Thesis advisor: Kathleen McInnis-Dittrich / A vast amount of caregiving literature focuses on the well-being of caregivers of older adults, and is primarily focused on the experiences of caregiving women who have traditionally assumed this role. However, the number of male caregivers is growing related to the increase in the number of older adults requiring care, as well as changing sex roles in the family. It is important to examine the impact caregiving has on men to determine the similarities or differences from women in order to inform social work policy and practice. This dissertation begins to answer the question of whether or not there are differences between male and female caregivers through the completion of a secondary data analysis using the Caregiving in the U.S. Study, 2009, conducted by the National Alliance for Caregiving in collaboration with AARP, and funded by the MetLife Foundation. Women are included in the analyses as a comparison group to the male caregivers to identify what similarities or differences exist in the caregiver's well-being. Ordered logistic regression and logistic regression analyses were used to test if caregiver's age and employment status predicted the well-being of caregivers. Moderation analysis was employed to determine what factors moderated the relationship between the predictors and well-being. Seemingly unrelated regression and Chow tests were used to determine if the impact of caregiving on men was unique or the same as female caregivers. Some key findings included that low-income group caregivers reported greater odds of higher financial hardship and physical strain. Caregiving men reported decreased emotional stress, physical strain, and negative impact on social interaction with others since beginning caregiving compared to females. Caregiving men also sought help from unpaid help (e.g., family and friends) more than female caregivers. With several provisions under the Patient and Protection Affordable Care Act of 2010 centered on addressing caregiver needs, it is an appropriate time to consider how to meet the needs of underserved caregivers. Based on the findings in this dissertation, social work policy and practice recommendations are suggested to address specifically low-income and male caregiver needs. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

As there were few studies of older husbands’ experiences associated with providing care at home for spouses with dementia, the researcher designed a two-stage study to examine their experiences, In stage one, a qualitative paradigm guided one-to-one interviews with sixteen care giver husbands to examine their care giving experiences. Analysis of the interview data guided the identification of four models of care giving related to the past, present and future and an overall model over time. In stage two, a comprehensive questionnaire was developed and questionnaire items were identified from multiple sources. In stage two the researcher utilized a quantitative approach to identify to investigate husbands’ experiences. A representative sample of 71 care giver husbands participated by completing the questionnaire and standardized measures of burden and depression along with other measures of husbands’ characteristics and experiences and levels of wives’ illness and associated behaviour. Predictive models of care giver burden were care giving seen as a ‘job’, effects of care giving on the husband-wife relationship, and use of avoidant-evasive coping strategies by husbands. The best predictive models of care giver depression were use of avoidant-evasive coping strategies and changes in husbands’ emotional health status related to care giving. / Doctor Of Philsophy (PhD)

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70).

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2005. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70).

The population of male primary caregivers in the United States has risen dramatically within the past decade. Accompanying this trend is the evolution of fathers and their impact in the home. The modern dad is more involved in parenting and housework than in previous generations. Despite fathers’ growing role in the home, current depictions of dads on TV merely perpetuate the portrayal of dads as blundering and incompetent. Analysis of current depictions of mothers and fathers in TV ads and shows reveals the gap between today’s parenting reality and pop culture’s rendering of reality. Further exploration into the shifting parenting landscape and notions of masculinity yields a population of fathers who not only welcome increased responsibility at home, but also act as thought leaders and influencers in the parenting realm. By committing to the development of accurate and balanced depictions of dads on TV, marketers have the opportunity to harness this growing population’s influence and gain vocal and technologically savvy brand advocates. / text

D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology) / Reid and Walker (2005) suggest that black South African men are ‘behaving differently’. Added to this Budlender (2008) has found that South African men are more likely to engage in unpaid community care work than conventional wisdom suggests. Part of this community work involves black men acting as AIDS caregivers. It is imperative to gain knowledge about masculine caregivers as the informal health care sector bears the brunt of the HIV pandemic. The fragmented and over-burdened public health system simply cannot absorb the 15-20% of HIV infected South Africans. Coovadia et.al. (2009) point to a lacuna in the scholarship regarding community health workers (CHW) in South Africa. My study of black masculine caregivers, located in the world of informal AIDS care, hopes to fill this gap. Yet, I do something more for I tackle the conventional wisdom that suggests South African men are different and exceptional if they conduct feminised care work. The emotions involved in care processes are the basis upon which society may feminise care work. My argument is also premised upon forging links between the past and the present. As such, I focus upon determining the extent to which emotional labour that may be exhibited by historical and contemporary black men. I make use of W.E.B. Du Bois’ (1903) notion of double-consciousness to show how the normalising society, surrounding masculine care, impacts this category of black men. In so doing, I not only forge links between past and present by means of doubleconsciousness, but I perform an intersectional analysis of emotional labour, and the context, in which it occurs. In so doing, I show how double-consciousness is an intersectionally-forged mechanism for Foucault’s (1978) biopower, and one that has become reinvented in present day South Africa. In this way I augment the works of Du Bois (1903) and Foucault (1978) for both did not give primacy to gender as a construct. It is essentially this view of black men, involved in AIDS care that contributes to the originality of this work. This historical-sociological investigation relied upon the linking of cases. I conducted historical research upon two cases: ‘houseboys’ in colonial Natal (1850 – 1928) and mine hospital ‘ward boys’ (1931 – 1959). Contemporary cases were constructed to reflect the world of AIDS and cancer care. The 13 original cases were compressed into seven case categories and based on triangulated survey and interview data (29 AIDS and 18 cancer caregivers were interviewed; while 195 community workers involved in AIDS care were surveyed in 2005/6; follow-up interviews were conducted with 11 caregivers across all case categories in 2010).

En stor del av den tidiga språkutvecklingen sker i samspel med vuxna, och kommunikationen mellan vårdnadshavare och deras små barn är därför särskilt betydelsefull. Vuxna anpassar ofta sitt sätt att tala till små barn genom att göra anpassningar i de språkliga parametrarna prosodi, segmentell fonologi, syntax, pragmatik och ordförråd. Dessa anpassningar kallas ofta för barnriktat tal (BRT) och har visat sig ha både en kortsiktig såväl som långsiktig positiv inverkan på barns tidiga språkutveckling. Tidigare forskning gällande barns tal- och språkmiljö har främst fokuserat på kommunikationen mellan kvinnliga vårdnadshavare och deras små barn. Det finns därmed ett behov av forskning som undersöker manliga vårdnadshavares kommunikation, särskilt med fokus på kvalitativa aspekter så som användandet av BRT. Inom Ord gör skillnad-projektet på KI utvecklas en ny interventionsmetod, Preventive Education Program for Parents (PEPP). I metoden kartläggs kvantitativa och kvalitativa aspekter av barns tal- och språkmiljö med hjälp av Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA), videoinspelning och ett framtaget PEPP-protokoll. I föreliggande studie undersöktes förekomsten av de parametrar som utgör BRT i manliga vårdnadshavares kommunikation med sina små barn. Mer specifikt undersöktes förekomst eller icke förekomst av parametrarna samt mest respektive minst förekommande parameter. Studien syftade även till att undersöka om PEPP-protokollets nuvarande beskrivningar av parametrarna kan användas för att bedöma förekomst av BRT. I studien deltog 6 manliga vårdnadshavare och deras barn i åldrarna 0 till 12 månader. Material från barnens tal- och språkmiljö samlades in med videoinspelning under en strukturerad leksituation och med LENA under en heldag i hemmiljö. Användandet av BRT analyserades både med hjälp av PEPP-metodens bedömningsprotokoll samt genom en kompletterande uppskattning av mest respektive minst förekommande parameter. Resultaten visade att 5 av 5 parametrar som utgör BRT förekom i samtliga deltagares kommunikation i hemmiljön samt i majoriteten av deltagarnas kommunikation under den strukturerade leksituationen. För hälften av deltagarna noterades parametern pragmatik som mest förekommande parameter och segmentell fonologi som minst förekommande parameter. I studien påtalas brister gällande PEPP-protokollets beskrivningar av parametrarna och författarna presenterar förslag på förbättringsåtgärder. / A large part of early language development takes place in interaction with adults, and the communication between caregivers and their young children is therefore particularly important for the child’s language development. Adults often adapt their way of speaking to young children by making adjustments in the linguistic parameters’ prosody, segmental phonology, syntax, pragmatics and vocabulary. These adaptations are often referred to as child-directed speech (CDS) and have been shown to have both adirect, as well as long-term positive impact on young children's language development. Previous research on children's speech and language environment has mainly focused on communication between female caregivers and their young children. Therefore, there is a need for research that examines male caregivers’ communication, especially with focus on qualitative aspects such as the use of CDS. Within the Words make a difference project at Karolinska Institutet (KI), researchers are developing a new intervention method, Preventive Education Program for Parents (PEPP). The method maps quantitative and qualitative aspects of children's speech and language environment using Language ENvironment Analysis (LENA), video recordings and a protocol developed within PEPP. The present study explored the occurrence of the parameters that constitute CDS in male caregivers' communication with their young children. More specifically, the occurrence or non-occurrence of the parameters as well as the most and least occurring parameter were examined. The study also aimed to investigate whether the PEPP protocol's current descriptions of the parameters could be used to assess the occurrence of CDS. The study involved 6 male caregivers and their children aged 0 to 12 months. Data from the children's speech and language environment were collected with a short video recording during a structured play situation, and with LENA from a daylong recording in the child’s natural home setting. The use of CDS was analyzed both by using the PEPP protocol, and well as by a supplementary estimation of the most and least occurring parameter. The results showed that 5 out of 5 parameters that constitute CDS occurred in all participants' communication in the natural home setting as well as in the majority of the participants' communication during the structured play situation. For half of the participants, pragmatics was noted as the most occurring parameter, and segmental phonology as the least occurring parameter. The current study highlights shortcomings regarding the PEPP protocol's descriptions of the parameters and the authors proposes suggestions for improvement of the PEPP method.