Child support and women's experience : a narrative approach to a social problem

• Main Author: King, Kimberly M.
• Other Authors: Stamp, Glen H.
• Format: Others
• Published: 2011
• Subjects: Desertion and non-support > Public opinion.; Women > Communication.; Child support > Public opinion.; Single mothers > Attitudes.; Women > Social conditions.
• Online Access: http://cardinalscholar.bsu.edu/handle/handle/186087; http://liblink.bsu.edu/uhtbin/catkey/1045620

Research has shown that both males and females agree that child-support payments should be consistent. However, census bureau data has indicated that nonpayment of child support is a significant problem in the United States. This study investigated the ways in which females make sense of the phenomenon of child support nonpayment via the construction of personal narratives.Ten adult females were interviewed to obtain stories of child-support nonpayment. The interviews were recorded and transcribed and discrete narratives were isolated for analysis. The constant comparative method was used to compare and contrast the data in order to discover the themes inherent to the process of sense-making through the construction of personal narratives.The analysis revealed three categories of narratives of child-support nonpayment: Action, Coping, and Prescriptive. The findings suggested that each of the categories revealed salient dimensions (i.e., themes) inherent to those categories. Furthermore, these themes were utilized to assign meaning to, and hence make sense of, the experience of child-support nonpayment. === Department of Speech Communication