“You’re saying something by giving things to them:” communication and family inheritance

Abstract

The study purpose was to contribute to a more complete understanding of the experience and meaning of family inheritance. The aim of this article is to describe and discuss the meaning of communication in inheritance experiences among Canadian families. A constructivist/ interpretive methodological approach guided this research. Participants were recruited through purposive, convenience sampling from two cities and one town in southern and southwestern Ontario, Canada.

Legacy Beliefs Across Generations: Comparing Views of Older Parents and Their Adult Children

“…Zanjani, Downer, Hosier, and Watkins (2014) embedded the model in a feasibility study of “memory banking,” a structured approach to record life stories and legacies for future generations. The typology has also informed works on environmental legacy (Zaval, Markowitz, & Weber, 2015), attitudes about legacy at midlife (Newton & Jones, 2016), meanings in family inheritance (de Witt, Campbell, Ploeg, Kemp, & Rosenthal, 2013), and leadership styles (Zacher, Rosing, & Frese, 2011).…”

“…How legacy beliefs are understood and communicated in the context of family relationships is unclear, as past studies sampled individuals and not family groups. de Witt et al. (2013) examined the reactions of adults from blended and nonblended families to the passing of material legacies.…”