Thesis advisor: Ruth McRoy / Unmet long term care needs are increasingly filled by immigrant home health workers who are primarily female (88%), racial minorities (85%), and from developing countries including Mexico, Caribbean, Philippines, and Africa. The growing numbers of immigrant home health workers are a result of global factors including economic policies, colonial histories with developing countries, and immigration legislation. In addition to macro factors, personal motivations lead migrant home health workers to immigrate and find jobs in the U.S. Once in the U.S., little is known about migrant home health workers' caregiving experiences and work conditions. This study was designed to address this need and explored the personal experiences and viewpoints of the workers. Additionally information on migration histories and work setting was gathered to contextualize caregiving experiences. The study was guided conceptually by caregiving theory on the commodification and devaluation of "care" which can ultimately result in outsourcing care to immigrant women. Qualitative description methods were used to guide the research design, data collection, and analysis of twenty-three semi-structured interviews of female immigrant home health workers in Massachusetts. Interviews focused on three topics: caregiving experiences, reasons for migrating to the U.S., and work conditions. Findings will add to the knowledge base about immigrant home health workers paying particular attention to how workers themselves describe their experience which will in turn inform future policy and program initiatives on inclusion of a multicultural workforce into the long term care system. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Social Work. / Discipline: Social Work.

This dissertation is a performative interrogation of the disagreement and (dis)interest, communication issues, surrounding motherhood in contemporary U.S. culture. Textual analysis of Mary Kelly's Post-Partum Document (PPD) plays a key role in my inquiry. I juxtapose documentation from my lived experiences and academic projects with Kelly's work to build upon the themes and ideas introduced throughout PPD. This project is guided by the concepts love and (im)possibility, and I will argue that, together, they are central to understanding mothering/caregiving as a site of communication inquiry. Love and (im)possibility are inherent to both mothering and communication, but they also are essential for creating the conditions for new variations, ways of doing, and being with and for one another.

Auf deutsche (lokal exemplifizierte) Verhältnisse richtet sich das Untersuchungsinteresse der erziehungswissenschaftlichen Feldforschungsstudie von Martina Kisler (Dipl.-Päd.), Die neue Avantgarde der jungen Väter? Eine Untersuchung in einer Dresdner Kindertagesstätte über die Beteiligung junger Väter von Kindern unter drei Jahren an der elterlichen Sorge. Wie in der Titelmetapher der ‚Avantgarde‘ angedeutet, überprüft der Beitrag das diskursive Postulat der ‚neuen Väter‘ und ihres Anspruchs auf Rollentransgression, Symmetrierung des Geschlechterverhältnisses und Involvierung in den Kindes-Alltag auf Gültigkeit, indem er im ausgewählten Feld einer Dresdner Kindertagesstätte wiederkehrende Alltagssituationen beobachtet und analysiert. Auf das Dachthema referiert die Untersuchung dabei in doppelter Weise – zum einen im ‚Voranschreiten‘ und ‚Überschreiten‘ überkommener, stereotyper Väterlichkeits- und Männlichkeitsbilder durch die jungen Väter in „traditionell weibliche Sphären“ hinein, zum andern in der Wahl eines bestimmten, signifikanten Momentes familialer Interaktion: So sind Verbringung und Abholung des Kleinkindes in die beziehungsweise aus der Kindertagestätte nicht nur Teil des täglichen Fürsorgemanagements der Eltern und ihres komplexen, konfliktanfälligen Aushandlungsprozesses an der genderfizierten Grenze von familiärer Lebens- und Arbeitswelt. Die täglich wiederkehrende Bring- und Holsituation aus dem privaten in den institutionellen Kommunikations- und Handlungskontext (beziehungsweise umgekehrt) stellt für alle Beteiligten (Eltern, Kind, Erzieher/in) ein klassisches ‚Schwellenmoment‘ dar, das für die Beobachtung und Entzifferung genderfizierter Normen, Verhaltensstandards und Veränderungspotenziale besonders aussagekräftig ist.

This research on healthcare strategies of home-based, low-wage, immigrant careworkers contributes to the ways medical anthropology, migration studies and social science understand human-economy-family care relationships and health and carework as commodities in today's global economy. It reveals the consequences for workers as they defray the costs of care for the Italian government and contribute to their home economies. This research was conducted in Genoa, Italy, which has the largest percentage of people over the age of 70 in any city of its size in the world and a tradition of sending and receiving immigrant workers. The main question was: Under the circumstances of providing labor-intensive, in-home supportive services, how do immigrant workers respond to their own health needs? The researcher collected data from interviews with 50 careworkers, 25 professionals who provide services to the careworkers, and 23 administrators in the health system, government agencies, labor unions, and the Catholic Church. The careworkers interviewed were women from South America, as they do most of the carework jobs in this city. Long-term participant observation and interview data were analyzed to: 1) produce empirical data on health concerns of and healthcare resource use by migrant careworkers; and 2) investigate the relationships between health concerns, living/working conditions, and healthcare resource use of transnational immigrants in the informal economy. The data showed that the Catholic Church promoted immigrants as able workers, aided their elderly parishioners, and provided necessary mental health support to careworkers who experienced stress. The data also revealed that the health care system of Italy functioned well to address the physical health concerns of immigrant careworkers. The relationship between the client and the worker was important for the general well-being of the worker and her ability to maintain her general health, have time for medical appointments, socialize outside of the workplace, and attend community events. This study examined: strategies for using health resources; responses of the Italian medical system personnel to anti-immigrant legislation; use of non-State resources to meet health needs; the health consequences of caring for an elderly person in the private home; and ways to address these health consequences.