• 한국노년학
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• v.36 no.3
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• pp.525-540
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• 2016

The purpose of this study was to investigate what kind of experiences the deaf elderly would have in the course of life. It also aimed to promote the understanding of their living difficulties and culture among people with normal hearing and provide basic data to help them live with others as members of the community. Phenomenological qualitative research was conducted as part of the methodology. The subjects include seven deaf old people. Based on the results of in-depth interview and analysis, the life experiences of the deaf elderly were categorized into "unforgettable wounds," "life in the community," "life with the family," "marriage of the deaf elderly", and "living by adjusting to reality." First, the subcategories of "unforgettable wounds" include "receiving no treatment for fever," "damage by the Korean War," "alienation from the family," and "people's cold eyes." It turned out that the deaf elderly had led a life, suffering from the heart wounds that they could not forget. Second, the subcategories of "life in the community" include "inconvenience in life," "disadvantages in life," and "severed life." The deaf elderly were not only subjected to inconvenience and disadvantages in life, but also suffered loneliness, being cut off from the community. Third, the subcategories of "life with the family" include "not communicating with children," "being abandoned again," "being used by the family," "being lonely even with the family," and "wishing to live independently from the family." The deaf elderly were not supported by their families and were abandoned or used by them, leading a solitary life. Fourth, the subcategories of "marriage of the deaf elderly" include"send as a surrogate mother," "frequent remarriage and divorce," "lean on as a married couple." Deaf elderly form their own culture of the marriage and lean on each other. Finally, the subcategories of "living by adjusting to reality" include "getting help from neighbors," "behaving oneself right in life," "learning Hangul," "living by working," "living freely," "living by missing," and "controlling the impulse to end life," "resorting to religion." The deaf elderly made the most alienated and vulnerable group with no access to benefits due to their limitations as a linguistic and social minority, but they made efforts to form their own culture and adjust to reality for themselves. Based on those findings, the study made the following proposals: first, there is a need for practical approaches to heal the ineffaceable wounds in the hearts of deaf elderly. Second, there is a need for policies to help them experience no inconvenience and disadvantages as members of community and communicate with people with normal hearing. Third, there should be practical approaches to enable them to get recognition and support from their families and share love with them. Finally, there should be practical policy approaches to help people with normal hearing understand the culture of deaf elderly and assist the deaf elderly to receive supports from the community and live with others within the community.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.47 no.4
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• pp.11-24
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• 2009

This study aims to analyze families and the kinship concepts in Korean laws based on meanings, boundaries, and functions. Korean culture is in the process of changing from traditional familism to democratic individualism, yet this is not a simple transition. In recent times, many people have come to look at family life from both traditional and individual perspectives, so their family values are inconsistent with each other. Therefore, this creates many family conflicts. As a result of this problem, I have analyzed families and the kinship concepts in Korean laws based on meanings, boundaries, and functions. Because laws regulate and reflect our everyday life, it is meaningful to review these laws. The results are as follow: First, the meaning of family in Korean laws is to respect other family members, and democratic family relationships. Second, the family boundaries are very different depending on the laws. The core boundary is the nuclear family, but in addition to the nuclear family, the parents of the wife and husband, the family of origin and the kin living together are included in the family member regulations. Third, the functions of the family are caring, education, rules for the living place, child discipline, supporting each other, guardianship for the family members, succession of family assets, and legal accusation rights. Kinship plays an important role in determining child guardianship, permission of a minor to marry, and authority over legal incompetency. Therefore, there are some contradictions between individualism and patriarchy in Korean laws, and these can have an influence on the conflicts between family members in the everyday life.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.253-264
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• 2004

The objective of this study was to investigate the change of the level of the performance of family rituals and socialization of them, and to compare the change of the attitudes between daughter and mother generation. Research data were collected in 1992 and 2002 from families living in Seoul. Housewives and university students from these families completed the questionnaires. Major findings were as follows: Most of the family performed the birthday parties, traditional rituals, and memorial days. The level of the performance of the birthday rituals, and rituals from western culture has increased for a decade. The socialization of the following family rituals is increasing: banquets for parents' 60th birthday, wedding anniversaries, employment ceremony, commencement ceremony. There was significant difference in the attitude between younger and older generations regarding performance of the family rituals between 1992 and 2002.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.10 no.3
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• pp.185-200
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• 1995

In this survey, we investigated the way of thinking about meal management of housewives including the sincerity to meal preparation, the eating practices and cronic degenerative diseases related dietary behaviors, and studied the effects of above factors on the real food intakes. We also investigated the trends of health-foods and nutrient supplements usage. The results obtained from 506 housewives in Seoul were summarized as follows. Although our subjects prepared their meals habitually without special concern, they did not prefer the use of convenient foods. The food prefrence of housewivess who had more child and refered higher life status was similar with other family members. The dietary attitudes were good in large family, the higher income and the more child group. The highly educated group skipped breakfast more frequently. The mealmanagers with better education career and good living status considered for the restriction of salty foods, sweet foods, animal fats and pungent foods, and for the nutritionally balanced diet. The high income group showed great concerns about weight gain at meal times. The nutritional qualities expressed by the frequency of food group intakes were high in the better educated and living status groups, and their eating frequencies of animal protein foods and calcium sources were significantly high. Mealmanagers who had no job intaked vegetable oils through frying foods frequently. The use of health-foods and nutrient supplements was influenced by age, educational and economic level and self-estimated living status, but the trends in prevalence of both were not consistent. Health-foods were prefered by the groups of high educational career, affluent income and advanced living status, and low educational career, low income and low living status groups favored the nutrient supplements. The restrictive intake of animal fat and the use of health-food were positively correlated, which seemed that the subjects used health-foods as supplements in compensation for nutritional unbalance caused by the avoidance of animal protein foods.

• Journal of the Korean Home Economics Association
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• v.40 no.5
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• pp.79-94
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• 2002

The family concepts and values are investigated in this research, using data from a sample of 999 residents aged 14 to 89 years in Seoul. The results indicate that the family concepts of the subjects imply marital and/or parent-child relationships with normative gender role. People tend to regard divorced, remarried, and adopted members as famines, while classifying gay/lesbian couples, members living together in a communal fashion, and single households into nonfamily groups. People evaluate that the current Korean family doesn't adequately meet the functional needs of families in emotional support, solidarity, recreation, leisure, social and economic security, and generational transmission of culture. More conclusions and implications are discussed.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.75-89
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• 2010

The purpose of the study is to integrate multi-cultural families with special needs and situations into family living and Korean social groups. Nowadays there has been an increase in the number of international marriages. According to these changes, there are a variety of social problems such as cultural conflicts, domestic violence, difficulty in communication, and bad relationships between family members because of misunderstandings. These social problems can be alleviated by a family integration education program for multi-cultural families. This program was developed in order to help immigrant women in their initial settlement and to provide them with information on mutual culture of family living. The contents of the program consist of how to live a harmonious, understanding and hopeful family life. The method of evaluation is to survey the immigrant women's self esteem and conduct an interview. The results of the evaluation are to promote a positive relationship between family members. Also the family agreed to promote favorable sentiments toward each other. The program also had meaningful consequences for the improvement of the immigrants' realistic expectation of marriage and conflict resolution skills. I am hopeful that more elaborate programs for multi-cultural families will be developed in order to maximize the effect with appropriate education and support systems.

• Journal of Convergence for Information Technology
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• v.9 no.5
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• pp.235-242
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• 2019

we explored the case of 'H-Community', a private organization that supports alcohol-dependent homeless people living in the Jokbang village, based on the awareness that "the key to social assistance for alcohol-dependent homeless may be an influential relationship to replace the role of their families." The data collection and analysis followed the research that Spradley presented, and the result was 'living in the balance rather than the great affection'. However, the density of the relationship and emotional bond appeared different, which had something to do with their respective life processes and their health, age and economic conditions. These differences were categorized and suggested as arguments through 'a family-alternative relationship', 'emotional bond' and 'participation'. Based on the results, the conclusions presented the implications needed for alcohol-dependent homeless people.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.217-228
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• 2017

This paper examined the effects of children's interests and attitudes toward mother's native culture and use of mother's native language on satisfaction of the mother-child relationship in multi-cultural families. Data from the 2012 National Survey of Multi-cultural Families demonstrate that for children aged between 9 and 12 years, their fluency and desire to speak well in the mother's native language as well as father's encouragement for using the mother's native language at home were positively associated with satisfaction of the mother-child relationship. For those aged between 13 and 18 years, mother's nationality (i.e. Southeast or South Asia) was negatively related with mother-child relationship satisfaction. Both mother's and children' communication skills, children's interests in mother's native culture, pride for mother being a foreigner, and desire to speak well in the mother's native language were positively associated with mother-child relationship satisfaction. Therefore, there is a need for foreign wives to be educated in Korean language and culture as well as opportunities for children to learn their mother's native culture and language.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
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• v.28 no.3
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• pp.272-281
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• 2013

To study the importance of family meals in adolescents, 251 middle school students were surveyed through a questionnaire on their family meal patterns, dietary behaviors, food intake, and life satisfaction. The family meals were defined as "meals with all family members living together" by 62.2% of the students. For the frequency of family meals, 42.2% of the students replied having family meals "More than once a day". A common reason for the difficulty in having a family meal was a "lack of time" (73.3% of the students). Students tended to respond that they would be most fond in having meals with entire family members with traditional Korean food. Having more frequent family meals was found to benefit both individual and familial dietary behavior. In terms of food intake according to the frequency of family meals, the group having frequent family meals consumed significantly more rice, tofu, legumes, meats, fishes, eggs, green vegetables, seaweeds, fruits, milk, and milk products. This indicates that students can achieve a balanced diet through family meals. In terms of emotional status, the group having more frequent family meals showed a higher satisfaction with their daily life, health, nutritional status, and care from their relatives. In terms of personal mental status, the group having more frequent family meals was also found to be more effective at controlling undesirable emotions such as loneliness, indignation, and lethargy. As a result of this study, students in the group having more frequent family meals were found to have a positive dietary behavior, a balanced nutrition, a higher life satisfaction, and a more stable mental status. This result is useful as nutritional and educational information in schools to impress upon the public the importance of family meals for adolescents.

• Journal of Families and Better Life
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.89-105
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• 2009

A family resilience approach aims to identify and fortify key interactional processes that enable families to withstand and rebound from disruptive life challenges. Walsh(1998) described family belief systems, organizational patterns, and communication processes as the three main keys of family resilience. The purpose of this study was to identify the three key factors of family resilience in case of divorced female single-parent families in Korea. The study participants were seven divorced mothers who were living in the institutional facility for female single-parent families. Using a qualitative approach, in-depth interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim for analysis. The study findings were as follows. First, the participants showed positive thinking rather than fear about the adversity induced by the divorce. They also showed the senses of competence, control, and self-esteem. However, the senses of transcendence and spirituality were barely evident. Second, emotional and economic supports from parents, brothers and sisters, and community networks (i.e., mother-child protection institution, healthy family support center) enhanced the family resilience of the participants. Third, the participants showed clear communication, open emotional expression, and shared decision making. This study suggests that more counseling services and parent education be provided by healthy family support center and institutional facilities as important family resilience factors for divorced female single-parent families who are below the poverty line.