Three Bunun Grandmothers’ Caring Experiences and Social Support Networks

• Main Authors: Yu-Fang Hsu, 許毓芳
• Other Authors: 劉淑瓊
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2013
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/82605625046863972284

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 社會工作學研究所 === 101 === Because of changes in economy and social values, more and more parents are unable or unwilling to raise their children due to negligence, abuse, divorce, death and so on. Grandparents need to be children’s surrogate parents in this circumstance instead of just complimentary roles. Aboriginal grand parenthood are more likely to be labeled as dysfunction or powerlessness, however, there are only ten related study in Taiwan. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to provide a comprehensive picture of these grandparents’ caring experiences and social support networks for establishing a more culturally-sensitive social welfare system. In order to describe their experiences thoroughly , this research was conducted in a Bunun indigenous tribe in Taitung by purposive sampling and three grandmothers were chosen as examples. By participant observation and in-depth interview methods, viewpoints from grandmothers, local primary school teachers, residents and social workers were collected, with 14 respondents in total. The qualitative results indicate that these grandmothers chose to raise their grandchildren owing to several limited reasons, the three major of which are: 1) risky incidents happening in children’s own families, 2) grandmothers’ subjective perceptions, and 3) conventional cultural factors. Rather than living up their cozy later years, they had to face tremendous challenges like sudden changes in their daily routines, grandchildren disciplining issues as well as intergenerational triads in the families. Nevertheless, they still received some resources from formal and informal social support networks. Resource availability and effectiveness were taken into consideration when they tried to seek help. Besides, some grandmothers had experienced ineffectiveness from formal resources, so they tended to count on trustworthy informal network members, who could also connect other formal resources if necessary. In addition, grandmothers’ attitudes towards those resources were depended on the relationships between them and the network members. The research reveals that aboriginal grandparents not only experience “generation gap” but also “cultural gap” between the mainstream society and their conventional one, which makes their caring experiences more different from non-aboriginal grandparents’. However, the spirit of sharing and mutual help in indigenous tribes is an enormous advantage displayed among residents. Through open physical space and open relationship, this informal social support network succeeds to support these grandparents. Based on the research results, some policies and service implications are provided.