians and for femalescompared with males (Rosay et al. 2000: 360). In a similar vein, Spencer et al.(2005) examined the cross-cultural equivalence of the factor structure ofthe Behaviour Problem Index (BPI), a widely used instrument to measurechild problem behaviour. The comparison was based on maternal reportsacross African-American, Hispanic and white children in the United States.They found that the overall scale and each of its sub-scales were not equiva-lent across the three ethnic groups and that, for example, only three out ofsix items loaded equivalently across majority and minority youths on theantisocial behaviour sub-scale.

Scalar equivalence

The third and most demanding level of equivalence is scalar equivalence.Scalar equivalence is achieved when a construct is measured on the same


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metric across groups. Scalar equivalence is assumed when averages such aslevels of problem behaviour are compared across groups. Among other things,scalar equivalence can be jeopardized if differential courtesy or social desira-bility bias affects the response behaviour in the compared cultures. Becausesuch bias tends to affect many items of an instrument, it may result in signifi-cant differences in average scores that can be mistakenly interpreted as realdifferences on the target construct (van de Vijver 1998: 50). One way toassess scalar equivalence is external validation against independent meas-ures (see e.g. Lau et al. 2004). For example, ‘blinded’ observational meas-ures of child problem behaviour at home may serve as a benchmark toassess differential parent response styles to interview-based child behaviouritems.

In this respect, self-report questionnaires pose an interesting example.In many countries, studies show large differences in youth arrest rates betweenmajority and minority youth and much smaller differences according toself-report studies (see e.g. Smith 2005). Although this may in part be owingto ethnically biased policing, reverse record check studies pioneered byHindelang et al. (1981) suggest that minority youth are considerably lesslikely to self-report police-recorded offences than are their majority peers.In this vein, Junger (1989) found that Moroccan and Turkish juveniles wereless likely to admit delinquent acts than were Dutch or Surinamese young-sters. One of the underlying explanations involves group differences insocial desirability bias – the tendency of respondents to project favourableimages of themselves and to avoid anticipated negative evaluations. Variousstudies suggest that social desirability bias in surveys systematically variesacross social groups (Johnson and van de Vijver 2003). In particular, minor-ity group respondents appear generally to score higher on social desirabil-ity scores, meaning, for example, that parents may be less likely to reportchild problem behaviour. Johnson and van de Vijver (2003: 200) suggestthat this pattern may be systematically related to the extent to which agroup is vulnerable to discrimination, social exclusion or – in the case ofimmigrants – denial of political rights.

Sociocultural diversity in the Zurich Project on the Social Development of Children (z-proso)

In ethnically diverse contexts, the two sources of bias are inversely relatedto each other. If a study fails to include less acculturated groups, the risk ofbias owing to lack of cross-cultural equivalence is reduced whereas biasowing to non-participation is more likely. If efforts are made to increaseminority participation, non-response bias is lessened whereas bias owing tonon-equivalence may become a larger problem. Trying to address both issues


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was a major concern of the Zurich Project on the Social Development ofChildren (z-proso).

Z-proso is a prospective longitudinal study of a cohort of children thatstarted primary school in 2004 (i.e. average age 7). It includes a randomizedexperimental component that entails universal preventive interventions atthe school and the family levels and aims at early developmental preventionof youth violence and other problem behaviours. The study currently com-prises three waves of interviews conducted at annual intervals. At each wavea computer-aided face-to-face interview is conducted with the primary care-giver (at home) and the child (individually at school). In addition, teacherscomplete standardized written child assessments at six-month intervals (fora more detailed overview, see Eisner and Ribeaud 2005). The study popula-tion comprises all children who started in the first grade of public primaryschool in the city of Zurich in the academic year 2004/5 (N � 2495). Thetarget sample is formed of 1675 children in 56 primary schools, randomlyselected by means of a stratified sampling procedure that included someover-sampling of disadvantaged school districts.

A key factor in planning the study was that over 50 percent of the chil-dren in the target sample were expected to have immigrant parents and thatthis proportion would be around 80 percent in disadvantaged neighbour-hoods. The practical and scientific relevance of the study therefore dependedon whether parents of immigrant background would participate and whetherthe research instruments would yield reliable and valid data on levels of childproblem behaviour as well as associated risk and protective factors.

Table 2 shows selected social, economic and family characteristics ofthe target sample by the mother language of the primary caregiver. Exceptfor column 1 (proportion in total sample), the data are based on the parentinterviews in wave one. Language groups are sorted in descending order byan index of social disadvantage that was calculated as the mean of the ‘edu-cation’, ‘ISEI’ (International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status,see Ganzeboom and Treiman 1996) and ‘household income’ variables.

The data show, first, that 53 percent of the primary caregivers in the target sample were not native German speaking. With the exception ofItalian-speaking mothers, almost all non-German-speaking parents are first-generation immigrants. Furthermore, the data illustrate important differencesin education and socioeconomic status. For example, over 60 percent of thePortuguese-, Tamil- and Albanian-speaking mothers have completed at mostnine years of compulsory school, compared with 4 percent among German-speaking mothers. Also, 21–71 percent of socio-cultural minority parents arewithin the lowest quartile of scores according to the International Socio-Economic Index of Occupational Status (ISEI). Furthermore, all migrantminorities differ with regard to at least one of the four indicators of family


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Tab

le 2

Sele

cted

soc

ioec

onom

ic a

nd f

amily

str

uctu

re in

dica

tors

by

mot

her

lang

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of

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ary

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give

r, ci

ty o

f Z

uric

h, z

-pro

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udy

Mig

ratio

n st

atus

Educ

atio

nO

ccup

atio

nal s

tatu

sFa

mily

str

uctu

re &

org

aniz

atio

n

% in

low

est

Mea

n ag

e of

Mot

her

lang

uage

of

% c

ompu

lsor

yIS

EI q

uart

ilea

mot

her’s

% m

othe

r on

ly in

fem

ale

prim

ary

% o

f tar

get

% fo

reig

n sc

hool

as

high

est

(Hig

hest

ISEI

inag

e at

%

sin

gle

char

ge o

fca

regi

ver

sam

ple

born

educ

atio

n le

vel

Hou

seho

ld)

first

birt

hm

othe

rsho

useh

old

b

Ger

man

47.1

16.6

4.3

8.0

29.8

22.2

19.7

Ital

ian

4.4

45.3

18.8

20.7

29.0

23.4

40.8

Oth

er7.

688

.625

.220

.727

.814

.938

.5Se

rbia

n/C

roat

ian

9.5

99.0

24.3

27.0

24.8

10.8

38.5

Span

ish

5.0

92.1

31.7

22.2

27.1

30.6

42.9

Turk

ish

4.8

93.2

54.5

38.5

24.2

11.4

48.7

Port

ugue

se/B

rasi

lian

7.0

100.

066

.259

.725

.711

.741

.2A

lban

ian

9.0

100.

061

.861

.522

.71.

363

.2Ta

mil

5.3

100.

066

.071

.127

.20.

021

.3

Tota

l10

057

.623

.423

.227

.817

.338

.8N

1675

1213

1212

1087

1200

1211

1000

Not

e: A

ll da

ta e

xcep

t fo

r ‘%

of

targ

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re b

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aPo

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regi

ver.

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traditionalism, namely low age of the mother at the first birth, a low per-centage of single mothers, a lower percentage of employed mothers and ahigh percentage of families where only the mother is responsible for lookingafter the household.

Study design strategies

The cultural diversity of the target population means that there was concernthat the value of the study would be undermined either because significantproportions of the target population could not be reached or because the datacould not be compared across various sociocultural groups. We thereforedeveloped a research strategy that tried to minimize both sources of bias. Inparticular, this meant (a) developing a questionnaire that could be adminis-tered in the 10 different languages of the largest language communities inZurich, (b) putting in place a field access strategy that would take socio-cultural diversity into account and would enhance response rates acrossgroups, and (c) implementing measurement strategies that would allow forbetter assessment of possible bias in core outcome measures.

Developing a multi-language questionnaire

Considering the data shown in Table 2 on parental nationality it was appar-ent that an exclusively German survey would exclude a significant proportionof the sampling frame from participating in the study. Supported by a grantfrom the Swiss Commission of Foreigners, we therefore opted for a multi-language strategy, offering parent interviews in all eight languages spoken byat least 4 percent of the target sample, that is, in descending order of frequency:Albanian (9 percent), Portuguese (7 percent), Serbian (5 percent), Tamil (5 percent), Spanish (5 percent), Turkish (5 percent), Italian (4 percent) andCroatian (4 percent). In addition, interviews could also be conducted inEnglish as the most likely generic foreign language among those who speakone of the roughly 50 remaining languages in our target sample.

The main stages on the way towards a fully operational 10-languageparent questionnaire were the development of the questionnaire itself, thetranslation of the questionnaire and all other contact material (parent letters,short project description, parent consent forms), the implementation of amulti-language CAPI (computer assisted personal interviewing) environment,and the recruitment and training of interviewers for all languages.

Questionnaire development

Harkness and Schoua-Glusberg (1998) and Harkness (2003) discuss variousways of designing questionnaires for cross-cultural comparative research.


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As the optimal strategy they recommend the simultaneous development ofinstruments in all target languages in order to maximize equivalence andminimize bias in favour of a source language. Yet developing and validatinga whole set of new instruments across 10 languages was neither financiallynor organizationally feasible.

Rather, the chief strategy in this study was to first scrutinize alternativeinstruments available for measuring the core target variables (e.g. parentingstyle, child problem behaviour). We then chose the instrument for which con-ceptual equivalence was more likely to be achieved. For example, preferencewas given to instruments that had already been translated and tested in sev-eral languages, such as the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (in English,Catalan, Dutch and German; see Alonso et al. 2004; Lösel et al. 2005; vanLier and Crijnen 2005; Shelton et al. 1996). Also, instruments were rejected ifthey were inadequate for cross-cultural use according to criteria developed byBrislin (1986). For example, previous Triple P evaluations (e.g. Sanders et al.2000) had administered the Parenting Sense of Competence (PSOC) question-naire (Johnson and Mash 1989). However, the PSOC comprises several longand grammatically complicated items. Consider, for example: ‘I would makea fine model for a new mother/father to follow in order to learn what she/hewould need to know in order to be a good parent.’ Items such as this are dif-ficult to understand even in English and achieving conceptual equivalence intranslations is probably impossible. Further, we favoured the Social BehaviourQuestionnaire (SBQ) by Tremblay et al. (1991) over the Achenbach ChildBehaviour Check List (Achenbach and Edelbrock 1981) as a tool to measurechild problem behaviour. One reason is that the SBQ comprises negative(aggressive, internalizing, non-aggressive) and pro-social scales. We hypoth-esized that the mix of positive and negative items might reduce the risk of cul-turally specific acquiescence bias and possibly of social desirability bias.

Questionnaire translation

The source questionnaire was developed in English. This was the obviousanchor for the translations since virtually all selected standardized instrumentshad been originally worded in English. In a first step we then developed aGerman version, relying, where possible, on already existing translations. TheGerman version was discussed several times among the research staff until asatisfactory solution was found.

Translation into all other languages was based on an expert team ap-proach (Harkness 2003: 37) that involved three basic steps. For each lan-guage, the English and the German versions were sent to a formally qualifiedtranslator for initial translation. The criteria for the selection of the translatorswere excellent knowledge of both German and English, the target language astheir mother language, familiarity in both cultures, and – ideally – some social


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science background (Hambleton and Kanjee 1993). The translators receivedwritten guidelines about the translation process (general criteria for question-naire item translation, need to document potentially ambiguous wordings,etc.). Furthermore, brief descriptions explained the purpose of each scale.Translators were asked to treat the German and the English versions as equallyrelevant – and to make written notes if the German or the English sourcewould result in different translations.

The initial translation was then sent to an independent translationreviewer. If possible, translation reviewers had a social science backgroundand at least some experience of working with psychometric instruments. Theirmain task was to examine the entire translation with a view to adequacy forstandardized interviews, and to suggest changes wherever they were believedto be necessary. All changes were documented.

In a third step, the translator, the translation reviewer and the transla-tion coordinator met to discuss all the issues that had arisen and to agree thefinal version. At this stage, we also involved the future foreign-languageinterviewers in the adjudication process. They proved to be a highly valuableadditional resource. Many of them were psychology, sociology or educationstudents with a migration background and a research methods training – anexcellent profile for assisting in questionnaire translation. Importantly, too,interviewers had an interest in scrutinizing the translation as regards theiradequacy for the spoken word.

Multi-language CAPI questionnaire

Interviews with parents were to be conducted as computer aided personalinterviews. We therefore needed software that would support conductingthe interviews in all languages. We selected software developed by TNS-NIPO, the largest public opinion and market research institute in theNetherlands. One of its advantages is that it allows for programming anynumber of language layers for each question. Interviewers select the appro-priate language at the beginning of the interview. However, if needed, theycan change the language layer during the interview.

Interviewer recruitment

Interviewers play a critical role in the process of contacting parents, settingup interviews, receiving informed consent and conducting the interviews(Stouthamer-Loeber and van Kammen 1995). This study therefore investedconsiderable energy in recruiting, training and supervising 20–30 interviewersfor each wave. A number of specific challenges arose with regard to recruit-ing interviewers for sociocultural minorities. First, recruiting cross-culturally


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competent, bilingual, motivated and reliable interviewers in all minoritylanguages was a major exercise that extended over several weeks. In ourexperience, second-generation social science university students were gener-ally the best bet. Importantly, many of them had an understanding of, and aninterest in, the overall goals of the study, the measurement issues involved inthe translation process, and the problems of contacting minority parents.Although language competency was important, ethnic matching per se wasnot a selection criterion and in our experience the general social competencyand conscientiousness of the interviewer were more important than the pre-cise fit of sociocultural background.

A significant part of the interviewer training for the initial contact wasdevoted to explaining the purpose of the study and reacting to potential con-cerns. Because it was important that interviewers provided correct informa-tion and complied with ethical standards, they were asked to simulate initialtelephone contacts and provide us with lists of possible concerns, to which wegave written guidelines regarding the appropriate responses. We also collectedinformation about culturally specific rules of conduct such as avoiding religiousholidays when making contact. Finally, interviewers had strict instructionsnot to allow the presence of any other adult person during the interview andnot to accept invitations for drinks, coffee or biscuits.

Parent contact and recruitment strategy

In any survey the total non-participation rate is mainly determined by non-contacts and refusals. Neither source of non-participation can be assumed tobe neutral in respect of inferential statistics. Adequate long-term planning istherefore necessary to minimize both potential threats to achieving a satisfac-tory participation rate.

In the z-proso study, gaining access to the field and recruiting partici-pants comprised a series of steps that extended over several months. Theprocess started with presenting the project at the parent information evenings,held before the summer break, about their child’s entry into primary school.Two weeks after the start, all presumed primary caregivers in the samplingframe received an information pack that consisted of four elements: a person-alized letter, a short description of the project, a response slip asking the par-ent to indicate preferred dates for the interview, and a reply envelope. Amongother things, the information pack explained that information would be col-lected only after written consent had been received and that parents couldwithdraw their consent at any time. It also explained that interview partnerswould receive a gift for participating and that they could choose between ashopping voucher worth about €13 and a voucher for sports courses andactivities worth €20. Although culturally unspecific, incentives are probably


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especially effective in recruiting low-income and minority respondents, groupsthat would otherwise be underrepresented (Singer 2002).

All 1675 addresses were screened to identify the presumed motherlanguage of the primary caregiver, a process greatly facilitated by informa-tion provided by the school authorities. All non-German-speaking caregiversreceived the information pack bilingually. Where necessary, interviewershelped to identify the correct language on the basis of surnames (e.g. to dis-tinguish Indian and Tamil respondents). In the first weeks of the interviewingperiod a total of 47 percent of the parents consented to participate by return-ing a response slip.

Interviewers actively contacted all remaining parents in their allocatedlanguage group. There was no upper limit to the number of required trials andin some cases more than 20 telephone calls were necessary before an initialcontact could be made. Detailed interviewer instructions explained, amongother things, how alternative contact numbers could be searched for if nolandline number was available and what kind of messages could be left onanswer machines. About four weeks after the sending of the initial informa-tion pack and coordinated with interviewer schedules, reminders were sent outto the remaining parents, again bilingually and with a significantly shorterexplanatory text. We allowed interviewers to ethnically tailor the reminder let-ter, as long as the contents adequately reflected the goal of the study.

After three months we began to use door-knocking as an alternativestrategy among minority groups where all prior contacts had been unsuccess-ful. A male and a female interviewer visited parents during the early eveninghours to explain the goals of the study. This was found to be an effective, ifexpensive, strategy.

If successful contact had been made, interviewers had written instruc-tions about how to present the study and explain the study goals. They werealso instructed how to react to possible concerns. Furthermore, dates had tobe arranged directly with the primary caregiver, usually the mother, and notwith the father or some other person in the household. If appointments werebroken, interviewers were instructed to re-contact the person and arrangeanother date until the interview could be conducted. A 24-hour supportstructure also ensured that we always tried to provide a replacement if aninterviewer unexpectedly could not conduct the interview. Importantly, too,all interviewers were closely supervised during the interview periods and wererequired to report on their progress and the difficulties they encountered.This was helpful in that slow progress by particular interviewers or amongsome language groups could be identified early and adequate measures taken.Finally, parents who were not willing to participate themselves were askedwhether they would consent to the participation of their child. Consent wasconsidered valid only if it was received in writing.


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Multi-trait multi-method data collection

In any empirical research project, it is always desirable to have instrumentsthat allow for validating measurements and assessing potential bias in thedata. But it becomes essential in survey research on topics related to negativebehaviours (such as delinquency) and conducted in a culturally heterogeneouscontext. In this study, careful validation of the data was particularly importantin respect of the core outcome measures, namely child externalizing and intern-alizing behaviours. We therefore adopted two main strategies to assess poten-tial bias in our measures of problem behaviour. These strategies go beyond theconventional approach of testing the internal consistency of scale functioningacross groups (e.g. Cheung and Rensvold 2000; Spencer et al. 2005).

First, to assess the core outcome variable, namely child problem behav-iour, a consistent multi-trait multi-method approach was adopted throughout(Campbell and Fiske 1959). In particular, the same instrument (the SocialBehaviour Questionnaire) was administered in the parent interview, the childinterview and the teacher assessment. Furthermore, interviewers assessed thechild’s behaviour according to four behaviour dimensions (withdrawn, aggres-sive, cooperative, restless/hyperactive) during the child interview. These foursources of information enable us to assess systematic discrepancies betweenobservers for each group, which in turn may be suggestive of bias. Secondly,parent interviewers administered an observation questionnaire to assess var-ious aspects of the interview situation. Among other things, they estimatedthe interviewee’s understanding of the questions, their active interest in theinterview, their verbal skills and their perceived truthfulness. Interviewerscompleted the interview situation questionnaire shortly after the interviewand coding was done according to detailed coding criteria.

Thirdly, it seemed important to directly assess one of the most importantsources of systematic bias in survey research, namely social desirability bias.There exist established scales for this purpose, such as the Marlowe–CrowneScale (Crowne and Marlowe 1960; Reynolds 1982). However, we decided todevelop and implement a new scale that was more specifically targeted tomeasuring domain-specific social desirability. It consists of a series of state-ments to be answered with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ where the socially desirable answeroption is most unlikely, for example, ‘When your child was about 3 to 5 yearsold, he/she always obeyed you’.

Results

This section presents descriptive analyses of three issues that were importantto assess the extent to which the efforts just described had been successful.We first discuss the extent to which the adaptations of our research strategy


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to a culturally heterogeneous population helped us to reach a greater num-ber of minority respondents. We then explore whether the efforts had beenworthwhile in the sense that more at-risk children were ultimately includedin the study. Finally, we present early results on how cross-informant valid-ation can help in examining possible bias in response behaviour to questionsabout the misbehaviour of children.

Response rates

Table 3 provides a summary of the participation rates by language group. Foreach group, total parental participation results from two different ways of set-ting up the initial parent interview. The ‘active response’ route means that par-ents returned a response slip in reaction to the first parent letter, indicatingtheir preferred times and dates for the interview; 44.9 percent of the contactedparents returned a response slip. In these cases, interviewers needed only tocontact the parent to set up the interview. The ‘telephone contact’ route meansthat interviewers asked parents about their willingness to participate duringthe first successful telephone contact and then set up a date for the interview.Overall, 29.1 percent of the parents agreed to participate as a result of the tele-phone contact. In both cases, of course, the interview was conducted only ifthe primary caregiver provided informed consent for the parent interview, thechild interview and the teacher assessment.

Furthermore, Table 3 shows the percentage of additional ‘child-only’interviews. These are interviews where neither of the parents wished to par-ticipate but agreed to allow the child to take part in the study and the teacherto complete the assessment form – 9 percent of the target sample providedus with this type of informed consent. Overall, then, the parent participa-tion rate is 74.0 percent and the total child participation rate is 82.6 per-cent. Given the urban and multi-ethnic context of the study, this comparesquite favourably with other studies.

However, the data also show that participation rates continue to differsignificantly across minority language groups. Overall, differences roughlycorrelate with the group means of social disadvantage as shown in Table 1.Differences are most pronounced with respect to the ‘active response’ sub-category: 63.8 percent of the German-speaking parents actively showed inter-est in participation in comparison with an average of 28.0 percent amongthe non-German-speaking parents (�2 � 95.0, df � 1, p � .001). However,telephone contact helped in closing this gap to a significant extent. Thus, theproportion of parents recruited through ‘telephone contact’ was higheramong all minority parents (except for the Tamil-speaking parents) thanamong native German-speaking parents. This demonstrates the importanceof employing well-trained interviewers able to explain the study goals in the


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Tab

le 3

Pare

nt a

nd c

hild

par

ticip

atio

n ra

tes

by p

aren

t co

ntac

t la

ngua

ge (

%)

Part

icip

atin

g pa

rent

sN

on-p

artic

ipat

ing

pare

nts

Recr

uite

dPa

rent

con

tact

Ac

tive

resp

onse

thro

ugh

Addi

tiona

lTo

tal c

hild

lang

uage

(ta

rget

(res

pons

ete

leph

one

child

part

icip

atio

nsa

mpl

e N

)sl

ip)

cont

act

Tota

lN

on-c

onta

ctRe

fusa

lTo

tal

inte

rvie

ws

rate

Ger

man

(N

�78

9)63

.824

.087

.70.

511

.812

.34.

392

.0Sp

anis

h (N

�83

)43

.431

.374

.77.

218

.125

.39.

684

.3It

alia

n (N

�74

)39

.231

.170

.30.

029

.729

.79.

579

.8Po

rtug

uese

(N

�11

8)30

.535

.666

.15.

928

.033

.95.

972

.0C

roat

ian

(N�

66)

9.1

56.1

65.2

1.5

33.3

34.8

4.5

69.7

Oth

er la

ngua

ges

(N�

127)

(Eng

lish

as c

onta

ct

lang

uage

)34

.627

.662

.22.

435

.437

.818

.981

.1Tu

rkis

h (N

�80

)26

.333

.860

.05.

035

.040

.03.

863

.8Se

rbia

n (N

�92

)23

.933

.757

.60.

042

.442

.412

.069

.6A

lban

ian

(N�

151)

14.6

38.4

53.0

12.6

34.4

47.0

17.9

70.9

Tam

il (N

�88

)34

.119

.353

.412

.534

.146

.722

.776

.1

Tota

lsN

on-G

erm

an-s

pea

king

28

.033

.761

.75.

832

.538

.312

.574

.2m

inor

ities

Full

sam

ple

44.9

29.1

74.0

3.3

22.7

26.0

8.6

82.6

N74

948

512

3455

379

434

144

1378

Not

e: D

ata

sort

ed b

y to

tal p

artic

ipat

ion

rate

.

271-298 EUC-077183.qxd 25/5/07 12:32 PM Page 287



respondent’s mother language during the first telephone contact. Finally, non-contact accounted for a relatively small proportion of all non-responses in thetotal sample (3.3 percent) but rose to 12.6 and 12.5 percent, respectively,among Albanian and Tamil minorities.

‘Child-only’ participation rates were also correlated with minority sta-tus. Only 4.3 percent of native German-speaking parents did not wish to par-ticipate themselves but consented to the participation of the child. Amongminority parents, however, an average 12.5 percent agreed to participation ofthe child alone (�2 � 35.5, df � 1, p � .001), probably suggesting that priv-acy concerns are more important among these groups.

All in all, both active recruitment during telephone interviews and theadditional option of ‘child-only’ interviews significantly helped to reduceminority–majority discrepancies in response rates. Indeed, with a child partici-pation rate of 83 percent and in the full sample and a rate of 74 percent forthe children of non-native German-speaking parents, the scope for biasowing to differential response is greatly reduced.

Improved minority participation through translation

To what extent did the translation achieve its purpose, namely to facilitateparticipation for caregivers who would otherwise not have been able totake part? The answer to this question can be assessed in two ways. First,one can examine the percentage of respondents who actually preferred tobe interviewed in their mother tongue rather than in German. Secondly, onecan examine the proportion of respondents with limited fluency in German.

Table 4 shows both indicators separately for each non-German languagegroup as well as for the total of all non-German native speakers. They showthat an average 63 percent chose to be interviewed in their mother tonguerather than in German. The proportion varies considerably across languagegroups. Over 90 percent of the Albanian-, Portuguese- and Tamil-speakingmothers chose their mother tongue, compared with 23 percent among nativeItalian-speaking parents. Overall, the differences mainly reflect the proportionof first-generation immigrants in a language group. They suggest that transla-tion allowed the inclusion in the study of groups of recent immigrants whowould not have been able to participate otherwise.

Of course, choosing to be interviewed in the mother language does notnecessarily mean that the interview could not have been conducted in German.Thus, we also examined the proportion of parents who consider their own flu-ency in German to be less than ‘good’ (i.e. levels 1 to 4 on a 6-point scale): 321interview partners rated their German as less than ‘good’, which correspondsto 26 percent of the study participants or 48 percent of the non-German nativespeakers. Recent immigrants from culturally distant backgrounds showed the


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least fluency in German, suggesting that without translation these groupswould not have been able to participate.

Overall, the results suggest that offering translated versions played animportant role in assessing immigrant populations, particularly those leastintegrated into the host society. Moreover, there may have been additionalnon-quantifiable ‘soft’ effects of translation on participation. Thus, somemigrant parents may have been motivated to participate because communi-cation in their native language was understood as an accommodation of theirneeds. However, we believe that offering a native-language questionnaire initself is insufficient to recruit minority parents and that it needs to be com-plemented by other measures. For example, Steinhausen et al. (1997) reportlow minority parent participation rates in a study on child behavioural prob-lems even though all (written) questionnaires had been translated.

Are special recruitment efforts worthwhile?

As discussed above, higher participation rates are expected to be associatedwith less biased population estimates. More particularly, it is expected that,with greater recruitment efforts, higher rates of problem behaviour shouldbe detected. We tested this assumption by examining mean teacher-rated


Table 4 Interview language by mother language of respondent, non-native German speakers

only (%)

Interview language: mother % of Fluency in German language (or other

Mother language total sample less than ‘good’ non-German language)

Italian 5.4 19.7 22.7 English 1.8 34.8 52.2 Spanish 5.1 55.6 71.4Serbo-Croatian 8.4 32.7 83.7 Turkish 3.6 61.4 84.1 Portuguese 6.3 74.4 93.6 Albanian 6.3 62.3 96.1 Tamil 3.9 83.3 97.9 Other languages 13.6 34.7 18.6a

Total 55 48 63N�670 N�321 N�422

Note: Data for non-native German-speaking respondents sorted in ascending order by percentchoosing their mother language as interview language.a Mainly English.

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problem behaviour for three groups that are progressively more difficult toreach. The first group consists of children of parents who actively signalledinterest in the study by returning the response slip (‘active response’). Thesecond group comprises the children of parents recruited through telephonecontact (‘passive response’). The third group comprises those children whoseparents declined to participate themselves but accepted their child’s partici-pation (‘child-only’).

Table 5 shows results for three behavioural domains: non-aggressiveconduct disorder (e.g. disobedience, lying, stealing), physical aggression(e.g. hitting, biting, fighting), and pro-social behaviour (e.g. helping otherchildren). As expected, results suggest that successive recruitment effortsyielded increased rates of problem behaviour. For example, the mean valueof non-aggressive conduct problems is 0.30 in the active response group,0.35 in the passive response group and 0.38 in the child-only group(F linearity � 4.87; p � .05). This pattern is replicated for physical aggressionand for pro-social behaviour, where we find decreasing rates with increas-ing recruitment efforts. This is in line with a similar study by de Winter etal. (2005: 177), which also found lower levels on almost all dimensions ofchild psychopathology among early responders in a longitudinal study con-ducted in the north of the Netherlands.

Considering the results on participation rates presented in Table 3, thebetter coverage of at-risk children with increasing recruitment efforts seemsprimarily to be owing to the increased participation of migrant minoritieswho, as reported by teachers, present higher rates of problem behaviour.

Cross-informant validation

Assessing the cross-cultural validity of measurement should be a major con-cern of research in culturally diverse contexts. This is often achieved by


Table 5 Mean scores for three types of behaviour according to teacher ratings, by parents’

commitment to study participation (scale range: 0–4)

Non-aggressiveParent commitment (conduct disorders) Physical aggression Pro-social behaviour

Active response 0.30 0.37 2.24Passive response 0.35 0.45 2.11Child only 0.38 0.49 2.01

F (Linearity) 4.87* 6.14* 11.98**

**p < .01, *p < .05

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examining the psychometric functioning of scales and their items across cul-tural groups. If possible, however, it is also important to validate measuresexternally by examining the convergent validity of data from differentobservers.

To conclude, we illustrate the relevance of the second approach by firstpresenting results regarding inter-informant agreement across cultural groups.In particular, we briefly examine discrepancies between levels of parent-assessed child problem behaviour on the one hand and the assessments byteachers and interviewers, respectively, on the other. If such discrepanciesemerge, they may be indicative of systematic response bias that then requiresfurther investigation.

We limit the following analysis to two types of problem behaviour,namely aggression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Measures arebased on identical lists of items (parts of the Social Behaviour Scale) for par-ents and teachers. Interviewers used a standardized observation sheet withfive-level Likert scales, which was completed after each child interview.

To assess discrepancy we rely on the discrepancy measure recom-mended by de los Reyes and Kazdin (2004), which consists of the differencebetween the z-standardized scores of the compared scales. Accordingly, the fullsample mean for this score is equal to zero, that is, scores are net of the over-all parent–teacher difference. Group scores above zero reflect an overreport ofa given behaviour by the parents in this group compared with the averageof all parents and compared with the estimates of teacher or interviewer. Weare aware that this statement implies that teacher or interviewer ratings areviewed as a kind of benchmark against which parent ratings are compared,further implying that teacher or interviewer ratings are not (substantially) sub-ject to bias. Although we do not preclude the possibility of such bias, we thinkthat stable discrepancies found across two independent ‘benchmark’ raters canbe viewed as supportive of parent-related bias in the assessment of a child’sproblem behaviour.

Turning to the measurement of aggression first, Table 6 shows highlysignificant variations in discrepancy scores according to the respondent’smother tongue (Fparent-teacher � 20.55; df � 8; p � .001; Fparent-interviewer �

7.24; df � 8; p � .001). Compared with all other parents, German-speakingparents tend to overreport children’s aggressive behaviour compared withboth teachers and interviewers. In a number of cultural minorities, in contrast,parents tend to underreport their child’s aggressive behaviour, this being par-ticularly pronounced in the Serb/Croatian, the Turkish and the Portuguese/Brazilian minorities.

Additional analyses shown in Table 6 provide some preliminary ideasabout possible sources of these discrepancies. For example, the size of dis-crepancies in reporting aggressive behaviour is systematically related to the


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interviewer-assessed truthfulness of the parent in the interview situation(Fparent-teacher � 23.25; df � 1; p � .001; Fparent-interviewer � 16.44; df � 1; p � .001). It seems likely that this may reflect varying levels of distrust of thepurpose of the study, which in turn lead to differences in reporting.Furthermore, differences between parent and teacher/interviewer scores arestrongly related to the parent’s education level (Fparent-teacher � 57.09; df � 1;p � .001; Fparent-interviewer � 13.17; df � 1; p � .001). On average, less-educated parents report significantly less aggressive behaviour by their child


Table 6 Discrepancies by selected characteristics of respondents. Difference scores of

z-standardized parent, teacher and interviewer scales. Higher scores reflect an overestima-

tion of a given behaviour by parents.

Aggression ADHD

Discrepancy between Discrepancy between parent and … parent and …

… Teacher … Interviewer … Teacher … Interviewer

Mother languageGerman .530 .284 .229 �.025Italian �.044 �.028 �.064 .213Other �.281 �.405 �.083 �.180Serbian/Croatian �.755 �.370 �.127 .133Spanish �.537 �.090 �.250 .250Turkish �.407 �.510 �.601 �.373Portuguese/Brasilian �.778 �.421 �.403 .176Albanian �.239 �.114 �.404 �.196Tamil �.018 �.131 .351 .481Total .013 �.034 .001 �.002

F (df�8) 20.55*** 7.24*** 6.06*** 1.66 (ns)

Perceived truthfulnessVery truthful .071 .083 .089 .165Less truthful �.450 �.351 �.260 �.088Total �.077 �.038 �.009 �.094

F (df�1) 23.25*** 16.44*** 12.49*** 4.07*

Education levelLow �.500 �.399 �.246 .046Medium .074 .065 .057 .092High .346 .129 .126 �.154Total .016 �.028 .004 .008

F (Linearity; df�1) 57.09*** 13.17*** 12.37*** 2.43 (ns)

***p�.001, **p�.01, *p�.05

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than do the child interviewer or the teacher whereas highly educated parentstend to overreport considerably.

These findings demonstrate that systematic mechanisms contribute tointer-informant differences in assessing child problem behaviour and that these mechanisms affect members of cultural minorities to varying degrees.Identification of these mechanisms will require further research efforts. But wecurrently hypothesize that – owing to the normative salience of violence –measures of aggressive behaviour may be particularly exposed to social desira-bility bias.

This assumption is corroborated by the findings on discrepancies forattention deficit hyperactivity disorder, behaviour that is probably less nor-matively charged than aggression. As Table 6 demonstrates, differences inparent–teacher discrepancies across language and educational groups are,though still significant, considerably less pronounced for this behaviouraldomain, and differences in parent–interviewer discrepancies are even in-significant.

Conclusions

The extent to which cultural diversity affects criminological research inEurope varies across countries, specific research questions and type of crimeinvestigated. But certainly in most large cities it is hard to imagine a crim-inological research question that does not require close attention to theways in which cultural diversity affects research design at various stages ofa research project.

In this paper we have discussed the approach taken in the ZurichProject on the Social Development of Children, z-proso. The results showthat this study has succeeded in significantly limiting the problem of lowparticipation among disadvantaged sociocultural minorities. More particu-larly, participation by minority children (74 percent) is only marginallylower than the overall child participation rate of 83 percent. We do notknow precisely which of our efforts was most important in achieving thiseffect and we do not believe any single measure is sufficient. Rather, we believethat survey-based criminological studies in ethnically diverse contextsrequire careful planning of a variety of aspects including, for example, cul-ture-specific adaptation of initial contact strategies and the reduction oflanguage barriers through translation, specific training of interviewers andcareful monitoring of the field phase. We have also demonstrated the sig-nificant challenges that arise from the need to develop cross-culturally validresearch instruments. In particular, our analyses suggest significant groupdifferences between minority parents, teachers and our interviewers in the


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reporting of externalizing child problem behaviour. More analyses are cer-tainly necessary to explore in greater detail how these discrepancies can beexplained and to what extent they are owing to culture-specific responsebias. However, our findings highlight the significant challenge of ethnicdiversity for valid measurement across groups.

We therefore believe that criminological research (we are primarilythinking of survey research here, but other types of research are also involved)in culturally diverse contexts should no longer be planned and conducted asthough methods developed for monocultural (Western) contexts would auto-matically yield valid results. Developing research questions that reflect theexperiences of immigrant minorities, gaining access to the research field, anddeveloping and using cross-culturally valid research instruments and ways ofassessing potential cultural bias in the collected data should become issuesthat are embedded in every research project. Importantly, this may imply sig-nificant additional time and money at each stage of a research project, whichmust be considered during the planning phase.

But, even more importantly, it requires specific knowledge that is noteasily found within criminology. For example, researchers working in cultur-ally diverse fields may need knowledge about cross-cultural measurement,translation theory, culture-specific mechanisms leading to crime, or ways torecruit cross-culturally competent interviewers. On many of these issues awealth of relevant methodological knowledge is available in cross-culturalpsychology. This literature has as yet hardly been recognized in crimino-logical research (Harkness et al. 2003; Hui and Triandis 1985; van de Vijverand Leung 1997). We believe that more efforts are needed to further know-ledge about doing good criminological research in culturally diverse contexts.

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Manuel Eisner

Manuel Eisner is Reader in Sociological Criminology and Deputy Director ofthe Institute of Criminology, Cambridge, UK. He is principal investigator ofthe Zurich Project on the Social Development of Children. His research inter-ests include developmental criminology, crime prevention, cross-culturalcriminology, and the history of [email protected]

Denis Ribeaud

Denis Ribeaud is Scientific Project Coordinator of the Zurich Project on theSocial Development of Children, a large-scale randomized longitudinal studyon the effectiveness of preventive interventions on disruptive behaviouramong elementary-school children in the city of Zurich, [email protected]


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