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Using the culturally variant perspective and symbolic interaction theory, I examined the perceptions of Black partnered and nonpartnered mothers toward their children and how these perceptions shaped their views toward single-mother effectiveness. I conducted secondary analysis of National Survey of American Families [NSAF] (1999) with a sample of Black, non-Hispanic mothers with children between the ages of 6 to 17 years old. Black mothers significantly differed on age, education, income, and perceptions about their child's psychological and social behaviors, religious service attendance, and mental health. Mothers' age, education level, income, viewing child as having difficulty getting along with others and viewing child as harder to care for were significantly related to mothers' opinions toward single-mother effectiveness. Feeling angry toward their child and mothers' mental health score were moderately and significantly related to single-mother effectiveness. / Master of Science

In this thesis, I argue that traditional notions of Confucianism and its growing modernity within Korean society have contributed to the continuing issue of child abandonment, inhibiting Korean mothers from gaining bodily, social, and economic independence. There are a variety of governmental and societal pressures, including the emphasis on motherhood and the nuclear family, and expectations for the women, that push these unwed mothers to make undesirable decisions on whether or not to keep their child.

Syftet med denna studie har varit att undersöka hur ensamstående mödrar upplever vardagen vid knapp ekonomi. Uppsatsen är baserad på kvalitativ metod med semistrukturerade intervjuer. I studien har sex stycken ensamstående mödrar och en socialsekreterare med ansvar inom försörjningsstöd deltagit. Resultatet visar hur de ensamstående mödrarna blir påverkade av samhälleliga konsumtionsmönster som är tydligt normbildande av vad som uppfattas normalt. Kvinnorna beskriver hur svårt det är att hantera vardagliga konsumtionsmönster i en strävan att tillhöra det normala. Studien belyser även hur konsumtion är ett sätt att visa vem du är och hur detta påverkar familjer med knapp ekonomi. Kvinnorna upplever ett inre utanförskap och försöker genom olika strategier minimera stigmat. / The purpose of this study was to examine how single mothers experiencing everyday life in economic hardship. The thesis is based on qualitative method of semi-structured interviews. In the study, six single mothers and one social worker with responsibilities in livelihood support participated. The result shows how single mothers are affected by societal consumption patterns that are clearly setting standards of what is considered normal. The women describe how difficult it is to handle everyday consumption in an effort to belong to normal. The study also highlights how consumption is a way to show who you are and how this affects families with economic hardship. The women experiencing an inner alienation and trying through various strategies to minimize the stigma.

This thesis is a scholarly account of my personal journey as a single mother to find my place in the world both spiritually and professionally. Deep personal and universalizable issues are covered including the transition from childhood to adulthood, parenting, birth, death, significant life changing events and the dramatic effect that changing spiritual, gender and religious views have on facing life challenges. Special emphasis is centered on the importance of my feminine spirituality and the pursuit of religious/spiritual experiences within traditional and non-traditional educational opportunities up to and including the present day and my hopeful vision for the future. My writing is heavily laced with spirituality, personal insights, stories as illustration for key points and a few surprising revelations. Surprises included the nature of growing up in Generation X with a healthy understanding and disrespect for organizations of all types, especially religious, and the effect this had on nurturing my atheist Millennial children; the actual impact of my travels in Tibet and China versus what I had expected from going; and how everything I have learned up to this point makes me more convinced than ever that pursuing further studies in Women’s Spirituality is absolutely the route for me at this time and my way of making life a little bit better for those who come after me. My hope for this thesis is to further the understanding of the general interested public of the challenges facing single mothers and their children, to show the helpful effects of a spiritual connection or search in getting through life’s difficult moments, the power of writing as a means of spiritual and personal connection and to reinforce the notion that there is a still a long way to go in making our society a just place to be a woman in.

Data for this study comes from the Single Mom Initiative conducted by BYU Self-reliance Center. This study uses the Life Course perspective to examine how getting at least a bachelor's degree before or after becoming a single mother affects income levels. There was no significant difference in getting a degree before or after becoming a single mother on income levels. The study also shows how families, institutions, and governments can help single mothers. The results indicate that the number of children, employment status, and government educational assistance positively affect single mother's current enrollment in college, while receiving food stamps negatively affects their current enrollment.

There has been a transformation in family structure in Thailand due to the changes in economic and social structures over time. Though not recorded in census data the rise in single-parent families can be expected due to a rise in divorce rates, that have been recorded, over the past decades. However, the literature on single-parent families is limited and little is known about the experiences of single-mothers and children of singlemother families in Thailand. This study examines the factors that have major impacts on the well-being of children of single-parent families in Bangkok, Thailand. A qualitative methodology was employed to study the lived experiences from the point of views of 20 divorced single-mothers and 20 adult children from a different sample of divorced single-mother families in Bangkok, Thailand. Altogether 40 semistructured interviews were conducted in Bangkok, Thailand during June and July of 2010. Three theoretical frameworks, including family and household decision making theories, the life-course perspective, and the family composition perspective were applicable in this study to provide an understanding of how economic and social structures play an important role in the dissolution of marriages and how family composition plays an important role in the well-being of children. The findings of this study shed light on the lived experiences of participants and revealed the important factors that influence the well-being of children of single-mother families. The major factors include financial resources, parenting styles and discipline, and social supports. In addition, this study has implications for developing programs to assist and facilitate the well-being of single-parent families, strengthening the relationship within extended families, and eradicating the negative assumptions that are often associated with single-parent families.

Single mothers have considered to be a vulnerable group in the society, both economically and socially. But how do they experience their everyday life in relation to be a single mother and at the same time pursue a university or college education? This qualitative study aims to explore how five single mothers experiences their everyday life. Through the use of Lone Rahbek Christensen's life-mode theory and Bourdieu's defintion of social and economic capital, the purpose of the study is to explore how life-modes affect the mother's former, present and future life situations. The result shows, among other things, that the mothers to a large extent, show signs of being carriers of the same type of life-mode. They also seem to use similar strategies to cope with difficult situations in their everyday life. Also, the social and economic resources where very important for all of the single studying mothers in order to manage their life situation, and at the same time live up to the requirements of their surroundings to be accepted as a "good mother".

Welfare reform, as a social policy, has implications for higher education policy, because it restricts welfare-reliant women from seeking sufficient post-secondary education for economic mobility. The 2006 Deficit Reduction Act was reinterpreted in the 2008 final rule, allowing welfare-reliant mothers to pursue up to 12 months of post-secondary education. However, this is not sufficient for mothers to persist toward completion of associate's or bachelor's degrees. Recent scholarship has not adequately investigated the impact of this expanded access to post-secondary education. The purpose of this study was to investigate the essence of single welfare-reliant mothers' experiences in their life course from poverty to post-secondary education. To better understand the essence of their experience, this study utilized a transcendental phenomenological approach to investigate experiences that influenced their (a) pathways and social roles, (b) perspectives as sole providers, and (c) decisions to access and persist in post-secondary education. The three major findings of this study were presented in the context of a developmental life course framework supported by social role theory and women's adult The three major findings of this study were presented in the context of a developmental life course framework supported by social role theory and women's adult identity development concepts. The first major finding elucidated two distinct pathways to adulthood for six single welfare-reliant mothers. The three teen mothers experienced transitions to adulthood that were premature, truncated, and compacted. As a result they missed their developmental task of exploring possible selves in their transitions to adulthood. During their identity development as sole providers they returned to the task of exploring possible selves in their choices to access post-secondary education. The second major finding elucidated that single welfare-reliant mothers' perspectives as sole providers were experienced as an evolving adult identity, beginning with the birth of their first child and evolving throughout the era of early adulthood as mothers persisted in post-secondary education. The third major finding elucidated a recurring pattern of negotiating between role conflict and role salience experienced by single welfare-reliant mothers that resulted in critical junctures and recurring commitments to their decisions to persist toward post-secondary education goals. This study determined that commitment toward their adult identity as sole providers had a direct link to their commitment toward persisting in post-secondary education.

The object of this essay is to map the discourses of good versus bad mothering in four selected novels by Marian Keyes, and to analyze how they relate to hegemonic Western discourses of motherhood.  The analytical approach is based on Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory. In the essay I identify six central discursive structures in Keyes’ fictive representation of good and bad mothering. The explored structures deal with the proper social conditions for mothering, the mother’s unique role and function, mothering and professional pursuits, the rejection of children, depression and aggression in the mother, and mothering and substance abuse. They are described and contextualized with the aid of Laclau and Mouffe’s terminology and perspective on discursive struggle. The conclusion is that Keyes’ literary discourse connects good mothering with sustained maturing and individuality in the mother, while suggesting that bad mothering is related to relinquished integrity and personal potential.