Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2013, Media and Communication

This dissertation explores relational communication of in-laws in multi-religious families of American Orthodox Christians and represents an interpretive analysis of collected personal narratives. These narratives describe American Orthodox Christian identity in in-law relationships that is directly tied to ethnic identity. Thus, the presented research is built on the findings about multi-religious and multiethnic family relationships in the fields of relational communication, family therapy, and religious studies. I argue that religion and ethnicity are fundamental bases for the formation of family identity and family culture. Therefore, this dissertation focuses on how religious differences impact the relational health and quality of communication among the in- laws. The theoretical framework of the study is Relational Dialectic Theory; I focus on its two major premises: (1) relationships are products of cultures in which they develop and (2) the broader cultures offer a variety of meanings that we attach to our relationships, many of them are oppositional to each other. To explain relational dialectics in in-law relationships, I used the concept family culture and adopted the critical perspective on acculturation. I argue that there exists a natural connection between acculturation and relational dialectical tensions: people find themselves in constant push towards and pull away from a non-native family culture. (For example, identified in my research dialectical tensions of integration – separation, closedness – openness, which constitute discursive oppositions of wanting to preserve old family culture – wanting to develop independent new family culture and stigmatized – iii iv stigmatizing Orthodox identity, provide support for my argument.) The combination of these theoretical frameworks allowed me to offer another perspective on existing research of in-law relationships. Particularly, I provide a critique to Morr Serewicz’ (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Sandra Faulkner Dr. (Advisor); Judy Adams Dr. (Committee Member); Lynda Dixon Dr. (Committee Member); Laura Martin Lengel Dr. (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication