Browsing by Subject "Uusperhe"

The aim of this study was to find out suppositions of stepfamily resources and stepfamily concepts of Internet discussions. Stepfamilies consist of a marriage or cohabiting partner and at least one child who is biologically related to only one adult in the family. Conceptual framework for this thesis is based on systems thinking and family resource management model which makes is possible to study stepfamilies from a holistic point of view. Resources of stepfamiles are devided into material and human resources. Material resources are home, means of transportation, clothing, food, money and time. Human resources are for example a family support network and identity work. The process of this study was based on hermeneutic principles. The data of this study was collected from Internet forums related to stepfamilies and it consisted of 25 threads, which consisted of 709 messages all together. Almost all narratives were written by mothers, stepmothers or mothers who were also stepmothers. The data was analysed by the methods of discourse analysis. The data was coded and divided into 305 small text clips. All the text clips were categorised for material and human resources. Human resources were categorised for internal and external relationships. According to the results of this study it was common to use neutral stepfamily concepts in the discussions threads. Time and money consuming or talking about home were typical topics of material resources in the discussions threads. In a stepfamily partners were managing their economy by joint or separate accounts or mixture of both ways. It was not possible to verify if the internal or external relationships of stepfamilies were more functional. The results of this thesis claims that in a unfunctional stepfamily there are issues in both internal and external relationships. In a challenging stepfamily there are issues in either internal or external relationships. In a functional stepfamily there are no significant issues in neither internal nor external relationships. The results of this thesis can be used in stepfamily interventions.