| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 社會工作學研究所 === 102 === In the thinking of symbolic interactionism, Mead(1934) argued that an individual often understood the society and self through the role taking. Due to the complexity of social activities, an individual developed two sides of self, the “I” and the “me.”The “me” represented the expectations and attitudes of others’, the generalized other. The “I” is the response to the “me” or the person’s individuality. Through the two interacting and influencing each other, an individual behaved accordingly to the different expectations of the society.
Male single parents have been under-representative among help seekers toward social welfare agencies. Based on the theory of symbolic interactionism, this study explores what kind of difficulties male single parents experience when taking the role of social welfare help-seekers. Due to the complexity of the phenomenon, this study adopted a qualitative approach using indepth interviewing as data collecting methods. This study interviewed five male single parents who once sought needy assistance toward social welfare agencies. They were referred by social workers from social welfare agencies. They were helped with a history of less than half years who could still remember the help-seeking experience back then.
Results indicated that male single parents interviewed expressed the stress of role overload and experienced difficulties of help seeking in terms of role taking as help-seekers. In role interpretation, the internal minds shaped by traditional culture or norm of male role, male single parents experienced internal conflicts to seek help from social welfare agencies. But economic stress and child care burden force them to seek help outside when informal social assistance was used up or unavailable. They explained the help-seeking as compromising and adjusting from an independent role as males in Chinese culture toward a caring and responsible father to his child best interest. Implications and suggestions are included to call for a more male friendly social welfare system.
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