Young Adult Stepchildren's Lived Experience Of Blended Family Adjustment During Adolescence: A Retrospective Descriptive Phenomenological Analysis
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract\n \nBlended family adjustment is a common experience for many children and adolescents, given the commonality of blended families in our current times (Arat & Poortman, 2023; Ganong et al., 2020; George & Fernandez, 2014). The 2021 Canadian Census data showed that there were more than 500,000 blended families in Canada (Statistics Canada, 2022). Stepchildren in blended families, specifically adolescents, are members of the blended family most adversely impacted by blended family formation (Papernow, 2013; 2018). Despite the volume of valuable empirical literature on blended families and stepchildren (Ganong and Coleman, 2017; Hoffmann, 2002, 2006; Jeynes, 2007; Tillman, 2007; van Eeden-Moorefield & Pasley, 2013), there remains a gap in the literature that directly explores adolescent stepchildren’s experiences of blended families. To address this gap, this qualitative study sought to explore the lived experiences of young adults about their experiences of blended families and the phenomenon of adjusting to blended family life during this developmental milestone. Young adults were also asked to convey what might have hindered or assisted them in this process.\nUsing descriptive phenomenology, this study explored adult stepchildren’s experience of blended family adjustment during adolescence (12 to 17 years old) while residing in Canada to gain insight into the nuances of blended family adjustment experience and considerations that might facilitate or impede adjustment to blended family life according to them. Using a Hesserlian descriptive phenomenological paradigm and Colaizzi’s method of phenomenological data analysis, eight participants’ interviews were transcribed, coded and analyzed. The in-depth interviews yielded four major themes: emotional responses to blended family formation, intricacies of blended family relationships, effectively navigating changes, and strengths and challenges stemming from blended family life. A textural description emerged that captured the phenomena of blended family adjustment during adolescence for stepchildren. The structural description of blended family adjustment for stepchildren was experiences through realization, rearrangement, reestablishment, rewards and retributions. Furthermore, the textural and structural descriptions were integrated to create the essence of blended family adjustment for adolescent stepchildren. The findings' implications for social work and other helping practitioners are also discussed. Future research is offered to build on the experiences of adolescents’ voices.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".