The socio-emotional well-being of maltreated children is a key priority for practitioners and policy-makers alike; yet not enough is known about the developmental mechanisms that might link children's parenting experiences with their psychosocial adjustment. Previous research suggests that parental abuse and neglect can have adverse effects on children's peer relationships and self-perceptions. Emerging theoretical and empirical work suggests that children's social understanding and empathy could play a key role as mediators of these effects, but we have little knowledge about the differentiated pathways that might be uncovered by adopting a multidimensional conceptualisation of parenting experiences, social understanding and empathy, and peer reputations and self-perceptions. This thesis includes five papers reporting on a programme of empirical research conducted in order to address this gap in knowledge. The first, a meta-analysis and systematic review, revealed a complex and differentiated profile of social understanding among maltreated children. The second paper reports on a thematic analysis of a focus group and detailed semi-structured individual interviews with foster carers. In line with our theoretical model, carers readily identified children's difficulties with social understanding and empathy as relevant explanations for their socio-emotional problems. The third paper presents a new multidimensional self-report measure of empathy in children, demonstrating differentiated connections with socio-emotional functioning. The fourth paper presents comparisons between maltreated children in foster care and their classmates at school (aged 7-11 years), using measures that assess their peer reputations, self-perceptions, social understanding and empathy. Results indicate both direct links from maltreatment status to self-perceptions, as well as indirect links via children's theory of mind skills, their prosocial responses to others' emotional states and their behavioural reputations. The final paper delves deeper into the variations within the non-maltreated sample, uncovering links between specific features of the children's parenting experiences and their behavioural reputations, peer status and self-perceptions, via emotion understanding and empathic responses. Overall, the findings from this programme of research highlight the interplay of parenting experiences and socio-emotional competence in understanding school-aged children's psychosocial functioning. The results carry implications for further research as well as for applied work to support maltreated children and the adults who work with and care for them.

Interviews of senior females ranging in age from 55 through 72 were conducted between September 2004 and April 2005, in order to determine what lifestyle options this group would like made available to them. The participants represented a sample of senior females who had different backgrounds, including culture, education level, and economic circumstance. Although all the participants had very different lifestyles at the time of their interviews, most were satisfied with their current lifestyles but wanted to change something about it. The research results indicate that there are three desired lifestyle options that senior females want: socializing, improving their health, and traveling, with the ability to travel being the most highly desired lifestyle option.

Sweden has been a country of immigration since the Second World War. The asylum immigration is regulated by international law, the immigration of employees’ works through guidelines from the European Union. The immigration left for regulations from the government is the family immigration, which xenophobic parties want to increase. The immigration reaches a high level in the 1990’s. As the social democratic government is trying to keep the immigration controlled media is criticizing the regulations of immigration. Since the 1970´s probation of 2 years is needed for relation immigrants in order to minimize abuse. This rule might force women to stay in violent relationships due to fear of being sent back home, if they make a report to the police. The government faces the problem with the proposition 1999/2000:43, which is analyzed in this thesis with the goal to reveal the underlying values regarding the view of women, men and violence. Focusing on gender Carol Lee Bacchi’s discourse analythical method “What’s the ‘problem’ represented to be?” is used.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the predictive power of some demographic variables and ways of coping, social support and perceived stress level in predicting burnout and posttraumatic growth levels of parents who have a child with autism. Data was collected by administering a socio-demographic form and four self-report questionnaires. These were the Questionnaire on Resources and Stress Short Form (QRS), Posttraumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI), Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support (MSPSS), Ways of Coping Inventory (WCI), and Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI). 136 adults representing 58 parent couples and 13 mothers and 7 fathers, with 71 mothers and 65 fathers who had a child with autism participated in this study. Data was collected in &Ouml / zel ilgi Special Education School, BariS Special Education School, Ankara University Center of Research for Children with Autism (O&Ccedil / EM), Bagcilar School for Children with Autism and Hacettepe University Child Psychiatry Clinic. The factor analysis of the MBI yielded two of the three factors of the original factor structure. The depersonalization factor was not found in this sample. It was found that, mothers were experiencing significantly higher emotional exhaustion than the fathers. The regression analysis results revealed that social support and problem solving/optimistic coping were significant predictors of posttraumatic growth among mothers. Social support, problem solving/optimistic coping, religiosity, age, years of marriage were the significant predictors of posttraumatic growth among fathers. Stress level was the only significant predictor of burnout and emotional exhaustion among mothers. Stress level was a significant predictor of both burnout and emotional exhaustion among fathers, but helplessness/self blaming approach was also a significant predictor of paternal burnout. Social support, problem solving/optimistic approach, and stress level were significant predictors of lack of personal accomplishment among mothers. Presence of a caregiver and helplessness/self blaming approach were the significant predictors of lack of personal accomplishment among fathers. The importance of the results for clinical interventions with parents and their shortcomings were discussed within the relevant literature.

The main purpose of the present study was to explore the relationships between vertical and horizontal individualism-collectivism, religiosity and parenting styles from perspective of parents and their children. It was also aimed to examine SES related differences and the differences between mothers, fathers, and their children in terms of the study variables. In addition, the differences between authoritative, authoritarian, indulgent, and neglectful families in terms of vertical individualism (VI), horizontal individualism (HI), vertical collectivism (VC), horizontal collectivism (HC), and religiosity were investigated. For these purposes data were collected from 230 families including mother, father, and their young adult child &ndash / in the age range of 17-25-. Three participants from each family responded to similar measurement of the study variables, namely Vertical and Horizontal Individualism-Collectivism Scale, the Measurement of the Child Rearing Styles Scale, Religiosity Scale, and Demographic Information Form. According to the results, age, family income, VI, and VC for mothers and age, VI, and religiosity for fathers were significant predictors of parental control whereas education level, HI, HC, and VC for mothers and only VC for fathers were significant predictors of parental acceptance. The regression analyses for the child sample of the study indicated that the predictors of VI are education level and perceived parental control / the predictor of HC is perceived parental acceptance / the predictors of VC are perceived parental control and acceptance / the predictor of HI is gender / and the predictors of religiosity are family income and perceived parental control. Results also showed that there were significant differences as well as similarities between all considered groups. The findings of the study were discussed in the light of the related literature.

In this thesis we study the interdependency of individual decisions on work and family, particularly the dynamic interaction of the marriage market and the labor market. My basic idea is that marital status affects individual labor supply decisions, and in turn, labor market condition influences marriage formation and dissolution. While these interactions are evident, the overwhelming majority of research on labor or family economics usually simplifies the individual decision-making by assuming that one of two markets outcomes is given while studying the other one. In the empirical study, endogeneity issues are troublesome, especially under the dynamic setting. My work takes a different approach. I directly model the individual decision-making, which describes how marriage market and labor market interact with each other; and matching with survey data we empirically recover the underlying economic environments that characterize the structure of the marriage market and the labor market. I further examine to what extent my model explains the observed facts. Very few studies have been conducted to explore work and family issues in this direction partly due to its complexity. The structural models, besides the conventional regression, improve our perceptions on how individuals form decisions on work and family, which have far-reaching implications on policy designs and welfare evaluations. In my thesis, I explore all these issues in three steps. In chapter 1, I explain a stylized fact that there exists a positive correlation between rising wage inequality and declining marriage rates. A two-sided matching model is developed to exploit a theoretical channel through which wage inequality affects marriage rates. My model features a steady state equilibrium in which the whole marriage market is divided into groups and only people in the same group will marry each other. Using the Integrated Public Use Microdata Series (IPUMS) data from 1970 to 2000, my estimates indicate that a structural change occurs in the U.S. marriage market. The higher matching efficiency and declining elasticity of men suggest that the nowadays marriage market provides more chance to meet and better gender equity, though higher arrival rates also raise the outside options of getting married. Additionally, I find that wage inequality accounts for over 38% of the decline in marriage rate, which is underestimated in Gould (2003). Chapter 2 examines household dynamic labor supply after introducing bargaining between husbands and wives, which has not been thoroughly studied previously in literature. Here bargaining between husbands and wives determines the amount of husbands' earnings that are transferred to wives for their private consumption. A household search model that incorporates the intrahousehold bargaining is developed and estimated using panel data from the year 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). My results show that the portion of household income shared by husbands for private consumption is responsive to their employment status, suggesting the existence of the bargaining between the U.S. couples. My findings also imply that the labor supply of women will increase with higher women wage and lower money transfer from husbands to wives, showing that the income effect dominates for wives. Moreover, the wage frontier of husbands is positively correlated with wives' wages and negatively correlated with husbands' earnings transferred to wives, highlighting that husbands are subject to both the income effect and intra-household bargaining, and their decisions depend on which effect dominates. In the third and the last chapter, I study household unemployment duration. Previously, most studies have addressed the topic of job search at the individual level. This chapter studies job search patterns of married couples and in particular compares couple's unemployment duration given their spousal earnings. A household search model is introduced, which includes the bargaining between husbands and wives. I use the year 2001 panel data Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to estimate the structural model of family decisions. Our findings reveal that there exists a gender asymmetry in job search of the U.S. household: The more husbands earn, the longer wives search for a job; but the more wives earn, the sooner husbands find a job. / text

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Thesis (MPhill)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Given the impact that culture has on individuals‟ behaviour and the relation that behaviour especially sexual behaviour has with the spread of HIV/AIDS, the research took a look at the Shona culture and the impact that the married Shona men and their sexual practices had on their wives and the overall relationship/marriage. Interviews were conducted with married Shona women with the aim of getting recent information on the Shona culture and the practices of married Shona men so as to establish the levels of risk and the uncover vulnerabilities that are current. Information obtained from these interviews showed that although the Shona culture promotes certain behaviours amongst married people, some of these practices are being done away with but unfortunately not at a fast enough pace and because of this there is still a lot of work that needs to be done to ensure that risk of infection amongst married Shona couples is reduced and levels of vulnerability are tackled as well. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie navorsingsprojek ondersoek die invloed van kultuur op die gedrag van „n individu en meer spesifiek, die invloed van individuele gedrag op die verspreiding van MIV/Vigs. Die studie ondersoek die Shona kultuur en die invloed wat die getroude Shona man het op die seksuele praktyke in die huwelik. Onderhoude is met getroude Shona vroue gevoer ten einde eerstehandse inligting te verky oor die invoed wat Shona kultuur op die Shona huwelik het en om verder te bepaal in watter mate die getroude Shona vrou onnodig aan die risiko van MIV blootgestel word. Inligting wat in hierdie ondersoek versamel is dui daarop dat die Shona kultuur nog steeds seker praktyke tussen getroude persone aanmoeding en dat dit nog steeds die risiko van MIV-oordraging verhoog. Daar is weliswaar met sekere van hierdie praktyke weggedoen, maar daar is nog steeds verskeie praktyke wat voortbestaan en wat MIV-oordraging verhoog. Die pas waarteen kultuur aanpas by die verhoogde waarskynlikheid van MIV-oordraging tussen getroude Shona mans en vrouens is nog steeds te stadig. Sekere voorstelle word in die studie gemaak ten einde te probeer om hierdie kultureel-gedrewe risiko vir MIV/Vigs-oordraging te beperk.

The special needs domain has long been recognised as problematic and adversarial. Much research has focused on areas of contention, such as the relationships between parents and practitioners, especially in educational settings, or on problems within the structure and operation of the domain. This study adopts a whole system approach in combining discussion of the structural basis of tension within the domain with an investigation of how both parents and practitioners describe, experience and respond to tensions within the special needs domain; such tensions being viewed as facets of the 'struggle' and 'fight' metaphor. Whole systems approaches are derived from the systems discipline, which developed initially out of the nineteenth century interest in organic and engineering systems, but more recently has focused on organisational and inter-organisational arrangements, including the part people play in enabling or disabling such arrangements. It is a strongly interdisciplinary approach more commonly found in organisational studies than in the social sciences more generally. Fifteen practitioners, from health and education settings, and twelve parents of children and young people with diagnoses of high functioning autism spectrum conditions participated in the study. The participants' stories of their experiences of the special needs domain were collected using a narrative inquiry approach. The data was analysed using concepts and theoretical frameworks derived from the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Uri Bronfenbrenner and Charles Wright Mills. An exploration of the influences shaping the special needs domain revealed a number of areas of unresolved tension, some of which result in tensions for those involved in the domain such as can be described as 'fight', and some of which might be addressed by structural changes to the systems comprising the special needs domain such as those envisaged in forthcoming legislation. However importantly the empirical study found that many tensions and struggles experienced by both parents and practitioners did not emanate from the structures of the domain and therefore were unlikely to be amenable to structural changes. Parents 'struggle' to maintain their identity as 'good' parents, to acquire information and to navigate the system in order to access services and resources. Practitioners experience conflict as they seek to access information and training, engage in the complex choreography of cooperating and collaborating in interagency and interprofessional working and endeavour to harmonise their professional practice with agency and public policy priorities. The thesis concludes with a brief discussion of the relationship between whole system approaches and other interdisciplinary approaches to investigating complex problems in the human sciences. It is suggested that systems diagramming techniques such as systems mapping and rich pictures are useful additions to the sociologist's toolkit.

本研究旨在探討隨著臺灣的民主化進程，不同年代間的夫妻權力關係所受影響之因素與改變情形，尤其是社會情境（文化脈絡）方面的影響。擬採用家庭決策模式為指標，並根據資源論、交換論與與文化規範的論點，討論個人特質與其所握有的資源對家庭決策模式的影響。焦點包括臺灣的民主化進程會否導致夫妻間共同決定的比例增加？以及夫妻所擁有的資源對影響夫妻權力分配的影響程度，是否隨著臺灣的民主化進程而增加？ 研究者採用「華人家庭動態調查」資料庫中第一年計畫（RI-1999）與第五年計畫（RI-2003）兩筆資料當中有關「家庭決策與支出」的部分進行分析。研究結果發現不論何者皆是以夫妻共同決定的情況為主，隨著時間的變化並未有顯著的增加，甚至略為減少。另外，研究結果顯示隨著臺灣的民主化進程，夫妻所擁有的資源對影響夫妻權力分配的影響程度的確有所增加。根據研究的結果而知，隨著臺灣的民主化進程，教育的普及與兩性平權概念的提升，的確造成夫妻權力間的變化受到相對社經資源影響增加，反而使得共同決策的情形略減。此外，過去一些認為會影響夫妻權力關係的個人特質因素，像是族群的部分，所呈現的結果反而和過去的研究不一致。究竟民主化對於影響夫妻權力關係的其他因素將會帶來何種變化，可做為將來研究的方向。 / The purpose of this research is to understand the power relationship between husbands and wives, including the factors and the transition during 1999-2003 within the process of Taiwan’s democratization, especially the context of culture. Researcher adopts family decision-making as an important index. Base on the resources theory, the exchange theory and the theory of resources in culture context, the main questions of this research are: 1. Does the proportion of family decision-making change? 2. The situation that the more resources one has, the more power in making decision one has would increase. The results are as follows. The proportion of family decision-making does not change significantly, however, the situation that one has more resources would have more power in making decision does increase. Nevertheless, the research tells us that some personal characteristics like one’s ethnic group, do not have the same result as research in past. How will Taiwan’s democratization influence these factors, or change their nature in the process of decision-making? That could be a good research direction in the future.