M. Chad McBride

“Parent Teams” and the Everyday Interactions of Co-parenting in Stepfamilies

Family scholars have yet to explore substantially the day‐to‐day interactions of stepfamily systems. Our focus was on the everyday interactions of parent teams, adults who are co‐parenting within different stepfamily households, describing the characteristics of their communication. Twenty‐two parents, stepparents, and partners (N = 22) kept diaries for two weeks, each time they interacted with an adult in the other household. Results detail the frequency, timing, location, and length of interactions; initiator, channel, and topics; and reasons for interaction. Interactions were short, everyday encounters rather than extended, planned meetings. The majority of the interactions were via telephone, followed by face‐to‐face and electronic mail. Participants cited convenience and proximity as reasons for choosing these channels. The majority of topics discussed involved issues surrounding the children, involved little conflict, and adults were moderately satisfied with the interactions. Results suggest that these parent teams had achieved a state of equilibrium and developed ways to interact that worked reasonably well.

The divorce decree, communication, and the structuration of coparenting relationships in stepfamilies

Using Giddenss (1984) structuration theory, this study explored the communicative processes surrounding the divorce decree in coparenting relationships in stepfamilies. Participants included 21 adults who were coparenting children in stepfamilies who completed diary entries of all interactions with coparents over a 2-week period, and who completed follow-up interviews. Results revealed two structures of signification with respect to the divorce decree that enabled and constrained coparenting interactions. The first signification structure was one in which the decree was framed as a legal document, dictating the rights and responsibilities of parenting, especially with respect to child access and financial issues. The second signification structure was one in which the decree was viewed as a negotiating guide for more informal coparental decision-making processes.

The Jesuit Difference (?): Narratives of Negotiating Spiritual Values and Secular Practices

ABSTRACT We detail the experiences of a department of six faculty members in negotiating spirituality in a Jesuit, Catholic University. Grounding our work in “co-constructed narrative” as a method, we utilize narratives gathered through self-reflection, conversation, and interviews to elucidate how contradictory conditions are created through competing discourses of spiritual values and secular practices. These competing discourses create tensions of (a) embracing/resisting, (b) inclusion/exclusion, and (c) proclamation/silence. Faculty narratives revealed the ways they frame and negotiate these tensions in their attempts to construct their identities in relation to the organization and its values. Dialogic theory (Bahktin, 1981 1986 1993) is utilized to interpret faculty narratives as well as offer new directions for organizational communication theorizing.

Becoming "Point and Click" Parents: A Case Study of Communication and Online Adoption

The purpose of this article is to describe the discourse of an adoption online Web site using thematic content analysis. Using the Web site adoptiononline.com as a case study, we discuss potential implications of this new medium on both the construction of family and the adoption process itself. Several themes emerged during our analysis that help family communication scholars better understand online communication in the process of adoption: suburban family myths, online as utopia, and child as cyber commodity. These themes suggest a shift in focus from the child to the birth and adoptive parents in the adoption process, as well as what it means to be family. Implications of our analysis for future directions for inquiry for family communication researchers are discussed.

Voices of women in commuter marriages A site of discursive struggle

The goal of the present study was to examine the sites of discursive struggle in the talk of commuter wives and how the interpenetration of discourses construct meaning for those in the commuter marriage. Fifty individual interviews were analyzed using contrapuntal analysis to examine competing discourses. From our analysis, two sites of discursive struggle emerged from the talk of commuter wives about their marital relationships: (a) discursive struggles of integration and (b) discursive struggles of conventionality. The voices of these participants responded to and anticipated both distal (cultural) and proximal (relational) discourses along the utterance chain constructing meaning around what it meant to be in a commuter marriage. Additionally, these data provided theoretical expansion in highlighting the understudied aspects of the distal not-yet-spoken in meaning construction surrounding relationships.

Saving face with family members: Corrective Facework after reconciling with a romantic partner

This purpose in the present study was to examine how people manage face needs when talking with family about a romantic relationship reconciliation. The researcher completed an inductive analysis from data collected from 26 in-depth interviews and found that participants accounted for their reconciliation through active corrective facework (by updating family and accounting for reconciliation) and passive corrective facework (by choosing not to update family or account for reconciliation). The findings and interpretations shed light: (a) on how corrective facework is performed in ongoing relationships rather than one-time interactions or hypothetical situations, (b) the intersection between accounts and facework, and (c) the complexities of corrective facework.

Participant Observation: Teaching Students the Benefits of Using a Framework

Course Introduction to Communication Research or Qualitative Research Objective To teach students the purpose and benefits of using a framework for observation.

Work Spouses: Defining and Understanding a ''New'' Relationship

Despite a spate of media attention in recent years and implications for both work and family relationships, communication scholars have yet to study work-spouse relationships. Since popular press sources have often focused on the nature of and propriety of such relationships, the purpose of this study was to empirically examine how work spouses characterized their relationships. We analyzed 269 participants’ open-ended responses to a survey, which yielded five categories: (a) characteristics of a work spouse, (b) conditions for the work-spouse relationship, (c) characteristics of the work-spouse relationship, (d) functions of work spouses, and (e) ways of managing the work-spouse relationship. From this analysis, we construct a definition of the relationship and chart a course of future research for communication scholars.

“—ing” Project: Encouraging Cohesion in Small Groups

Objective: To encourage cohesiveness in small groups at the beginning of the semester Course: Small Group or other courses with a group componentObjective: To encourage cohesiveness in small groups at the beginning of the semester Course: Small Group or other courses with a group component