Speaking of work and family: Spousal collaboration on defining role‐identities and developing shared meanings

Abstract

Twelve married couples’ individual and joint accounts of their arrangements for managing work and parenting were examined to identify forms of symbolic collaboration. These couples could be observed collaborating directly on selecting applicable cultural discourses, co‐producing interpretative repertoires, and mediating between conflicting repertoires. Further, these pairs of spouses could be observed collaborating indirectly through positioning; spouses used each other as a symbolic resource in the construction of self‐identity, by mirroring and interlocking.