FAMILY STANDS FOR FATHER AND MOTHER I LOVE YOU: A QUALITITIVE STUDY ON DIVERSITY IN RESILIENCE EXPERIENCES FOR CHILDREN FROM DIVORCED FAMILIES

Abstract

This thesis is a qualitative study on children’s post-divorce resilience experiences. Drawing on 23 semi-structured interviews, it uncovers how the internal diversity in sociodemographic backgrounds and post-divorce experiences result in varying magnitudes and patterns of resilience for children from divorced families. This thesis takes reference from Bourdieu’s Capital framework to understand intergenerational divorce penalties through the loss of economic capital, Goffman’s Dramaturgical Analysis to demonstrate how children from divorced families negotiate their responses and performances to the external world based on signs and symbols they receive, and Bourdieu’s Habitus perspective, to illustrate how divorce can be transmitted intergenerationally. Findings show diversity in children’s post-divorce resilience, across family socioeconomic status, age, gender and the child’s community support. This thesis also strives to demonstrate resilience in both tangible and quantifiable means, such as an improvement financially or academically, and intangible means such as emotionally or psychologically recovering from the divorce. However, children from divorced families tend to hold unfavourable opinions on marriage and parenthood, which signifies an intergenerational transmission of divorce.