Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to submit your manuscript to SPPS

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Weaver, S. E.
Right arrow Articles by Coleman, M.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

A mothering but not a mother role: A grounded theory study of the nonresidential stepmother role

Shannon E. Weaver

University of Connecticut, shannon.weaver{at}uconn.edu

Marilyn Coleman

University of Missouri

We propose a model based on grounded theory depicting how women construct the roles of nonresidential stepmothers. Eleven middle-class stepmothers identified three general roles: mothering but not mother roles, other-focused roles, and outsider roles. These roles were influenced by issues relating to the biological mothers, their spouses, their stepchildren, their own biological children, extended kin, and experiences external to the family. When enacting their roles as stepmother, they encountered issues surrounding a perceived lack of control and ambiguous role perceptions. Positive evaluations of role enactments were credited to their step-children; failures to the stepchildren’s and the stepmothers’ own behaviors. A central concept that tied these categories together and overshadowed factors in role conceptualization, experiences in role enactment, and evaluation of role performance was the ideology of motherhood.

Key Words: grounded theory • nonresidential stepmothers • remarriage • stepfamilies

Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, Vol. 22, No. 4, 477-497 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0265407505054519
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Journal of Social and Personal RelationshipsHome page
A. J. Johnson, K. B. Wright, E. A. Craig, E. S. Gilchrist, L. T. Lane, and M. M. Haigh
A model for predicting stress levels and marital satisfaction for stepmothers utilizing a stress and coping approach
Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, February 1, 2008; 25(1): 119 - 142.
[Abstract] [PDF]