Type of Document Dissertation Author Davis-Sowers, Regina Louise Author's Email Address rdavis2@student.gsu.edu URN etd-07242006-140208 Title Salvaging Children's Lives: Understanding the Experiences of Black Aunts Who Serve as Kinship Care Providers within Black Families Degree Ph.D. Department Sociology Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Ralph E. LaRossa Committee Chair Charles A. Gallagher Committee Member Elisabeth O. Burgess Committee Member Romney S. Norwood Committee Member Keywords
- Salvaging children's lives
- Black women
- Black families
- Kinwork
- Kinship care provider
- Black aunts
Date of Defense 2006-06-19 Availability unrestricted Abstract
Previous research on grandparents as kinship care providers demonstrated that grandparents are confronted with both challenges and rewards. Using qualitative research methods, I examined the lives of 35 black aunts who served as kinship care providers for nieces and nephews. I found that grandparents and aunts experienced increased time demands, financial burdens, and family stress. However, this study demonstrated that aunts’ experiences differ from grandparents’, due to the younger age of aunts and the fact that aunts are of the same generation as the biological parents. Moreover, I found that aunting, or the care and nurture of children by aunts and great-aunts, is gendered and invisible work that, at the most basic level, salvages children’s lives. Salvaging children’s lives involved three non-linear stages: making the decision to become a kinship care provider, transitioning from aunting to parenting, and parenting nieces and nephews. I utilized a synthesis of symbolic interactionism and black feminist thought as a theoretical framework that examines how the meanings that black women attach to family influence their definitions of self and affect their decisions to act on behalf of family members. These findings extend the research on black women’s lives and on kinship care within black families. I used a narrative style that allows the respondents’ voices to be heard, as these are their stories. I offer suggestions for future research, as well as outline a number of policy and theoretical implications. This research is important because black children are disproportionately represented within the child welfare system. If interventions and policies are to influence other black women or black men to accept responsibility for many of the most at-risk children in their families and neighborhoods, research must explore and report the challenges, sacrifices, costs, and rewards of becoming kinship care providers within black families.
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