First-Time Parents’ Urban and Online Social Arenas
With a salutogenic approach and qualitative methods this PHD study explores how first-time parents create, maintain and appropriate health-promoting urban and online social arenas. This is a new research area not examined before and in line with the core of the Ottawa Charter and the action area - the Settings Approach.
Background
Parents in Western cities of today are faced with a new reality on several levels: Interruption in lifestyle and in daily routines and practices when priority has to be given to a small child’s needs; New urbanized patterns of living where new demands, controls and constrains are imposed on the family and a critical and reflexive attitude becomes central to their existence. Moreover the concept of place is given a new meaning and no longer necessarily refers to one particular place but rather a network of places or communities with different meanings. These places may be stretched out over space and less dependent on traditional norms and values and might lead to fewer accessible face-to-face social support networks and reduced place dependency. Furthermore parents today find themselves in an inner-city where space is becoming increasingly commercialized and therefore real public space is a diminishing resource.
Being a first-time parent is a rewarding experience but also increases the risk of depression, loneliness and marginalization. One of the strongest health-enhancing factors for human beings is considered to be social support and the loss of social networks, after a child is born and a parent stays at home, can be devastating. Support from relatives and friends has been shown to be directly related to healthy parental practices and positive parenting and indirectly related to the quality of parent-child relations and family well-being. Making use of a salutogenic approach and a sociological and a health-promotion perspective, this study explores how first-time parents create, appropriate and maintain healthy community places as settings for this crucial social life.
Theoretical approach
Theories of everyday life and the “Production of Space” by Henri Lefebvre and Michel de Certeau have, so far, guided the planning of the study. It explores family communities in society today not from a pathogenic but a salutogenic approach – which medical sociologist Aaron Antonovsky’s initiated in the 1980’s. Pierre Bourdieu’s theories on social space and the concepts of cultural capital and habitus in particular, have already functioned as important concepts and theoretical approach. Last but not least Alfred Schutz’ and Thomas Luckmann’s phenomenological sociology is guiding me in my study of parents’ everyday life and how they make sense of parenthood.
Method and approach
A qualitative study design will be adopted and data gathered by using walking group interviews, group interviews and observations. Respondents will be recruited among Swedish-speaking parents in Southern Finland and in Gothenburg in Sweden. Two parallel studies will be conducted: One will investigate parents’ social arenas in urban settings; the other will explore parents’ online social arenas since social virtual communities are becoming important as settings for many parent’s social life. In view of the fact that both of these arenas seem to play an important role in creating a well-being for urban parents today the study explores how these arenas interconnect and support one another in the family’s daily lives.
For more information about the research project please contact Doctoral Student Ylva Rancken Lütz, ylva.rancken-lutz@folkhalsan.fi