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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™
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Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
Centered But Not Caught In The Middle: Stepchildren's Perceptions Of Dialectical Contradictions In The Communication Of Co-Parents, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Paige W. Toller, Karen L. Daas, Wesley Durham, Adam C. Jones
Centered But Not Caught In The Middle: Stepchildren's Perceptions Of Dialectical Contradictions In The Communication Of Co-Parents, Dawn O. Braithwaite, Paige W. Toller, Karen L. Daas, Wesley Durham, Adam C. Jones
Communication Faculty Publications
The researchers adopted a dialectical perspective to study how stepchildren experience and communicatively manage the perception of feeling caught in the middle between their parents who are living in different households. The metaphor of being caught in the middle is powerful for stepchildren and this metaphor animated their discourse. A central contribution of the present study was to understand the alternative to being caught in the middle and what this alternative means to stepchildren. Reflected in the discourse of stepchildren is that to feel not caught in the middle is to feel centered in the family. Stepchildren's desire to be …
Bereaved Parents' Negotiation Of Identity Following The Death Of A Child, Paige W. Toller
Bereaved Parents' Negotiation Of Identity Following The Death Of A Child, Paige W. Toller
Communication Faculty Publications
This study examines changes in bereaved parents’ identities following the death of a child. The bereaved parents in this study experienced two dialectical contradictions of identity, which are: (a) a parent without a child to parent and (b) I’m an outsider- I’m an insider. Results describe how parents used communication to negotiate these contradictions of identity. Implications for the study of parental bereavement, communication, and identity are discussed.