The study on which this thesis reports was a prospective investigation, documenting the process of becoming a grandparent. A sample of eighteen couples were interviewed once before, and twice after the birth of their first grandchildren. The study aimed to delineate the procedures utilised by the grandparents in their anticipation and construction of an appropriate grandparental role, the background assumptions and commonsense knowledge underlying such processes, and the subjective meanings which the respondents attached to grandparenthood. Through a general critique of the functionalist framework in family sociology I contend that grandparenthood is unlikely to be considered because of the theoretical limitations of the approach. A review of the relevant literature demonstrates the need to consider the actors' perspectives in an assessment of the meaning and significance of grandparenthood, and of extending notions of relevant behaviour beyond that of interfamilial interaction. The meaning and significance of grandparenthood, and the grandparents' role are assessed by analysing the way in which the news of the forthcoming birth, and of the actual birth of the grandchildren was delivered, and disseminated, and in how grandparenting activities were anticipated and subsequently accomplished. This analysis is related to a discussion of changes and similarities across and between generations, of how family roles are perceived and negotiated, and of the differences between grandmothers and grandfathers. Grandparenthood was identified as having social, interactional, personal, and symbolic dimensions. It was something difficult to describe, yet had both novel and typical dimensions. Anticipations were vague, and any personal desire to grandparent was accounted as having to be considered secondary to the wishes of the respondents' adult children. A grandparental role was negotiated, and created within existing family structures. A recognition of the significance of grandparenthood was reflected in the respondents' accounts of how the news was broken, such that the desires of the grandparents, and their inclusion in the family were constituted in the announcement of the news. Spreading the news was a way of reaffirming a new status: part of the significance of grandparenthood seemed to be in being able to speak about it. It had a distinctly social dimension. At a personal level, all the respondents expressed pleasure at the prospect of becoming grandparents, accounting this as a natural response. How the grandparents themselves began to define grandparenthood was investigated by examining their formulations of appropriate grandparenting behaviour. Although much was left ill-defined, only to be revealed during the actual development of the grandparents' role, grandparental involvement with the younger generations was accounted as being bounded by certain rules. These served to restrict grandparental activities, and set limits on their intended behaviour. These rules were expressed as 'not-interfering', 'sharing', and 'not-spoiling'. However, the failure of these rules to perform as clear cut prescriptions for behaviour in fact enabled the grandparents to develop a role for themselves. Notions of appropriate grandparenting behaviour were found to be based on personal experience, or on commonsense. Drawing on their knowledge of family life, the respondents were able to give themselves a positive but nonetheless non-interfering role. Grandparents were described as being able to help out, to be there when needed, and to give presents to the child. The personal characteristics and expectations of the grandparents, as people able and willing to spend time with their families, and provide material support seemed to create an inherent contradiction in the projected role. Yet it was these different relevances which facilitated the production of a potentially satisfactory set of practices for 'doing grandparenting.'. In its realisation, grandparenthood became more tangible, and certain features could be detailed. Accounts of the meaning of grandparenthood relied more on notions of familial continuity, and personal fulfilment than on the execution of any practical activities. Each family negotiated their own level of interaction, although one weekly visit was a minimum. Time spent with a grandchild was portrayed as being essentially different from that spent with one's own children. Yet, grandparental activities extended beyond inter-familial interaction. Some aspects of the role were independent from any such involvement, for example talking about grandparenting to friends, or having renewed interest in young children. Grandparenting was found to be constituted in, and constructed from the respondents' knowledge of family life. Both the differences between grandparents past and present, and between parenting and grandparenting reveal the unique characteristics of today's grandparents. More time, money, and patience were accounted as being the resources available to grandparents, and these formed a positive basis for their role. The grandparents' role both contributed to, yet also relied on change and continuity across and between the generations.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1970. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

The number of Canadian widows and widowers has doubled since 1971, and these numbers are projected to increase as the Baby Boom generation continues to age. Prior studies demonstrate that remarriage is losing ground to cohabitation following union dissolution, and that cohabitation is increasing among older adults. This study explores post-widowhood repartnering practices among older Canadians on the basis of existing theories on partnership. The data were drawn from the 2007 General Social Survey Cycle 21 (N= 23,404 Canadians aged 45 and older). The cumulative proportion of competing post-widowhood partnership choices are compared using life table analysis. The effects of gender, demographic characteristics, cultural influences, economic resources, and physical health are explored using Cox’s proportional hazard modeling. The findings suggest that dominant theories of partnership are insufficient in explaining post-widowhood repartnering behaviour. Namely, most commonly-measured economic resources do not factor significantly into the post-widowhood repartnering choices of older Canadians. / Graduate / 0626 / 0628 / 0938 / nouellet@uvic.ca

Contribution of the Sociology to the Pastoral Work with Married Couples and Families Subject of this thesis is the question of pastoral work in the area of present marriage and family in the Czech Republic. The concrete aim of this thesis was to find out if the results of sociological researches dealing with the problematics of marriage and family can contribute to improving of the pastoral work in the area of marriage and family. The key problems were chosen: refusing of the institution of marriage, causes and consequences of this phenomenon, non-married cohabitation, divorce rate, natality, problematics of unmarried mothers, crisis of parental roles, same-sex cohabitation. The results and evaluation of the sociological researches related to the given problems are presented in the individual chapters. In each chapter, there is also the attitude of the Church to each given problem and the short recommendation how to take advantage of the presented material in the pastoral work. Keywords Marriage, family, sociology, pastoral theology

I use the German Socio-Economic Panel to explore three dimensions of couples' career success: career input (hours), career output (wages) and happiness. I focus on West German parents because, until recently, they faced low levels of state-level childcare support and adverse attitudes towards maternal employment. I investigate the extent to which couples specialize in paid work in the long term. Previous approaches – even those using couple-level longitudinal data – failed to explore this fully, instead examining men and women separately, or a single transition. I develop a “dual curve” approach and find that even among the 1956-65 female birth cohort (which faced low state-level support for dual employment) only a fifth of all couples adopt full specialization in later life. A sizable proportion – a third – moves into dual fulltime employment, while half of highly educated couples adopt such employment. Highly educated women are not only less likely to permanently specialize but also more likely to try working full-time, possibly because their partners' comparative advantages are lower. I explore whether the take-up of work hour flexibility relates to rises in both the respondent’s and their partner’s wages. Men and women benefit from working flexibly, even when controlling for selection into work hour flexibility with growth-curve and fixed effects analysis. Moreover, there is a positive cross-partner wage effect, which is particularly pronounced for mothers, suggesting that men – the main users of the policy – use this measure to support their wives' careers. Are dual career couples (equal human capital investment) happier than specializing couples? I create a human capital measure to account for differential human capital during periods of non-employment, which has been ignored in past analyses. I find that women in dual career couples are unhappier when the child is young but happier later in life. Conversely, women who give precedence to their partner’s career in terms of human capital investment grow unhappier.

In this research I have focused on beneficiary and service providers' perceptions toward Arab social obstacles to help-seeking, appropriate intervention methods and obstacles to reintegration into the community after seeking assistance. Through semi-structured interviews and content analysis of local policies, laws and specific service offerings, I sought to contribute to the limited literature that explores how formal institutions that originate from a Western context are adapted to meet the unique needs of Arab victims of domestic violence. I found that the main social obstacles to help-seeking were attributed to a dearth of knowledge about existing services, a lack of confidence in formal institutions such as non-governmental and government agencies, a fear of rejection or punishment from their families and communities, concerns about laws that might increase a woman's vulnerability and limited economic resources.

In this dissertation, I ask what types of family negotiations occur among college-bound students and their parents as they navigate the college preparation process. Through in-depth interviews with sixty-five upper, upper-middle, middle, and lower-middle-class parents and children I explore the mechanisms that are activated in the competitive pursuit of college admission. While much research focuses on the influence of the school context, I ask students and their parents about the ways that college preparations are discussed and handled at home, focusing on their approaches to activity participation, finances, and college choices. This project investigates how various forms of what Bourdieu terms capital – cultural, economic, and social – are relayed between parents and children. I find three general orientations to college preparation, which I term strategic, natural and compliant. These approaches are shaped not only by past and present class dispositions, but also by families’ expectations for the future, which consequently transfer capital in different ways. While strategizers openly engage in activities that they hope will help their chances of admission, compliers face a moral conflict between their belief in meritocracy and the demands of the process, and naturalizers try not to explicitly associate specific activity choices with college preparation. I argue that the naturalizers, who shy away from outwardly instrumental participation instead emphasizing character development, hold the highest amounts of cultural capital, which is correspondingly rewarded by elite educational institutions. These orientations filter through respondents’ approaches to finances and choosing a college. Reflecting the tenets of their orientations, I find that some families talk about paying for college as a gift, others as a down payment, a duty, or an incentive. When faced with choosing which colleges to apply to and attend, the orientations help to explain the ways that social class resources and dispositions not only impact the extent to which families face uncertainty, but also their understandings of how to manage it. This study emphasizes that the meaning-making that occurs through the college preparation process powerfully shapes and is shaped by social class sensibilities, revealing taken-for-granted mechanisms in the reproduction of inequality.

No description available.

No description available.

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht kulturelle Vorstellungen und Praktiken von Elternschaft in Deutschland. Wie Familien ihre Kinder erziehen ruft ein steigendes Interesse von Seiten der Politik, Wissenschaft und weiterer (Bildungs-)Professionen hervor. Gegenwärtig wird von Eltern erwartet, dass sie sich mit Expertenwissen auseinandersetzen, welches oftmals kostspielige und zeitaufwändige Praktiken nahelegt. Zur gleichen Zeit nehmen staatliche Akteure verstärkt Einfluss auf das familiale Leben und insbesondere die Kindererziehung. Als Folge dieser Entwicklung haben sich die kulturellen Vorstellungen von Elternschaft in Deutschland gewandelt. Mit diesen Entwicklungen beschäftigt sich die vorliegende Arbeit in drei Aufsätzen. Im Einzelnen betrachten die Artikel: (1) die Bedingungen von familienpolitischen Reformen, (2) die elterlichen Diskussionen um sich wandelnde Erwartungen sowie (3) die Auswirkung der elterlichen Klassenposition auf deren Erziehungspraktiken. Um diese Fragen zu beantworten greifen die Artikel sowohl auf Umfragedaten als auch digitale Daten zurück, die mit neuen Methoden der computergestützten Sozialforschung analysiert werden. Insgesamt erweitert die vorliegende Dissertation unser Wissen um den aktuellen Wandel von Elternschaft in Deutschland. Zudem werden innovative Methoden der computergestützten Sozialforschung in die Familiensoziologie eingeführt. Zuletzt wurde mit kulturellen Leitbildern von Elternschaft ein Zugang vorgeschlagen, der es erlaubt den gegenwärtigen Wandel von Elternschaft zu untersuchen. / The thesis at hand investigates conceptions and practices of parenthood in Germany. How families approach their childrearing has attracted growing interest in politics, science, and by (education) professionals. Today, parents are encouraged to seek expert advice to inform their childrearing. Such advice often involves the expenditure of considerable amounts of time and money. At the same time, the state has become increasingly active in the intimate life of families and, in particular, their parenting practices. As a result, the cultural models of parenthood in Germany have been changed. At the background of these changes, I designed three papers that analyze (1) the conditions of family policy change, (2) the way parents adopt changing expectations and demands, and (3) the relationship between parenting practices and social class. In order to address these questions, the respective articles use survey and digital data as well as methods from the computational social sciences (CSS). In sum, the dissertation expands our knowledge on the current recalibration of parenthood in Germany. It also introduces innovative methods from CSS to family sociology. Finally, cultural models of parenthood are proposed as a way to organize the research on changing standards and norms of parenthood.