D.Ed. / Statistics in the media have given a grim picture about unemployment in South Africa. The question was asked about the influence of the father's unemployment on adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 years, who is part of the same family system as the father. Taking into account the important role the family has to fulfil in the development of the adolescent, the researcher wondered to what extent the adolescent's way to adulthood was influenced by the fact that the father and the family was not available to fulfil the role of supporter and caregiver. The father had to deal with his own emotions and feelings and was not available for the adolescent. How did it influence his/her development? The sample criteria were formulated to include adolescents between the ages of 13 and 17 years whose fathers lost their jobs and who were unemployed at present (having lost their jobs not longer than three months ago). The criteria also included adolescents who were adversely affected by the existential crisis in the form of the father's unemployment. Phenomenological interviews were conducted to determine the adolescents' experience of the father's unemployment. The results, in short, indicated that three emotions were experienced namely fear, insecurity and anger. It was evident that the adolescents did not apply constructive skills to handle the crisis but merely used strategies to survive every day. These strategies lead to the deterioration of relationships with the self and significant others. Their hopes and perception of the future were also negatively influenced. This lead to the adolescents not experiencing a form of well-being and survival was the only prerogative. The researcher decided to look at the construction of a model to support these adolescents by helping them gain personal insight so that in the end, well-being will be experienced. The development of the model proceeded in four stages. During Stage one, concepts were identified, defined and classified after the completion of the fieldwork. The central concept was defined as ''facilitating interaction': and associated concepts were the educational psychologist, the adolescent, the existential crisis, interpersonal processes to apply to the crisis and the reaching of certain goals. Guba 's model was applied to ensure trustworthiness in the qualitative methodology. This refers to the credibility, transferability, reliability and verification of the research. The relationship between concepts was drawn in Step one, the description of the model followed in Step three and the guidelines in operationalising the model followed in Step four. In this research, Steps three and four were integrated and not discussed separately. The model is aimed at supporting the adolescents by applying facilitative interaction to gain personal insight and thus applying more constructive skills to the handling of psychological processes, which will lead to the well-being of the adolescent where problemsolving skills are an integral part of the process. This is indicative of the improvement in the relationship with the self and significant others. The researcher hopes that these skills will become a /ifeski/1 to be applied to other situations. The main theme of the model is:" Assistance to adolescents whose fathers lost their jobs: an educational psychological model".
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uj/uj:1985 |
| Date | 06 February 2012 |
| Creators | Britz, Johanna Jacoba |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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