Care as a motive for families’ information work

Ortiz-Myers, Maria

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/110895 Copy

Description

Title

Care as a motive for families’ information work

Author(s)

Ortiz-Myers, Maria

Issue Date

2021-09-20

Keyword(s)

• Collaborative information behavior
• Families
• Parents
• Information seeking motives

Abstract

Qualitative interviews with a small number of parents of transgender and non-binary youth reveal that for some, their child’s gender identity disclosure is unexpected and difficult to understand. Families respond to their loved one’s gender diversity and accompanying relational changes by prioritizing their shared humanity and concentrating on caring for the individual. Care appears to be an important motive for information behavior that (1) influences attribution of cognitive authority and source selection; (2) leads to the production of information artifacts that mediate interpersonal information exchanges; (3) prompts undertaking of information mediary roles; and (4) persists after a level of acceptance is achieved. Evidence also suggests that parents and youth enact collaborative knowledge-building. The development of a dissertation framework and mixed-method study (envisioned to include web-based survey and semi-structured interviews) is complicated by questions of how to design research that captures data that demonstrates information collaboration in families, what constitutes an appropriate unit of analysis, how to recruit a meaningfully diverse participant pool, and how to differentiate information behavior from information practice. This work seeks to illuminate the information needs of transgender and non-binary young people and their supporters and to reveal the potential that caring interactions offer as research contexts. A final objective is to demonstrate the value of care ethics as a foundation for LIS pedagogy directed at equipping LIS leaders with the necessary resilience to meet their communities’ critical needs in the face of the unexpected.

Series/Report Name or Number

• Information seeking
• Information use
• Information needs

Type of Resource

Text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/110895

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