<p> The lived experience of husbands caring for wives with dementia was investigated in order to develop a better understanding of their caregiver burden. The conceptual background for the study originated in the work of philosophical phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Edith Stein with particular attention to their theories of inter-subjectivity and empathy. Amadeo Giorgi's Descriptive Phenomenological Method in Psychology was used for study design and analysis. Results suggest an enduring connectedness of the couples and their bonds throughout the shifting of roles and emotions as the dementia progresses. Implications for nursing include the need to employ interventions respectful of the persistence of affective awareness in those with the dementia even towards end-stage and the resulting importance of situational assessment of decisional capacity. </p>

<p> The purpose of this study was to explore the attitudes and practice of corporal punishment (CP) among Filipino parents and the factors that may impact their use of harsh punishment. Thirty-five parents, between the ages of 33 and 55 years old, participated in a group survey that was held in Manila, Philippines. </p><p> It was predicted that CP, as a form of discipline, would be prevalent among Filipino parents; it was also predicted that CP would be higher among parents of low economic status and that there were mitigating factors that impact Filipino parents' use of CP. Based on quantitative and qualitative analysis of the data collected, this study did not support all three hypotheses, although it showed that the use of CP was relatively high at 37%. </p><p> This study may provide evidence of a need for social support for both parents and children through family intervention programs and parenting training. </p>

<p> This quantitative study explored the differences in paternal and maternal involvement based on the gender of the child, age of the child (between 0-36 months), and developmental domains in an 8 week period after parents received weekly child development intervention offered by a government funded agency in Southern California for parents of infants/toddlers. A total of 60 parents, 30 female and 30 male, participated in the study. Data was collected from weekly "parent participation forms" submitted by parents to the agency for about 6 months prior to the beginning of the study. The findings revealed some important differences in paternal and maternal involvement and rejected many of the existing stereotypes about lack of paternal involvement in young children's lives. Sampled fathers in the study were found to be more involved in developmental activities in most of the 10 domains of development examined by the study. Their involvement included children of both genders and ages (infants, mobile infants, and toddlers). The findings also indicated that maternal involvement was very close to paternal involvement in some domains especially with infants.</p>

<p> The present study aimed to investigate the impact of psychological resilience and daily stressors on physical activity levels among mothers completing a three-month physical activity program. The sample consisted of 30 low-income mothers recruited to participate in a larger community-based physical activity intervention study. It was expected that women higher in resilience would participate in more physical activity over the program than women lower in resilience, and women lower in resilience would be more negatively affected by daily stressors than those higher in resilience, resulting in less physical activity over the program. However, results showed a pattern that among the women lower in resilience, those experiencing a higher severity of daily stressors throughout the program participated in more physical activity than those experiencing a lower severity of daily stressors. Implications for targeting mothers to use physical activity as a coping mechanism are discussed.</p>

<p> Teenage foster youth are at risk of having problems with early pregnancy because they are exposed to child abuse at home and in foster care. Teenagers need mentors to provide them with sex education on safe sex and skill building. This grant project seeks funding for a teen mentoring program called Project Teenage Mentoring through the State Personal Responsibility Education Program (PREP), Family and Youth Service Bureau (FYSB) that awards grants to agencies to help teach young people about abstinence and contraception. The agency where the mentoring program will take place will be the Assistance League of Los Angeles in Hollywood, California. Project Teenage Mentoring's goal is to prevent foster youth from becoming pregnant by working in collaboration with the Department of Children and Family Services and providing mentoring services to foster youth to prevent teenage pregnancy.</p>

<p> This quantitative study was a correlational exploration of cultural beliefs and behaviors related to family, work, and social activities, and their impact on marital satisfaction among first- and second-generation Haitian immigrants to the United States. Eighty respondents completed a marital satisfaction survey and a cultural beliefs and behaviors survey of 150 questions each. Of the 80 participants, 40 were first-generation and the other 40 were second-generation immigrants. All of the participants were 18 years old and older, lived in an urban area, and were married. It was hypothesized that first-generation Haitian Americans would score higher than their second-generation counterparts regarding interdependent cultural beliefs and behaviors specific to family, work, and social activities, which would positively correlate with marital satisfaction. It was also hypothesized that second-generation Haitian Americans would score higher than their first-generation counterparts regarding independent cultural beliefs and behaviors specific to family, work, and social activities. It was expected that these scores would positively correlate with marital satisfaction. The relationships between the variables were explored through the performance of descriptive statistics and multiple regression analysis. The results of the analysis of variance indicated no significant differences in marital satisfaction scores between first and second-generation Haitians. In addition, the multiple regression analysis indicated that cultural beliefs and behaviors associated with social activities, family, and work were not significantly related to marital satisfaction for either first or second-generation Haitian immigrants.</p>

This study addresses the following research question: what are the implications of African- Caribbean and White working class men's experiences within social connections (within families, friendships, communities and workplaces), for fathering and health experiences? The purposes of this study were to undertake a primary piece of intensive qualitative research, and also to analyse, critically, the study's findings, in order to identify implications for theory, policy, practice and research. This investigation was critical, interpretative and exploratory, informed by the principles of phenomenology and ethnography. Six African-Caribbean and seven White working class men were recruited, using purposive sampling, for two semi-structured individual interviews. This enabled the exploration of the interactive effects and processes of structure and agency, in relation to social class, gender, and ethnicity. The study did not find major differences between the experiences of these two groups of men, although the assets and constraints related to African-Caribbean men's experiences of ethnicity and racism within social connections were evident. Study findings, for both groups of men, indicated that social connectedness within families, communities and workplaces was highly valued, but social connections, material and structural factors also influenced the health of the men interviewed. Furthermore, findings indicated that men's experiences of social connectedness have limitations. Specifically, men's limited insights into the links between social connectedness and health, men's perceived limitations with their communication skills, their solitary methods of dealing with perceived vulnerability, but also the uncertainty associated with their identities as men were significant findings. Indeed, men's experiences of both solitary discourses and practices and social connectedness, regarding fathering and health, were associated with discourses about masculinities. Implications for existing theory, for example Connell's (1995) work regarding masculinities, and Putnam's (1995) work regarding `social capital', are identified. In addition, implications for research, policy and practice are examined, with specific reference to the opportunities for mental health promotion with working class men who are fathers.

A growing number of lesbian women are choosing to have children within the context of an openly lesbian lifestyle. This dissertation research represents a departure from much previous work in this area, with a shift in focus from children of lesbian and gay parents in the UK or North America, to an exploration of the perspectives and experiences of lesbian parents themselves within two particular European contexts. Interviews were carried out with 68 lesbian women in Sweden and Ireland. The role of social and institutional contexts in shaping these women's parenting possibilities, choices and experiences were explored. An important finding of the study concerns cross-national differences in discourses of fatherhood and parenting. Swedish women were far more likely to choose an involved donor than Irish women. The differing possibilities and strategies available to lesbian women illustrate wider assumptions about gender and 'the family'. An examination of the significance of the genetic 'tie' found that heteronormative constructions of biology were both displaced and retained in families with co-parents. The lack of legal recognition of co-parents amounted to a difference in social validation as a parent that was negotiated in diverse ways. The study also explored the concept of gender flexibility among lesbian parents. Participants in this research demonstrated a relative absence of dichotomous gender roles, resulting in a division of labour largely characterised by equality between partners. The reinscription of discourses of gender and kinship by lesbian parents highlights the centrality of symbols such as biology, at the same time that lesbian parents may reconstruct such discourses, creating points of rupture in heteronormative relations. Finally, the study reveals the heteronormative assumptions of the Swedish and Irish welfare states, which lead to these families' efforts to resist socially exclusionary practices in contexts where they are perceived as outside the norm.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1988. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 49-09, Section: B, page: 4066. Chairperson: Karl Mueller.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Pacific Graduate School of Psychology, 1992. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 52-07, Section: B, page: 3918. Chairperson: Ben Tong.