Grandchild Generations Research Articles

"With a hint she will remember": Collaborative Storytelling and Culture Sharing between Immigrant Grandparents and Grandchildren Via Magic Thing Designs

The timeless social activity of passing down oral stories preserves family memory, identity, values, and culture. Existing tools for family memories often take a techno-determinist approach by focusing on the mechanics of connecting families and the resulting documentation, rather than the social process of sharing stories and morals, and largely without considering the specific needs of immigrant families. For immigrant families, cultural exchange, particularly crucial across grandparent and grandchild generations, is threatened by the language and cultural barriers emerging from displacement and migration. As a result, immigrant grandparents and their young grandchildren struggle with fostering social kinship, leading to social disconnect and loss of cultural heritage. In our research, we collaborate with multi-generational and culturally-at-risk immigrant families through Participatory Design activities towards the design of reminiscence tools that support their needs focusing on language and cultural connection. We report on the designs created by families and propose design guidelines supporting cultural resilience, focusing on flexible, visual storytelling.

Environmental effects on trace elements in the fingernails of centenarians and their offspring

Bio-monitoring is commonly used to investigate trace elements, and the human nail provides an ideal medium for such testing. Toxic and essential trace metals (Cd, Pb, Fe, and Se) in the fingernails of participants from the Hainan Province were investigated. Samples included 136 centenarians and 197 offspring (101 older adult children and 96 middle-aged grandchildren) who were also sampled for comparison. As a hotspot for longevity, participants in the Hainan Province were found to have high essential nutrients of Fe and Se, and lacked the toxic element Pb. A similar trend was found for trace elements in soil and rice in the Hainan Province. The trace elements preserved in nails revealed dietary and environmental influences that varied among different generations. For the grandchildren's generation, the environment played an important role in elements in their nails, and a significant correlation and linear relationships were found, especially for Fe and Se. As the participants increased in age (from the grandchildren to the centenarians), the correlation between various elements decreased. For centenarians, the influence of beneficial or harmful properties of the elements became more important than their environment. The results also pointed to the important role of trace elements in human health, especially Fe and Se as essential elements. This study can provide information on the factors that influence the existence of trace elements in the human body and demonstrate the advantage of using the human fingernail in bio-monitoring.

Shared Lifetimes, Multigenerational Exposure, and Educational Mobility.

In this article, we report analyses of the effects of fertility and mortality trends on the mutual exposure of grandparents and grandchildren and their consequences for multigenerational processes of social mobility in the United States from 1900 to 2010. Using historical vital statistics and stable population models, we report systematic analyses of grandparent-grandchild exposures from both prospective (grandparent) and retrospective (grandchild) perspectives. We also estimate exposure levels and trends specific to education levels of grandparents and grandchildren and decompose the overall trend into the effect of changing mortality, fertility level, and fertility timing. We show that changes in mutual exposure of grandparent and grandchild generations may have contributed to an increasing association between grandparents' and grandchildren's educational attainments.

5. Attitudes on Investment in Descendants: Products of Evolution?

This study aims to examine intergenerational equity (concern for future generations) from a human evolutionary ecology perspective. The extent to which males and females differ in their concern about the welfare of future generations can be interpreted as a product of natural selection. We hypothesized that reproductive advantage is conferred upon males by discounting future generations and focusing on their immediate well being. Given that males potentially have many children, and do not invest the same resources in raising children, it is to their reproductive advantage to focus on the present and their own wellbeing, so that they can continue to reproduce. It is hypothesized that reproductive advantage would be conferred upon females who are concerned about future generations. Females potentially have fewer children and invest more in raising children. It is therefore more to their reproductive advantage to ensure that children survive to adulthood. Using a between‐subjects design online survey, emailed to individuals in the Queen's Community (Students, Staff, Faculty, and Alumni), we asked participants to indicate what proportion of available money ($10, 000 they received by chance) they would allocate to mitigating a hypothetical food crisis (collectivist option) versus to three “individualist” options. Participants were randomly assigned to hypothetical scenarios where the food crisis affected: the participant's generation, their children's generation, their grandchildren's generation, or their great‐ grandchildren's generation. In all four scenarios, we found that males invested significantly less in mitigating the food crisis than females. Additionally, we found that neither males nor females differed significantly between scenarios in the amount they invested in mitigating the food crisis.

What Is ‘Kariera’? Detecting Systems and Overlap in Australian Kinship Using the AustKin Database

Radcliffe‐Brown introduced the concept of a ‘Kariera’ type of kinship system in proposing his highly influential typology of Australian social organization, building on his earlier reports of fieldwork in the Pilbara of northern Western Australia, in which the Kariera (Kariyarra) people were taken to represent a widespread type. Radcliffe‐Brown's and other typologies of Australian kinship have generally disregarded the universalist categorizations (going back to Fison and Howitt's assignment of Kariera‐type systems to the Dravidian category), in favour of a scheme based on Australia alone. In the spirit of Radcliffe‐Brown's typology, we propose a diagnostic pattern of kinship term equivalences for grandkin such as FF = MMB (father's father is equivalent to mother's mother's brother), which can be operationalized in search‐map routines of a database known as AustKin and closely approximates to the set of systems generally recognized as ‘Kariera’. However another property of many Kariera grandkin systems which has been claimed to be criterial by some scholars – equivalence between grandkin and grandchild generations (+2 and −2), or Alternate Generation Equivalence – is shown to be more widespread than Kariera and independent of it. With regard to the −1 generation (children and niblings), the pattern among the Kariyarra and more generally in the western Pilbara and Western Desert (where ‘son’ and ‘daughter’ are distinguished) is radically different from the pattern found in the other ‘Kariera’ systems across the rest of the continent, (where ‘woman's child’ vs. ‘man's child’ is the prime distinction). This prompts analysis of the child patterns as independent of the Kariera system. This article also shows how the Kariera system is independent of the four‐section system with which it has been claimed to be related functionally, with sections being a later development. We also encounter overlaps, where more than one equivalence pattern intersect in one language, and overlays, where the variation between more than one equivalence also has social contextual functions. Examples of overlaps analysed here are (1) between Kariera and Aluridja (the Western Desert pattern with cross‐parallel neutralization); and (2) between Kariera and a more radical kind of Alternate Generation Equivalence, where parallel grandkin and grandchildren kin‐types are called siblings (generation 0).

The Co-residence of Elderly People with Their Children and Grandchildren

As a result of the increase in life expectancy in Western societies, the need for elderly people to live with their families (coresidence) is on the rise. The main objectives of this study were to determine the social perception of the advantages and drawbacks of coresidence with elderly people and establish the differences in this perception amongst the coresiding generations. A 20-item scale (Likert-type) was developed to determine beliefs on coresidence. A total of 414 subjects from three generations (207 young people, 146 adults and 61 elderly people) from 207 different families took part in the study. Results: the factorial analysis of the scale entitled “assessment conflict in coresidence with elderly people” (ACE) shows five factors that, together, account for 47.5% of the total variance. The results indicate that there are both positive and negative beliefs, although negative beliefs are the most prevalent. The most prominent positive belief was that the grandparents help to look after their grandchildren. Problems derived from living together and the lack of space were among the negative beliefs. The perception of coresidence with elderly people varied among the generations, and two different patterns were observed regarding the degree of agreement with the statements. In one pattern, the level of agreement gradually increased from the grandchildren generation to the grandparent generation. In the other in two generations, it was similar, and in the third it was different. In general, the parent generation (adults) had the most negative perception of coresidence with elderly people.

Brittle bones, pain and fractures – Lay constructions of osteoporosis among Norwegian women attending the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT)

Osteoporosis has been labelled the disease of the 21st century. Over the past couple of centuries there have been various notions of this disease in medicine. In the present medical discourse, the emphasis is on prevention rather than treatment, making osteoporosis into a major risk factor for bone fractures. In Norway, osteoporosis is a particularly prevalent condition, leading to bone mass measurements being included in several large health surveys. In a follow-up study of the second round of the Nord-Trøndelag Health Study (HUNT), women aged 55–75 years were invited to participate in focus groups to talk about their experiences in relation to their bone density measurements. Findings from these focus groups show that osteoporosis is perceived as a disease characterized by brittle bones, pain and fractures. The physical appearance of a hunchbacked old woman is a dominant way of portraying the disease. It is mainly perceived as prevalent among women, but evidence that men can get it is provided through the example of a famous male athlete who became osteoporotic. Causal explanations for the disease are dominated by culturally shaped anecdotal evidence wherein medical knowledge has been included. Limits to lay constructions of osteoporosis based on such evidence are discussed. Talking about osteoporosis across generations the women applied different explanations for the condition over time. In doing so, they also showed that they have adopted the morality of the new public health where the individual has control over her health through self-governance. Whereas this was no option for their grandmothers, their grandchildren's generation was seen as one failing to meet their obligations to become healthy citizens. The lay construction of osteoporosis can thus be seen as one that has developed from a situation where osteoporotic persons were perceived as victims of harsh circumstances to one of individual responsibility.

A Lifecourse Study of Stem Family Women in Rural Japan: A Comparison of the Changes over Three Generations

Abstract The aim of this study is to clarify the changes in the lifecourses of rural stem family women, and how they are influenced by society and the family. Our lifecourses are characterized by the sequence of events in our lifetime. Women's lifecourses are mainly influenced and varied by the experiences of marriage, childbirth and childcare. We used the event of marriage as the basis for finding how the lifecourses of three generations of women had changed. The Mother generation (MI refers to the parent; the Wife generation (W) refers to the child; and the Grandchild generations are the daughters (F) and Son's Wives (SW). Our findings revealed that the Agriculture Continuation type lifecourse had decreased with each generation. About 80% of (MI women helped on the family farm before marrying into another farming family, while this type no longer existed in the grandchild generations. The (W) women were the first to start working in various jobs (outside the farm) after graduating from their last schooling, but they usually quit their jobs after marriage. Many (SW) women followed this same pattern. Many (F) women also worked outside the farm after their last schooling, then became full-time housewives after marriage. Few women in the grandchild generation worked in agriculture when they were young. The lifecourses of (M) and (W) women followed basically a fixed pattern, but began to diversify for the grandchild generations, as their order of life events also diversified. Correlation and changes were found between society and individuals.

Interaction in three generation families, parents as mediators: toward a theoretical perspective.

This paper focuses on the development of a theoretical perspective within which it is possible to empirically define parental mediation in interactions between grandparents and grandchildren. Using socialization theory and studies conducted by the writer and a colleague, eight independent dimensions of parental mediation have been identified. This makes it possible to develop measurement indices for testing the postulate that parents act as mediators between the grandparent and grandchild generations in socializing both into their respective roles and thereby influencing the nature of their relationship.