From First-Union Separation to Stepfamily in Italian Context: Building a Stepcouple Identity

The present work aimed to explore the building process of couple identity for stepcouples’ partners. Fifteen Italian women and fifteen Italian men, engaged in a new couple’s relationship after first-union separation or divorce, were interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were analyzed through a Grounded Theory approach . Results showed that the first-union separation experience plays an important role in the process of stepcouple identity building, as it influences the priorities in individual organization of life, qualities, and expectations about new relationships, the importance attributed to individual, couple, and family boundaries, and the choice of the new partner. New functional stepcouple relationships are characterized by a strong sense of shared projects and purposes. This generative dimension, clearly perceived by interviewees as a fundamental characteristic of stepcouple identity, is a resource, in spite of complexity and challenges of stepcouples’ life cycle.

Partnerattiecību tiesiskā regulējuma ieviešanas iespējas

There are partners in every country who have chosen a long-term cohabitation oppose to a marriage, although they have no legal or any other barriers to get married. It is up to each country to decide whether to recognise and regulate such relationships or not. The Republic of Latvia is facing a similar choice. Latvia, like other countries, is trying to formulate the necessity and proportionality of such a regulation, as well as its topicality. In Latvia, law scientists, students, lawyers and researchers have conducted a number of studies on civil partnerships to determine the need. At the centre of the Latvian family policy is a traditional family model based on marriage, assuming that this ideal family model is the only desired one. Other forms of family, where a child is formally raised by one of the parents, are viewed as a traditional family in a crisis situation, rather than a respectable form of the family (Putniņa, Zīverte, 2008). The Maintenance Guarantee Fund emphasizes the increasing number of applications for material assistance from parents of children born outside the marriage or in civil partnerships, also of children left without paternity, which leads to a large number of these ‘other’ families being left outside the family boundaries set by the state aid policy. In the author’s opinion, such situation is unacceptable in a democratic country, and it is a gross violation of children’s rights to material aid, which can have a significant impact on the future development of children.

What Constitutes a Family? Investigating Who Attends Family Events in Postdivorce Families

Objective: To explain whether divorced parents’ ex-partners and current partners belong to the family, and whether they both “jointly” do so. Background: It is uncertain who belongs to postdivorce families and how family boundaries become salient in family interactions. Method: We assessed whether divorced parents celebrated their child’s birthday together with their ex-partner (i.e., child’s biological parents), current partner (i.e., child’s stepparent), and jointly with both. Dutch Data (N=2,451) was analyzed using logistic regression. Results: Most parents celebrated the child’s birthday without the ex-partner, but with the current partner. One quarter celebrated with both. The ex-partners’ presence was more likely when parents’ and their current partners’ relationship with the ex-partner was good; and less likely when parents had repartnered and when the ex-partner had sole custody or additional biological or stepchildren. The presence of the current partner was more likely in case of coresidence with the biological parent and when the ex-partner had a new partner; and less likely when the ex-partner had sole custody and when parents’ relationship with the ex-partner was good. Conclusions: Child-related family rituals mostly involve the “new” stepparent rather than both biological parents. The effects of relationship quality, co-residence, repartnering and having additional biological or stepchildren highlight the importance of (step)parents’ willingness to interact with each other, structural opportunities for parent-child interactions, and parents’ shifting loyalties from their ex-partner to their new family.

Portraying Migrant Families in Academic Publications: Naming and Framing

In this chapter the authors set out to examine how migrant families are named and framed in academic publications by Lithuanian researchers published from 2004 to 2017, available in Lithuanian and international academic databases. The authors aim to disclose how Lithuanian academics perceive the change of family boundaries and fluidity of family relations in the context of global migration, and how the meanings of ‘change’ are used within academic publications that have sought to define the migrant family life as ‘troubling’. The analysis of publications presented in this chapter was carried out from January to March 2018. It formed a sub-study of the research project ‘Global Migration and Lithuanian Family: Family Practices, Circulation of Care, and Return Strategies’ (2017–2019), funded by the Lithuanian Research Council. The analysis has revealed that Lithuanian researchers portray migrant families as extended in space, liquid, networked, survived, but unsecure because of ongoing risks as well as experiencing ‘losses’ or/ and ‘gains’. The researchers conclude that portraits presented by the academics are framed by the family ideology, while naming of migrant families highly rely on the images of ‘how a family should be’.

Pushing the Boundaries: Education Leaders, Mentors, and Refugee Students

Purpose: In this study, we trace the work of refugee student–family mentors (mentors) in an Arizona school district who work across school–family boundaries. Utilizing boundary spanning theory, we examine how education leaders—teachers, school principals, assistant principals, and district administrators—work with the mentors. We document the interactions between the school leaders and the mentors and compare them with the interactions between the refugee families and the mentors. Research Methods/Approach: We draw on data collected in a 3-year ethnography of refugee networks and on a related set of extended interviews with refugee parents. Data includes interviews with refugee mentors, school leaders, and refugee parents, as well as interviews with staff members of refugee support organizations, resettlement agencies, and state programs. Observational fieldnotes and documents were also collected. Data analysis included emergent coding and theme comparison across all data. Conclusions: We demonstrate that the refugee parents respect and depend on the mentors, while school leaders often treat them as “helpers.” We analyze how the mentors are delegitimized by the actions of education leaders in schools, and also by their marginalization in the school district. We recommend additional research be conducted on how school districts interact with refugee students and families. We suggest that education leaders better support the work of staff who work with refugees and other culturally and linguistically diverse students by taking a resource inventory, clarifying staff roles, including parents in decision making, and making a commitment to build inclusive school communities.

Peculiarities of parental attitudes of young mothers with various parental experience

The concepts of motherhood and parenthood are considered from the point of view of parental functions. A study was conducted of the parental attitudes of young mothers aged 20 to 35 y.o., who have the only child or a second child not older than 3. Among the 60 participants surveyed: 30 young mothers with one child and 30 mothers with parenting experience. The results of the study showed that the experience of parenting affects the attitude to family roles and to the child. The analysis of the results of the study of parental attitudes made it possible to record a significant number of significant differences (“attitude to family roles” – t = 2.46; р = 0.003; “restriction to the role of a housewife” – t = 4.07; р = 0.04; “sacrifice of parents” – t = 3.81; р = 0.05; “emotional distance with the child” – t = 3.66; р = 0.03; “excessive concentration on the child” – t = 4.58; р = 0.05; “contact” – t = 2.62; р = 0.005; “cognitive needs” – t = 3.97; р = 0.001; “creativity” – t = 3.51; р = 0.0001). Young mothers with one child limit their interests to the family, which creates a sense of sacrifice and provokes family conflicts; with a child, such a mother is emotionally close and encourages their activity. Experienced mothers do not limit their interests to family boundaries, while being satisfied with family relationships, the attitude towards the child is more authoritarian, such mothers are not emotionally close to the child and are strict. That is, the experience of parenting has a mixed effect on parental attitudes. In the group of young mothers with one child, it is necessary to get rid of the feeling of self-sacrifice in the family, increase self-esteem, and also reduce excessive care for the child. In a group of young mothers with parenting experience, it is necessary to reduce the authoritarian influence on the child, irritability and severity.