Care for old people is a particular concern in ageing societies. In Taiwan, traditional collective cultures encourage collective practice, including informal family care of elderly people. However, social change is modifying traditional values and behaviours, leading some commentators identify a western style of individualism on this change. This thesis explores how Taiwanese young adult grandchildren and their grandparents interpret ’collectivism’ and ‘individualism’ and think about or draw on these value systems in familial interactions. This was achieved through in-depth individual interviews with 20 pairs of college-aged grandchildren and their grandparents living in different locations and family households. The research questions mainly focus on three areas. Firstly, how perceptions of the role, and the attached expectations of being a grandchild construct contemporary grandchildren’s understandings of their orientations to their families. Secondly, how grandchildren interpret traditional and what they understand imported individualistic value systems and how these operate on personal and family lives. Lastly, how the two generations, grandparents and grandchildren, perceive transformation of Taiwanese society and family, particularly their views of the effects of domestic-demographics and wider structural changes on the grandparent-grandchild relationship over time. How grandchildren viewed collectivism and individualism and reported their behaviours towards the grandparent generation was both as expected in terms of the results of previous research and contained some unexpected outcomes. According to the interviewees, being more individualistic is responsible for causing distance between family members, whereas possessing more collective perspectives encourages more communal considerations for common benefit. However, grandchild informants acknowledged benefits of individualistic concepts and use them to rationalise intergenerational flows that do not follow tradition, arguing that personal considerations themselves are able to contribute more collective practices. Interestingly, the expressed views of the grandchild generation reverse commonly perceived negative impacts of individualistic concepts on collective interests. Critically, the youth in Taiwan still regards themselves as being primarily guided by collective-based doctrines, by indicating how traditional Chinese values are still prioritised. Meanwhile, the concepts of individualism are placed as complementary principles by the grandchildren, although they and their grandparents had identified some negative effects of individualistic-led tendencies in their society and families.

While many studies have investigated grandparenthood from the point of view of the grandparent, few have considered this issue from the perspective of the grandchild. In this respect, a number of variables (i.e., grandchild age and gender, parents' marital status, and grandparents' age, gender, education, kinship position, residential proximity to and frequency of visiting with grandchildren, perceived influence on the grandchild, style of grandparenting, and relationship with the parents) were investigated as determinants of the quality of the grandparent-grandchild relationship in a sample of 171 adolescents and young adults. It was found that different sets of variables operated for different grandparents to predict the quality of their relationships with grandchildren.

Despite the distance that often separates grandparents from their young adult grandchildren, the abundance of new technologies provides numerous means of connection for the grandparent-grandchild (GP-GC) dyad. The purpose of this study was to understand how grandparents use technology, namely text messaging and Facebook, in relationships with their young adult grandchildren. Specifically, the aim was to understand grandparents' purposes for using these technologies with their grandchildren, their motivations for using these technologies, and their perceptions of these technologies. Qualitative interviews were conducted with 23 grandparent participants and analyzed according to the procedures delineated in grounded theory analysis. Both text messaging and Facebook emerged as important tools for connection, as text messaging encourages more frequent communication and Facebook helps grandparents "fill in the gaps" about their grandchildren's lives. Furthermore, results indicated that grandparents' uses of text messaging, and to a lesser extent Facebook, are acts of accommodation to their grandchildren.

A sample of 203 grandparents, 103 of whom were surrogate parents for their grandchildren, were assessed to construct a model of their psychological functioning. Four measures of psychological functioning (i.e., well-being, satisfaction with grandparenting, meaning of grandparenthood, and perceived relationships with grandchildren) were evaluated. Path analysis of data suggested that the resumption of the parental role negatively impacted all measures except the meaning of grandparenthood. Data also suggested a sense of isolation among those raising grandchildren, as well as a sense of role confusion. These factors may have been exacerbated by behavior difficulties of many grandchildren as a result of family conflict preceding the loss of their parents, and by a lack of parenting skills of grandparents who assumed parental responsibilities. These results reinforce other work that found a preference for fulfilling voluntary, nonparental relationships with grandchildren among grandparents.

This thesis aims to investigate how, and under what circumstances, intimacy in grandparent-grandchild relationships is enabled, enacted and sustained in the early years of grandchildren. Previous work on emotional closeness of grandparent-grandchild relationships suggests that grandmothers and maternal grandparents are more likely to feel stronger bonds with their grandchildren, and that grandparents with a good quality of relationship with parents and living geographically close to grandchildren have greater opportunities to develop a strong emotional tie. The majority of previous research involves data on perceptions of closeness of grandparents focusing on one of their grandchildren or by young adult grandchildren reporting on closeness with a specific grandparent. In addition, qualitative research with grandparents indicates the diversity of ways they exercise agency, and involvement in the life of grandchildren, as well as gendered changes in grandfatherhood. However, there has been limited scholarly attention given to practices of intimacy, emotions and masculinities in grandparent-grandchild relationships, and the ways grandparents interpret and negotiate intimate relationships with their grandchildren amid changes in individual, familial and relational aspects over time. This study uses quantitative data to examines the extent to which individual, family and socio-structural factors influence the mothers' perception of emotional closeness of the relationship of an infant child with four types of grandparents. This is supplemented by qualitative data on grandparents' views of closeness with all their grandchildren. There is a limited scholarly literature on the relation of grandparents' lived experiences, and shared normative understandings, and a sense of being close and special to their grandchildren. The 'practices of intimacy' approach highlights the significance of practices of everyday life enacted by individuals in relation to others in building the quality of being close, and the processes through which individuals attach meaning to such practices. This approach is adopted to understand the diversity of ways grandparents interpret and do intimacy with their grandchildren. The thesis aims were achieved through a mixed methods research process combining secondary data analysis of the Growing Up in Scotland (GUS) study and in-depth interviews with 24 cases of grandparents (12 solo, either with a grandmother or grandfather, and 12 with couple). GUS maps the emotional closeness of grandchild-grandparent relationships through the grandchild's mother's perception. Analysis revealed that perceived emotional closeness was more likely if the grandparent had social contact with the mother, lived geographically close, and looked after and engaged in outings more regularly with the infant child. In general, social contact and propinquity impacted less on grandmothers, particularly maternal grandmothers, and more on paternal grandfathers. Also, looking after grandchildren on a regular basis was distinctly salient for grandmothers, whereas going more frequently on outings was more salient for grandfathers than grandmothers. As regards practices of intimacy, grandparents emphasised the importance of communication through verbal, bodily and relational forms enacted through a large variety of activities in the daily living related to forms of caring, playing and spending time together, which construct a sense of emotional closeness. The study suggests that intimate grandparent-grandchild relationships are intersected by moral understandings of 'good grandparenting', which are challenged or find contradictions in lived experiences of grandparenting that produce asymmetrical emotionalities among grandchildren, and ambivalences in relation to children and grandchildren. The study suggests that grandparents reflect on their emotionality, and enact embodied emotions, depending on relational and family circumstances, and throughout changes in the relationship with their grandchildren as they get older. The study shows that grandfathers engage in emotional forms of caring, which may challenge hegemonic masculinities, and that the relation between masculinities and practices of intimacy are troubled, particularly in the event of parental divorce.

This descriptive study of 45 multi-generational families contributes empirical knowledge about grandparent-grandchild relationships. A questionnaire was developed and completed by 74 subjects who were part of a randomly selected sample taken from a tax roll of homeowners over age 65 in Denton County, Texas. The responses provide information which expands the existing data base in the area of grandparenting. The study pinpoints areas in the grandparenting literature which need refinement and contributes data to those areas, rather than producing a set of conclusions. Areas as yet undocumented or inadequately documented in the literature are identified as the following: (a) family structural composition; (b) grandparents' personal characteristics; (c) selected aspects of grandparent-grandchild contact; and (d) satisfaction with the grandparent role. Data for these areas should help reveal factors having an impact on grandparent-grandchild relationships. A base for further investigation in these areas is established, and data are also analyzed to determine satisfaction or lack of satisfaction with grandparenting. The seventy-four subjects, from 45 households, included 44 grandmothers and 30 grandfathers. The number of generations per family was used as the base to report the findings. The study substantiates other research on grandparenting, particularly in the area of timing of grand-parenthood. Data collected in this study support the view that the grandparent's chronological age and the time in his or her life cycle when grandchildren appear (role entry), religious affiliation, lineage, and frequency of contact all contribute to satisfaction with the role of grandparent. Almost all of the respondents described themselves as satisfied grandparents and indicated their pride in and pleasure derived from their grandchildren. A strong relationship between satisfaction and any one variable studied is not identified. The major contribution of the study lies in the descriptive detail and in ruling out any one characteristic as "the one variable" that really matters in determining satisfaction among grandparents.