Self Management and Family Coping Toward a Happy Warm Family of Muslim Married Female Teachers: a Case Study of Yala Province

Abstract

This research is a qualitative case study research. The research aimed to find out meaning and elements of a happy warm family as perceived by Muslim married female teachers and to find out conditions associated with self-management and their management within the family that leading to a happy family. Three Muslim female teachers in some certain areas of three southern border provinces of Thailand were selected through purposive sampling technique. The samples must be married for more than 5 years and have at least 1 child in the family. The in-depth interview and content analysis were used for data collection and data analysis respectively.

The research found out happy family as perceived by Muslim female teachers is based on the Islamic teachings and leading the Islamic way of life. Happy family consists of two elements; the emotional ties of family and the behavioral expression, including delineating clear role and responsibilities, spending enjoyable-time together, communication in the family, religious orientation, interactions between the family members, expression of love in the family and encouraging the public mind.

The conditions associated with self-management of Muslim married female teachers that lead to a happy family consist of the internal causes, i.e. leadership traits and self-discipline and the external causes, i.e. good role model of the family members, gender role development in childhood and effective time management. As for the conditions related to management within the family, leadership characteristics and self-discipline are found to be the internal causes whereas family planning, family adaptation, religion-based problem solving, child raising methods, adhering the moral principles pertaining to family life and good time management found to be the external causes.