This study was designed to elicit information about the concerns and coping behaviours of the unmarried mother. A convenient sample of 20 unmarried mothers was interviewed, utilizing a semi-structured questionnaire. Extensive face-to-face interviews were conducted with the mothers in their homes. The data were analyzed by the use of frequency distribution tables and percentages. Pearson product-moment correlation was used to examine the association between selected variables. The findings of the study revealed that the mothers ranged from 20 to 36 years of age, with an average age of 27.1 years. Their education levels varied from Grade 7 to 12, with the majority of them reaching Grade 10, 11 or 12. Fifteen mothers had 1 child and 5 mothers had between 2 and 3 children. The average age of the children was 3 years and 4 months. Their ages ranged from 2 months to 8 years. The children under 6 months of age all had older siblings. The mothers exhibited a variety of lifestyles. Of the 20 mothers, 5 were employed full-time, and 4 were full-time students. Fourteen received financial aid through Social Assistance, and 1 mother, a full-time student, supported herself and her child on a student loan. Incomes varied among the mothers. The majority of those on welfare lived on annual incomes below $3,000. The working mothers had annual incomes ranging from approximately $4,000 to $7,500. Those mothers who derived their incomes from employment had 1 child, with only 1 mother having a child under 3 years of age. Those who derived incomes from Social Assistance had from 1 to 3 children. Ten of the 14 mothers in this group had a child or children under 3 years of age. Concerns articulated by the mothers were related to finances; childcare facilities, especially for those mothers with children under 3 years of age; housing; job training; and adequate information from agencies concerning services available to mothers on Social Assistance. In contrast to previous studies done in the United States, the mothers expressed few concerns regarding the availability of physical health care. All had access to a physician. Forty-five percent of the mothers scored high on an emotional health status scale, indicating some degree of emotional impairment. Many of those who scored high on this scale also perceived themselves as having a high number of socio-economic problems. In confirmation of this finding, Pearson product-moment correlation revealed a very high positive relationship of r = +.837 between these variables. None of the mothers with annual incomes between $4,000 to $7,500 scored high on either of these two scales. Forty-seven percent of the mothers who felt a need for consultation about a specific concern, sought professional assistance. However, many preferred to talk with friends and/or relatives about their concerns. It was only among 15 percent of the mothers that the child's father provided any emotional support. A deterrent to the use of community agencies was attributed to the mothers' lack of knowledge about available services, or their negative perception of professional workers. Of those mothers who were neither employed nor going to school, many aspired to jobs and financial security. From the findings of this study, it seemed that the mothers exhibited different methods of adapting to solo parenthood. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Nursing, School of / Graduate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-171). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2000. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-171).

Thesis (doctoral)--Imperatorskīĭ i︠u︡rʹevskīĭ universitet, Medit︠s︡inskīĭ fakulʹtet, 1910. / Title from cover. Includes bibliographical references (p. [79]-82).

This thesis investigates the different kinds of extra-marital fertilities present in the Gurk valley, in the north of the province of Carinthia, in southern Austria. The parishes of this valley have a long history of high illegitimacy, partly produced by the restrictions placed on peasant marriage prior to 1868. However, the focus of this research is on ,~hy it was twenty years after the national abolition of such restrictions that illegitimate births reached their zenith in this region. In the 1890s, in the westerly parishes of the Gurl( valley, ninety per cent of all births were born outside wedlock. This figure made the Gurl( valley highly unusual in Europe in its attitudes to marriage and to fertility inside and outside institutional sanction. It was a place where extramarital births were so common as to make a reassessment of illegitimacy as a category essential. This thesis is therefore an exploration of the Gurl( valley's demographic and courtship regime, one so different to those on which the existing theorisations of alpine illegitimacy's social and historical meaning rely. A range of qualitative and quantitative methods are employed, spanning statistical analysis of parish records to narrative analysis of oral history interviews to build up a picture of the Gurk valley as a place where extra-marital fertility was embedded in social life in all strata of the community. It is argued that illegitimacy in this context should not be understood as deviant, but rather as an adaptation to local circumstance that in many cases served the interests of single mother, extra-marital child and farming household. Indeed, it was only when the gaze of the National Socialist state fell upon Austria in 1938 that illegitimacy began to be framed as a threat to the German race, in need of remedy. In earlier decades, however, births outside wedlock were far from confined to a bastardy-prone sub-society. They formed a part of the reproductive strategies undertaken by unmarried women, whether they were maids in service or the daughters of farmers, and their perdurance was aided by the evolution � of social structures that in part ameliorated the stigma associated with illegitimacy.

The Protection of Children Act in British Columbia makes provision for the removal and the restoration of guardianship to natural parents. This process, which is designed to safeguard the rights of both parents and children, involves the two disciplines of social work and the law. The social worker is directly concerned with the decision to apprehend a child and, subject to the decision of the court, separate him from neglectful parents. He is also concerned with enabling the parents to ameliorate the circumstances of neglect, and to assist them to apply to the court for the restoration of parental rights. The social work process thus goes on before the apprehension, during the court hearing, and after the committal of the child. The final disposition in both the removal and the restoration of guardianship is made by the judge of the juvenile court. This study is undertaken to illuminate the elements involved in social work responsibility in this area of child welfare practice. A sample group of families was selected, and their experience assessed for analytical and illustrative purposes. The study concentrates on two sets of factors: (1) those present at the time of removal of guardianship, and (2) the circumstances which enabled the restoration of parental rights. The data are evaluated on the basis of (a) parental strengths, (b) the nature of community concern and action, (c) the role of the social agency, (d) the nature of the client-social worker relationship, and (e) the part played by the juvenile court. Parental strengths are rated on the basis of objective and subjective criteria, developed from concepts pertinent to social diagnosis. The study brings out the need for definitive criteria on which to rate parental adequacy, in order that the grave decision to separate the child from his parents may he made with the greatest possible accuracy in diagnosis. There is responsibility for social workers to define the type of neglect which embraces psychological as well as physical factors, and to interpret this definition to the larger community for incorporation into legislation. Changing trends in child protection theories should be made known to the judges of the juvenile court in order that the socio-legal process is conducted to the best advantage of both parents and children. The social agency must maintain contact with natural parents after the removal of their children, as it has been shown that change can take place in parental capacity, or parental circumstances such as remarriage. This is an area clearly worthy of further research. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This study was concerned with the effect of parental attitudes and the illegitimacy rate among teenagers. A survey of the literature discussed many different factors affecting illegitimacy. Theorists have suggested poverty, lack of intelligence, mental abnormalities, and parental attitudes as a few of the causative factors. Also reviewed were areas such as the number of unwed mothers, their intelligence, the effect of the Negro subculture on the illegitimacy rate, the AFDC population and the illegitimate birth rate, and the background of pregnant out of wedlock mothers. The mother-daughter relationship was shown to be of importance in the likelihood of a teenage girl becoming pregnant out of wedlock. It was further suggested that dominance, ignorance, and possessiveness were important in the mother-daughter relationship. Four hypotheses proposed that there would be a significant difference between a group of mothers of teenagers with children born out of wedlock and a group of mothers whose daughters had never been pregnant. The first suggested that mothers of unwed. mothers would rate significantly higher on the possessiveness scale than mothers whose daughters have never been pregnant. The second proposed that mothers of daughters with out of wedlock children would rate significantly higher on the ignoring scale than mothers of never pregnant daughters. The third hypothesis suggested that mothers of unwed mothers would rate significantly higher on the dominance scale than the mother of the girl who has not had a child out of wedlock. The fourth hypothesis proposed that on all three scales the mothers of unwed mothers would rate significantly higher than the mothers of daughters who are not unwed mothers.

The fiction of Dickens and Collins abounds with references to the illegitimate. In the mid-Victorian period there is an increase in illegitimate characters and circumstances which relates both to the topicality of the issue and to events in the authors individual and collaborative private lives. Illegitimacy addresses personal and social anxieties in four major novels of the 1850s and 1860s: Bleak House (1852-53), Little Dorrit (1855-57) by Dickens and The Woman in White (1860) and No Name (1862) by Collins. Dickens analyses illegitimacy in Bleak House psychologically and socially through Esther Summerson, but her narrative reveals contradictions between Dickens challenge of contemporary attitudes towards the illegitimate and his subscription to the moral code behind the views. In Little Dorrit Dickens confines his study of illegitimacy to character in order to examine the psychological consequences of illegitimacy on the individual. The novel suggests that illegitimacy is another form of social and legal imprisonment. In contrast in The Woman in White Collins exploits the sensationalism surrounding illegitimacy by using it to create an exciting plot at the inception of the sensation genre. His suggestion in this novel that bastards are legally blank and able to reconstruct their identity is continued in No Name; this later novel directly challenges the laws defining and controlling illegitimacy. While Collins never matches Dickens integration of social and moral issues into the novel s structure, the older author appreciated Collins strength in creating detective narratives. Illegitimacy was relevant to the private lives of both Dickens and Collins in the period. While the authors always tried to keep their public and private lives separate, their romantic relationships reveal a personal motive for discussing the plight of the illegitimate in their novels. There is a distinct possibility that Dickens had an illegitimate child with his mistress Ellen Ternan while Collins had three illegitimate children with Martha Rudd. The novels articulate the tension between what Dickens and Collins the authors were trying to achieve and what the novels themselves disclose.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Hannover, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references and sources (p. 294-305) and index.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-68).