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Stepchildren’S Perceptions Of The Contradictions In Communication With Stepparents, Leslie Baxter, Dawn Braithwaite, Leah Bryant, A. Wagner

Dawn O. Braithwaite

This interpretive study, framed in relational dialectics theory, sought to identify stepchildren’s perceptions of the contradictions that animate communication with the stepparent in their household of primary residence. In-depth interviews were conducted, producing 802 pages of double-spaced interview transcripts, which were analyzed inductively for commonly experienced contradictions of stepchild–stepparent communication. Three underlying contradictions were identified. First, stepchild–stepparent communication was perceived to be characterized by a dialectic of integration, characterized by both closeness and distance. Second, stepchild–stepparent communication was perceived to be characterized by a dialectic of parental status, in which the stepparent was, and was not, granted legitimacy in a …