Black Grandparents as the Primary Caregivers and the Symbol Interaction Theory

Objective Summary of the Theory

Symbolic Interaction theory is the idea that people react to situations and define them based on their own personal experiences and symbols that they know and learn. Two or more people can be in the exact same situation but can define that situation in completely different ways from each other. Symbolic Interaction has four main principal scholars, Charles Horton Cooley, Herbert Blumer, George Herbert Mead, and William Isaac Thomas, who each interpret symbolic interaction in their own view. In symbolic interaction, there are three main themes developed that are the basic assumptions for the theory. Meaning is when as a society, everyone learns about meaning through the interactions they make/or have with others. Once people interact with others and different things, they develop different experiences and make value judgments about what it is that they are learning. Self-concept states that when individuals develop their own sense of self, that will provide a boost for motivation for one’s future behavior. Society influence states that as a society, we are already born into environments that have identified symbols and values for us. In cultural contexts, people learn these social norms through everyday interactions.

Symbolic Interaction Theory has many different concepts that can be interpreted into its theory. This theory uses symbols as products of social interaction. These symbols guide how each person reacts differently to certain situations. Gestures are also used as a way to represent something else that has a meaning to it. These could range from waving your hand, raising your hand, etc. There are also social norms which provide a guide of how people should and should not act in certain situations. Another concept would be rituals, which are ideas that can come together in families. Rituals explain how families celebrate holidays and who ends up doing which activity at each holiday event. With that being said, Symbolic Interaction theory is a central element of our human behavior.

Objective Summary of the Article

The goal of the article “Grandma’s Hands: Black Grandmothers Speak About Their Experiences Rearing Grandchildren On TANF” by Henderson and Cook, is to find out how these black grandmothers experience becoming a primary caregiver for their grandchild and how well their ability is to care for that child under the TANF program. Grandmothers have always played a role in the support and preservation in Black families in situations where parents were not able to care for their children. The methods of this study were conducted with 20 grandparent-led families on TANF in two Virginia counties that were drawn from child-only cases. The grandmothers were between the ages of 39-70+ and their education level ranged from 7th grade to college degrees. These grandparents were interviewed with open-ended questions that explored the “demographic characteristics, food, security, social support resources…personal views… about TANF” (p. 6). There were also personal interviews conduction within each grandparents’ home. The two authors used the Grounded Theory Methods, which is an approach that allowed the research to “reveal the nature of individuals’ experiences and to understand what lies behind a phenomenon about which little is known” (p. 6). This allowed them to create categories and linkages between the grandmother’s experiences with TANF, their views toward TANF and poverty, and the responsibilities of TANF.

The outcomes of the study were that grandmothers were underrepresented among the current sample of welfare recipients. Their experiences with TANF were that the program provided insufficient money and social support resources for them. The grandmothers were faced with time constraints that affected their ability to balance work and family with TANF policies. Many of them did not disassociate themselves with welfare recipients because they needed all the additional help they could get. Black grandmothers had to sacrifice a lot of things in their life to be able to parent their grandchildren. The conclusions of the study were that grandparent-led families rely on TANF for additional help to support their parenting efforts in raising their grandchildren but isolate themselves from other TANF recipients. TANF undermines the contributions of grandparents rearing their grandchildren. The Black grandmothers in the research study do not see themselves as part of the negative stigma that society associates them with because they are on welfare and using TANF for additional assistance.

Discussion of the Application of the Theory to Research

The researchers, Henderson and Cook, used Symbolic Interaction theory to understand the symbols and meanings attached to the words welfare, poverty, and poor families, as well as decoding the grandmothers’ policy recommendations on TANF through social norms, roles and interactions. The researchers used the grandmother’s experiences with TANF to understand their role as becoming a primary caregiver for their grandchildren. The grandmothers talked about how they had to take on a role of being a primary caregiver, that they did not know came with benefits, such as TANF or other welfare programs. They were also asked how they differed from other welfare recipients. The reasons they gave was because of them not knowing anything about TANF before they became a primary caregiver, social norms related to work since some of them were unable to work, and compliance with family norms. They also had to take on a new identity of being a primary caregiver to help raise their grandchild because the parents were unable to. Black grandmothers had interactions with their family because of their role in the support and maintenance in Black families. This allowed them to be able to become a caregiver to help the parents’ out with raising their child while they are unable to. Having grandmothers help out parents who are facing many struggles at the time, allows that child to grow up in a healthy environment. With that being said, the researchers learned that grandmothers had to take on huge loads of personal responsibility in order to raise their grandchildren, so they would not get put in to foster care. They had to make personal sacrifices, which shows the researchers that the meaning of family is much more important to the grandmothers than their own personal wishes.

Conclusion

While writing this paper, it opened up my eyes to how certain phrases and activities have meanings and symbols attached to them that one would not normally think of. These meanings have been re-constructed throughout society. We end up learning these meanings in society through everyday interactions within societal culture. I learned that society creates approaches to address certain phrases that go hand-in-hand with social norms. For example, parents are expected to be responsible for their own children and to not provide on government assistance, such as welfare, TANF, etc. I learned the Symbolic Interaction Theory can be used to assess many different situations when it comes to research and apply meaning, self-concept, and society influence of symbols in those situations to understand the views and meaning of them.

My assessment of the article is that it was well-organized and maintained a good amount of clarity. The article provided an introduction of Black grandparent caregivers that included statistics of comparison between Black, White and Hispanic grandparent-led homes. It also provided a background context of how Black grandparents operate in their families and what they are most known for. The article then provided the reader an explanation of TANF and how it works for families who need the assistance. After that, the article talked about the social construction of poverty and race, followed by the methods and results of the study, and ended with the conclusions of the study. I think the article is not useful in terms of representing Black grandmothers across different social aspects, such as regions, socioeconomic status, etc. The study was only done on a small group of Black grandmothers. It is useful of the Black grandmothers in Virginia that receive TANF, but a larger study needs to be done on all the different types of Black grandparent-led families.