Stepfamilies Doing Family: A Meta-Ethnography

The present review examines how stepfamily members without a shared history co-construct a shared family identity and what family processes are relevant in this stepfamily formation. Three databases (Web of Science, PsycInfo, and ProQuest) were systematically searched, resulting in 20 included qualitative studies. The meta-ethnography approach of Noblit and Hare allowed synthesizing these qualitative studies and constructing a comprehensive framework of stepfamilies doing family. Three interdependent family tasks were identified: (a) honoring the past, (b) marking the present, and (c) investing in the future. Stepfamily members' experiences of these family tasks are strongly affected by the dominant societal perspectives and characterized by an underlying dialectical tension between wanting to be like a first-time family and feeling the differences in their family structure at the same time. These findings clearly demonstrate the family work that all stepfamily members undertake and provide a broader context for interpreting stepfamilies' co-construction of a new family identity.