Search Results

1. Kotila, Letitia The Development of Father Involvement in Diverse Family Environments

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Human Development and Family Science

Father involvement is a critical aspect of family life with implications for child and parental physical and socioemotional health, couple relationship quality, and union stability. Yet, father involvement has been almost exclusively investigated in married families, most often via maternal-reports that underestimate involvement and with unidimensional or global measures of father involvement despite evidence that suggests father involvement is multidimensional. Pathways to family formation in the U.S. are increasingly diverse; over 40% of births now occur to unmarried women, at least 60% of whom are cohabiting with their child's father, and approximately 40% of whom will remain in a longer-term cohabitation (more than one year). Hence, there is a significant need for research on father involvement among diverse families. This project advances scholarship on father involvement by empirically testing the most recent multidimensional conceptualization of father involvement among married and continuously cohabiting families during a critical period in the life course: the transition to parenthood. Further, this project bridges the sociological and psychological literatures on married and unmarried father involvement by utilizing multimethod and multidimensional measures of father involvement from two key data sources. The New Parents Project is a short-term, longitudinal study of a community sample of first-time, dual-earner parents that includes paternal self-report questionnaires, videotaped observations, and time-diary data that were exploited to test Pleck's (2010) conceptualization of father involvement for married fathers. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a nationally-representative sample of births to married and unmarried parents in large U.S. cities provides self-reports of involvement from unmarried fathers, a group historically absent in research on father involvement (Coley, 2001), and was used to test Pleck's conceptualization of fa (open full item for complete abstract)

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Committee: Claire Kamp Dush PhD (Advisor); Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan PhD (Advisor); Anastasia Snyder PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Behaviorial Sciences; Demography; Families and Family Life; Individual and Family Studies; Sociology

2. Carson, Janice Life Histories of Successful Black Males Reared in Absent Father Families

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Toledo, 2004, Foundations of Education: Educational Sociology

This study was a qualitative investigation of the perceptions of Black males reared in absent father families regarding the experiences which contributed to success in their lives. The purpose of the study was to discover, understand, and describe the circumstances that contributed to the successful lives of Black males living in absent father families. Also, it was to develop a deeper understanding of those experiences that have helped to offset the negative effects of fatherlessness on adolescents. Success was visualized as a process of personal growth. Eight Black males who were all participants of the Toledo Excel Program at the University of Toledo were individually interviewed in depth on two occasions. They also met in a focus group at the conclusion of the interviews. After their verbatim transcripts were analyzed, six themes emerged which were presented and discussed at the group meeting. The results obtained were that the participants attributed their success to faith in God, their mothers, grandmothers, other extended family, friends, and the Toledo Excel Program. They felt God made it all possible for them to become successful men today. They characterized their mothers as hardworking, self-sacrificing, providing for their needs, and paying for them to attend private schools. They characterized their grandmothers, other extended family, and friends as providing child caring, child rearing, finances, emotional support, and advice. The TOLEDO EXCEL Program, a scholarship incentive program, provided them with tutoring, classes, and trips throughout the United States, Mexico, and Africa. As a result of the fathers' absence, there was economic deprivation, which was closely linked with difficult times. All of the participants felt that children need both the mother and father in the home to rear children. They plan to “be there” in the home for their own children. Recommendations are given for programs focusing on the reduction of poverty, increased involveme (open full item for complete abstract)

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Committee: Mary Ellen Edwards (Advisor) Subjects: Black Studies

3. Brubaker, Elise Longitudinal Effects of Families on Spoken Language in Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing Children

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Speech Language Pathology

Purpose: The family environments of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) children are comparable to that of typically hearing (TH) children. However, structural and functional dimensions of family environments are more tightly coupled to spoken language development in DHH children than TH children (e.g., Holt et al., 2020, 2022). DHH families that have increased engagement in intellectual and cultural activities in a supportive environment, are more organized in time and space, and have less control and conflict have children with better spoken language. A limitation of previous studies is establishing the directionality of the effects because data about family environment and language were measured at the same time. This study aims to look at longitudinal data to test the hypothesis that the structural and functional dimensions of family environment contribute to DHH children's spoken language over a period of one year. Method: Two groups of children (57 TH, mean age = 5.8 years; 53 DHH, mean age = 6.6 years, 25 with hearing aids, 28 with cochlear implants) were evaluated twice on standardized measures of spoken language comprehension and receptive vocabulary (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Fourth Edition [PPVT-4], Following Directions/Concepts subscale of the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-5/P [CELF 5/P], and Sentence Comprehension subscale of the Comprehensive Assessment of Spoken Language-2 [CASL-2]). Family environment was assessed with the Family Environment Scale – 4th edition (FES-4). Language was tested at Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2; 10-14 months later). The FES-4 was completed at T1. Only participants who had complete data for both intervals were included. All children passed a non-verbal IQ screening and had a goal to learn spoken language. Both groups had comparable levels of parental education. Results: Partial correlations (controlling for age) were carried out between T1 FES subscales and T2 language composite. For both groups, the F (open full item for complete abstract)

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Committee: Rachael Frush Holt Ph.D., CCC-A (Advisor); Bridget Chapman M.A. CCC-SLP (Committee Member) Subjects: Speech Therapy

4. Wiborg, Corrine Race-Ethnic Differences in Step- Versus Biological Parent Support to Adult Children and Grandchildren

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Sociology

Greater longevity increases the potential share of later life that individuals spend as a parent or grandparent (Margolis 2016; Margolis and Verdery 2019; Wachter 1997). Moreover, increases in marital instability raise the possibility that stepparents and step-grandparents may become an important role for many older adults. Although prior research has demonstrated that step-parenthood and step-grandparenthood are more common among non-Hispanic Black individuals (Yahirun, Park, and Seltzer 2018), we know less about how these roles vary across racial/ethnic groups. Using data from the 2015-2017 Add Health Parent Study (AHPS), this study examines racial/ethnic differences in step- versus biological parent support of adult children and grandchildren. Specifically, the study assesses instrumental support from parents to their adult children who are also parents, and thus offers a measure of indirect support to grandchildren. Additional analyses examine direct grandparent to grandchild support via anticipated childcare availability. Findings from this study suggest that biological parent families provide more instrumental support to adult children with activities such as childcare, errands, transportation, chores, or hands-on care in the past 12 months compared to stepparent families. Moreover, among individuals who did provide instrumental support to their adult child, the hours spent providing support were greater in biological parent families than stepparent families. However, race/ethnicity moderates the relationship between stepfamily structure and hours of instrumental support, such that the step- biological gap is smaller for Hispanic families compared to non-Hispanic White families. Furthermore, the additional analysis found that step-grandparents are less likely to anticipate helping their grandchild “a great deal” in the next 12 months. Findings from this study contribute to the broader literature on family complexity and racial/ethnic differences across kinship (open full item for complete abstract)

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Committee: Jenjira Yahirun Ph.D. (Committee Chair); I-Fen Lin Ph.D. (Committee Member); Kelly Stamper Balistreri Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Sociology

5. Lindberg, Eleanor Si, me afecto: The Women of Bracero Families in Michoacan, 1942-1964

BA, Oberlin College, 2018, History

Between 1942 and 1964, the U.S. and Mexico made a series of labor agreements collectively referred to as the Bracero Program. The Mexican men, Braceros, contracted through this program worked temporarily in agriculture and industry across the U.S. This paper examines the lives of ten women in the Mexican state of Michoacan whose male family members worked as Braceros. The mens' absences disrupted the family in an economic sense, requiring women to take on labor that was non-traditional for women at the time, as well as in a social sense, as the stability and respectability of their household came into doubt in the eyes of their village. Women recognized that the social consequences that could come from this disruption of the patriarchal family structure posed a real threat to their family's economic survival. Thus, while they transgressed certain patriarchal boundaries by taking on new and nontraditional types of work, they also performed the ideological labor of justifying their situation. The women narrated the Braceros' absences and mitigated against ensuing social consequences by employing Catholic gender ideologies that had developed in the region. In other words, as a method of survival, women met the Bracero Program's disruption of the rural peasant family structure with the reinscription of traditional gender values.

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Committee: Danielle Terrazas Williams (Advisor) Subjects: Gender; Gender Studies; History; Labor Relations; Latin American History; Latin American Studies; Womens Studies

6. Mathews, Walter Family stressors, parental child practices, and children's adjustment in rural families /

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 1985, Graduate School

Committee: Not Provided (Other) Subjects: Psychology

7. Josephsen, Nicole A Phenomenological Exploration of the Experience of Parenting Half-Siblings Within a Blended Family

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2015, Antioch Seattle: Clinical Psychology

Blended families are a growing population and encompass a diversity of characteristics and family types. Among the different types of blended families are those with both stepchildren and mutual children. Research on the complex experience of parenting a mutual genetic child and a stepchild within a blended family is minimal. To better understand the unknown experience of such parents, this phenomenological study was conducted to provide an in depth description of the experience of simultaneously parenting mutual children and stepchildren within a blended family. In this phenomenological study the researcher conducted interviews with six participants who varied by gender, socioeconomic status, and age. The researcher followed Giorgi's (2009) phenomenological method of data analysis. The findings of this study fit into six themes about these parents' experiences of parenting half-siblings, including: I can parent, My children get along, We miss you, Let's talk, It's challenging and rewarding, and Different experiences. Among the conclusions of this research was the high value parents placed on the half-sibling relationship. Parents shared observations about their stepchildren taking time to adjust to the birth of the mutual child, half-siblings missing each other during visitations, and helping their mutual children navigate their experience and understanding of the stepchild's visitations. Thus this research provided a rich description of the experience of parenting stepchildren and mutual children within a blended family. Such information might help inform custody arrangements as they affect the half-sibling relationship, evidence-based interventions, and family education in support of parents in blended families. The electronic version of this dissertation is available at Ohiolink ETD Center, www.ohiolink.edu/etd

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Committee: Liang Tien Psy.D., ABPP (Committee Chair); Molly Reid Ph. D., ABPP (Committee Member); Tona McGuire Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Families and Family Life; Mental Health; Psychology

8. Nava, Karen Life with Information and Communication Technologies in the DC Metropolitan Area's Immigrant Bolivian Household

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2007, Telecommunications (Communication)

This dissertation explores the intricate articulations of life with Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) inside a group of Bolivian households within the metropolitan area of Washington DC. In this study, I investigate the ways in which ICTs mediate Bolivian immigrants' lives within the home and in relation to the outside or host culture. Through a qualitative ethnographic analysis, I explore twelve Bolivian families with different compositions and cultural competencies with the intention of unveiling the different ways in which they have used ICTs to learn to live, negotiate, survive and preserve their family, culture, identities and symbolic practices in everyday life in relation to the outside world or host culture. I present the context in which these households develop a sense of themselves,starting from the appropriation process, through objectification, incorporation and conversion moments of the “technology mediated consumption” process (Silverstone, Hirsh & Morley, 1992) articulated in the “circuit of culture” (Du Gay et al., 1997). In order to do this, I provide an interpretive model that organizes the production of meaning interlaced with a topology of an immigrant Bolivian household resulting in an analysis of the household's territories. Further, I evaluate how ICTs have structured the immigrant home spaces in the center, margins and periphery, according to the families' uses of shared and private places. Two thresholds will connect the home with the outside – both to the host culture, the Latino realm or the homeland. This conformation constitutes an important identity preservation mode and also a strategic means of survival inside the host culture. These schemes of interpretation of the families' daily life within the home in relation to ICT consumption as the result of the articulation of main theoretical and methodological frameworks are the main contributions of this study to the field. I conclude that ICTs, when consumed in the famili (open full item for complete abstract)

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Committee: Karen Riggs (Advisor) Subjects: Mass Communications

9. Randolph, Amanda The Portrayal of the Family Unit In Children's Choice Award Books

Master of Education (MEd), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Reading

It is essential that children see themselves and their families in the literature they read (Bracken, Wigutoff & Baker, 1981; Powell, Gillespie, Swearingen & Clements, 1993). Many researchers believe children can also benefit from literature that includes diverse families unlike their own (Allen, Allen & Sigler, 1993; Lowery & Sabis-Burns, 2007). Understanding how children prefer families to be portrayed in the books they read can help guide teachers' and librarians' books selections. Therefore, the question addressed in this study was: Based on the illustrations and the text, how are human families portrayed in the International Reading Association's and Children's Book Council's Children's Choices Books from 2007 to 2012? The research design used for the examination was a mixed method content analysis of 14 picture books including human character family units that won the Children's Choices Award in the categories of Early Reader and Young Reader. The investigation analyzed familial relationships, role of family in plot, family unit, and cultural/racial representation. The study found that the Children's Choices books did not display all types of families and the prevalence of diverse family units found in real American homes was not represented in the Children's Choice Award Books. The investigation showed children were more willing to read books in which human families are merely mentioned with the plot centered on another topic. While teachers and librarians may consider the Children's Choices books as quality literature to motivate students, they need to be aware of the portrayal of human families in the Children's Choices Award-winning books.

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Committee: Cindy Hendricks Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Timothy Murnen Ph.D. (Committee Member); Susan Peet Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Early Childhood Education; Education; Reading Instruction