Developing Autonomy for Tellers, Tales, and Telling in Family Narrative Events

1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-217 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoshana Blum-Kulka ◽  
Catherine E. Snow
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Dinner Table ◽  
Family Constellation ◽  
Family Narrative ◽  
The Family ◽  
American Children ◽  
American Working Class ◽  
Middle Class Families

Abstract Dinner-table conversations are contexts in which children become socialized to local cultural rules regulating storytelling and may be able to achieve autonomy in telling stories, as tellers of stories, and in the content or tale recounted. Conversations from five American and five Israeli middle-class families and five American working-class families matched on family constellation generated 33, 40, and 15 narratives, respectively. Each of the groups demonstrated a different pattern on dimensions such as who participated in telling narratives, who initi-ated narratives, and how secondary narrators participated; Israeli family narra-tives were more collaborative but with relatively little child participation, whereas American middle-class children participated more by initiating their own narratives and American working-class children narrated in response to adult elicitation. All three groups demanded fidelity to truth and coherence in the tales children told, but many more of the narratives told in Israeli families had to do with events known to all the family members, whereas American children told stories about events unfamiliar to at least some family members. (Communication)

scholarly journals Social Media Causing Communication Gap: A Study of Middle-Class Families in Latifabad, Hyderabad, Pakistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-66
Author(s):  
Rashid Ali Khuhro ◽  
Bashir Memon ◽  
Rabia Wahid
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Focus Group ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Family Communication ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Communication Process ◽  
The Family ◽  
Communication Gap ◽  
Middle Class Families

In family communication, the effective communication stands as the base of strong relations among the family members. However, a little gap in communication weakens family relationships and creates severe problems. Like all types of advanced communication channels; the advent of social media has also facilitated the effectiveness of interface among people. Although, social media's instantaneous communication process ended the communication gap among masses. Thus, many scholars believed that it has also created a communication gap among humans, especially in family communication. In this way, this study aimed to examine the communication gap created by social media among middle-class families of sub-division Latifabad Sindh, Pakistan. The researchers adopted a focus group discussion technique to collect data from three middle-class families. The result of this study shows that most of the focus group participants prefer communication in interpersonal communication settings. Further, it reveals that the majority of the family members use social media by smartphone, tabs and laptops. Significantly, the findings of this study emerged that social media creates a communication gap among middle-class families of Latifabad Hyderabad, Sindh –Pakistan.

Parents displaying family consumption in Ireland

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Kiely ◽  
Debbie Ging ◽  
Karl Kitching ◽  
Máire Leane
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Entire Field ◽  
The Family ◽  
Irish Study ◽  
Family Consumption

This article considers qualitative data collected from 78 parents in an Irish study on the commercialisation and sexualisation of children. It makes a distinctive contribution in showing that the framework of family display (Finch, 2007) can be productively applied to the entire field of family consumption. It shows that consumption narratives can be viewed as a tool that is used to display family – in other words, showing how family is done – to internal family members and to outsiders. While family display has been more often applied empirically with non-conventional families, its relevance for all families is reasserted by our data. Our application of the family display framework shows that middle-class parenting ideals are stretched and can become unstuck when displayed by middle-class parents, the constituency most associated with their production and propagation.

scholarly journals End of Life: A Family Narrative

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 ◽  
pp. 1-7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen K. Black ◽  
Miriam S. Moss ◽  
Robert L. Rubinstein ◽  
Sidney Z. Moss
Keyword(s):  
End Of Life ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Belief System ◽  
Extreme Case ◽  
Spiritual Beliefs ◽  
System A ◽  
Biological Children ◽  
Family Narrative ◽  
The Family

This paper is based on ethnographic research that examines family reaction to an elderly husband and father's end of life. From a group of 30 families in our study (family defined as a widow aged 70 and over and two adult biological children between the ages of 40 and 60), we offer an extreme case example of family bereavement. We report our findings through the open-ended responses of a widow and two children who were interviewed ten months after the death of the husband and father. Three general themes emerged: (1) how the family imputes meaning to the end of life, (2) changes in the roles of family members, and (3) the family's ways of coping with the death, particularly through their belief system. A key finding is that the meaning family members find in their loved one's death is tied to the context of his death (how and where he died), their perception of his quality of life as a whole, and their philosophical, religious, and spiritual beliefs about life, death, and the afterlife that are already in place.

The Ecology of Some Middle Class Families at Dinner

1987 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 377-390 ◽  
Author(s):  
Candice Feiring ◽  
Michael Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Family Size ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Family System ◽  
Sex Role ◽  
Verbal Interaction ◽  
Interaction Patterns ◽  
Parents And Children ◽  
The Family ◽  
Middle Class Families

Three-year-old children and their families were observed during a dinner time situation in which all family members were present. Mealtime structure and procedure and verbal interaction patterns during dinner were examined for the sample as a whole and for the effects of family size. The structure of the family system and interaction patterns correspond. It was found that the mother was primarily in charge of the meal situation, preparing and serving the food as well as directing the verbal interaction. Family size was related to the dinner situation in that larger families were more child focused, less orderly and more noisy compared to small families. The results also indicated that the formality of the meal was related to the three-year-old child's verbal interaction with its older sibling. Overall, the results suggest how the mealtime experience, filled with information concerning sex-role behaviour, social manners and habits, and interpersonal relations between parents and children, is a central multifaceted context in which the child's socialisation takes place.

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