Gendered capital: emotional capital and mothers’ care work in education

This paper is concerned with the inequalities experienced by mothers in the performance of educational care work for their children. It is argued that the caring work carried out by mothers at transfer to second‐level schooling is shaped by their ability to activate the significant resource of emotional capital; a gendered resource involving emotional skills, knowledge and experiences. Drawing on an in‐depth study of mothers’ routines of care, it is suggested that the possession of emotional capital subjects mothers to a normative order of care. Moreover, in exploring the idiosyncratic differences between mothers’ capacities to activate emotional capital it is argued that the activation of this care resource is facilitated in the context of solidary relationships but also by mothers’ access to other capitals. It is concluded that in order to tackle care inequalities those working in education need to recognise the significance of emotional resources, and need to challenge traditional codes of practice and policies around ‘parental’ involvement.     

Lone Mothers' Involvement in their Children's Schooling: Towards a new typology of maternal involvement

Parental involvement in schooling is currently advocated by both education policy and theorists in the UK as a solution to 'falling' educational standards. However, this parental involvement is presented as ungendered, with no recognition that the work required of mothers by schools is difficult to do under conditions of sole supporting mothering and low income. This article offers a way of conceptualising lone mothers' understandings of their involvement in their children's schooling by deconstructing the standard educationlist and school-based typologies of parental involvement and constructing a (new) typology of maternal involvement based in lone mothers' understandings. In doing this, the article explores the hidden assumptions about class, 'race', gender and family form behind the parental involvement discourse.     

Mothers as educational workers: mothers’ emotional work at their children's transfer to second-level education

This paper investigates the phenomenon of mothers’ emotional labour in relation to children's transfer from first- to second-level schooling: a time that has been shown to pose significant challenges for students and their families. It seeks to break the silence that surrounds the recognition and production of emotional labour in general, and specifically in relation to education. Drawing on 25 case studies, this research explores in-depth both the extent and nature of emotional work in mothers’ daily practices. Against that backdrop it identifies the specific emotional work performed at school transfer. It examines mothers’ common experiences in shouldering emotional education work and finds that mothers are key education workers. This research suggests that mothers’ lives are shaped by caring labour including education work: labours that are largely unseen but that are inalienable, and demanding on their time and energies.     

‘My mum would be as pleased as punch if I actually went,but my dad seems a bit more particular about it’: paternal involvement in young people's higher education choices

Research on parental involvement in educational ‘choice’, as well as in educational processes more generally, has highlighted clear disparities between the close and active involvement of mothers and the more distant role of fathers. While this article does not question the broad patterns identified by such studies, it does suggest that, in some circumstances at least, fathers are both able and willing to become closely involved in decision‐making processes and to take on much of the ‘hard work’ of educational choice. Drawing on a longitudinal study of young people's higher education decision‐making processes, the article presents evidence of detailed paternal involvement. It then suggests that this apparent ‘anomaly’ can be explained by the mothers' and fathers' differential access to cultural and social capital; a lack of previous experience of active engagement with educational markets; and, in a few cases, young people's active resistance to the involvement of their mothers.     

Underprivileged urban mothers' perspectives on science

The purpose of this article is to report our findings from a qualitative study intended to develop our understandings of how inner‐city mothers perceive science. Using qualitative methodologies, our analysis reveals that the mothers' perceptions can be grouped into four categories: perceptions of science as (a) schoolwork/knowledge, (b) fun projects, (c) a tool for maintaining the home and family, and (d) an untouchable domain. After we present these categories we compare our findings across categories to argue that those mothers who had spent time doing science with their children were more likely to have a more personal, dynamic, and inquiry‐based view of science. We also argue that mothers' perceptions of science were more dynamic when they spoke about situations and contexts that were familiar to them, such as food, nutrition, and child care. We conclude the article with a discussion of the implications our findings have for science education reform. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 38: 688–711, 2001     

Choice Within Constraints: Mothers and schooling

ABSTRACT This article explores the discourses of choice in the context of the current, and international, public policy debates about providing freedom of choice for parents as consumers in the education market place. In particular it explores the public and private discourses of choice to illustrate the argument that mothers as parents are not 'free to choose' but act within a range of constraints. We term these both structural and moral constraints and offer evidence about them as experienced by mothers over time in relation to bringing up children, from resources to negotiations about relationships and expectations about both the nature of family life, employment and their children's place within the future. It also offers some evidence from our various research studies of mothers from their perspectives, about the processes of choice, in the context of both structural and moral constraints, including issues about involvement in their children's education and schooling. Consideration is also given to mothers' evaluations of their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with their possibilities of child rearing and education. The article concludes with the argument that mothers' experiences of the processes of bringing up and educating their children are not at all in harmony with the, albeit contradictory, public policy discourse of their being free to choose. Mothers' various perspectives from their varied vantage points are indeed limited by structural and moral possibilities in a patriarchal and racist society.     

‘You realise it could happen to you’: the benefits to pupils of young mothers delivering school sex education

This paper presents data from a study of four projects in which young mothers deliver school sex education sessions, with the aim of giving pupils ‘informed choices’ regarding their sexual behaviour. Eleven focus group discussions were carried out with pupils, and semi‐structured interviews were carried out with 14 young mothers in order to assess the extent to which the sessions were of value in this way. The findings show that pupils perceived the sessions to be beneficial, not necessarily through providing new information as implied by the notion of ‘informed choice’, but because they fostered a deeper level of understanding and acceptance of the potential consequences of their decisions regarding sex and contraception. The main reason for this outcome, that is pupils' beliefs that they were hearing the whole truth from their peers, is demonstrated and critically explored in relation to the young mothers' own perceptions of the sessions. The implications of the somewhat different understandings of the sessions that emerged for the key notion of ‘informed choice’ are considered.     

Understanding Associations Between Low-Income Mothers' Participation in Education and Parenting

Maternal education is one of the strongest predictors of children's academic outcomes. One possible explanation for this is that more highly educated mothers more frequently engage in parenting practices that may promote children's later cognitive development; however, most of this evidence is correlational. This study uses Head Start Impact Study data (N = 1,953) to explore whether low-income mothers' participation in education affects their parenting practices and beliefs. Principal scores, which predict maternal educational participation based on covariates, were used for analysis. Principal score matching was used to identify mothers who we predicted participated in education because their children were randomly assigned to Head Start. We compared these mothers' outcomes to those of mothers we predicted would have participated in education if they were assigned to Head Start. For these mothers, participation in maternal education was associated with children watching fewer hours of TV, having more types of printed media at home, and more frequent participation in cultural activities, but it was not associated with a host of other parenting outcomes. Changing parenting is one potential pathway by which maternal educational participation may influence children's later academic outcomes.     

School Trouble: A mother's burden

ABSTRACT The desire for parent involvement in children's schooling is based on the assumption that parents play a significant role in children's educational achievements. As a policy goal, parent involvement includes the participation of both mothers and fathers. However, in practice, parent involvement refers more often to the work of women in support of children's schooling. The coordination and supervision of children's educational activities often demands a significant portion of mothers' waking hours, particularly in the case of mothers whose children are doing poorly in school. This article draws on interviews with parents of children who struggled academically in school to examine the effects of 'school troubles' on mothers who, among the parents interviewed for this study, were much more likely to assume the material and emotional burdens for school troubles.     

The Cultural Structuring of Parenting and Universal Developmental Tasks

Objective. This study explores middle-class Anglo and Puerto Rican mothers' beliefs and self-reported practices related to infant feeding, sleeping, and toilet training. Design. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 60 mothers (Anglo = 32, Puerto Rican = 28) in their homes when their infants were 8 months of age. Results. Compared to Puerto Rican mothers, Anglo mothers had earlier age expectations regarding feeding-related milestones, were more likely to use the strategy of providing opportunities for learning, more likely to refer to emotional components of the learning process, such as pride or self-esteem, and less likely to use parental control or guidance. Puerto Rican mothers emphasized instrumental independence, or the ability to perform tasks without help, whereas Anglo mothers focused on emotional autonomy, or concern about the child's inner self. Conclusions. Puerto Rican mothers' emphasis on encouraging instrumental independence suggests a more nuanced perspective regarding such broad rubrics as "individualism" and "sociocentrism." In particular, Puerto Rican mothers tended to view instrumental independence as necessary for meeting societal expectations. Thus, independence need not solely be associated with the values of mothers from individualistic cultures. However, Puerto Rican mothers' focus on instrumental independence is distinct from Anglo mothers' emphasis on emotional autonomy and appears to serve larger sociocentric goals.     

Antecedents of Maternal Sensitivity During Distressing Tasks: Integrating Attachment,Social Information Processing,and Psychobiological Perspectives

Predictors of maternal sensitivity to infant distress were examined among 259 primiparous mothers. The Adult Attachment Interview, self‐reports of personality and emotional functioning, and measures of physiological, emotional, and cognitive responses to videotapes of crying infants were administered prenatally. Maternal sensitivity was observed during three distress‐eliciting tasks when infants were 6 months old. Coherence of mind was directly associated with higher maternal sensitivity to distress. Mothers' heightened emotional risk was indirectly associated with lower sensitivity via mothers' self‐focused and negative processing of infant cry cues. Likewise, high physiological arousal accompanied by poor physiological regulation in response to infant crying was indirectly associated with lower maternal sensitivity to distress through mothers' self‐focused and negative processing of infant cry cues.     

Teaching Family Matters

Teaching family matters is a matter of some political controversy. The New Right—both government and ‘pro‐family’ political pressure groups—seeks to reinforce and revive the traditional nuclear family through education, especially for family life. This is a response to what is perceived as the ‘problem of the family‘—the increase in ‘working mothers’ in lone or two‐parent families, and lone‐parent families as a result of divorce, separation, teenage or underage sex. These changes in the family have indeed occurred. The New Right blames previous administrations, in the liberal/social‐democratic consensual mode, for their creation. But no postwar government was committed to transforming the privacy of the family but to equality of educational opportunity between the sexes as a means of improving job opportunities. Such measures left the family untouched. If the ‘problem of the family’ is to be solved, more attention, from educators amongst others, must be given to the ways in which women as parents are denied equal work opportunities because of the need to bring up the children in the privacy of the family, supporting the work of schools. Family life or moral education should aim to leach about equality of adult responsibility for both work and family.     

Maternal Quality Standards for Children's Television Programs

On the basis of telephone interviews carried out among a random sample of mothers with children between three and 12 years of age (n = 357), this study investigated the standards mothers use to evaluate the quality of four types of children's television programs: cartoons, news programs for children, educational children's programs, and dramatic children's programs. A factor analysis resulted in a list of seven types of quality standards that, in mothers' eyes, children's programs should satisfy. The three quality standards mothers considered most important for children's programs were: (a) comprehen‐sibility, (b) aesthetic quality, and (c) elicitation of involvement. Additional standards were: (d) entertainment, (e) innocuousness (absence of detrimental effects), (f) credibility, and (g) presence of role models. According to mothers, credibility was a standard that should be fulfilled primarily by news and educational programs for children. For news programs, aesthetic quality, entertainment, and the presence of role models were thought to be minor considerations. Less‐educated mothers were more concerned about the entertainment value of children's programs than better‐educated mothers. As compared to mothers with older children, mothers with younger children were more likely to consider innocuousness important, and to view credibility as unimportant in children's programs.     

Parents' Role in Adolescents' Educational Expectations

The present study examined the extent to which mothers' and fathers' expectations for their offspring's future education, their level of education, and adolescents' academic achievement predict adolescents' educational expectations. To investigate this, 230 adolescents were examined twice while they were in comprehensive school (in the 7th and 9th grades). Their parents also filled in questionnaires at the same time points. The results showed that high parental expectations concerning their offspring's future education predicted high educational expectations among adolescents and they became more similar in the 9th grade compared to 7th grade. Parents' high level of education predicted both mothers' and adolescents' high level of educational expectations in the 7th grade, which then contributed to adolescents' high expectations in 9th grade.     

A Moral Education in an Ethical System

This article raises a number of interrelated issues. It first considers the need for a disability-aware education for everyone, including post-school leavers. This has both structural and curricular implications. At the structural level, it is argued that if we are to move towards a more ethical educational system, institutional discrimination must be dismantled. At the curricular level, the notion of a "culture of resistance", with distinctive moral characteristics, is explored. The article next considers the moral education of disabled people, covering such issues as recognition of alternative perspectives, building on life-experience and the development of self-confidence and self-esteem. In conclusion, it is suggested that a moral education in an ethical system would integrate universalising understandings of the principle of justice, and its application, with the development of contextual thought which can take account of the value and uniqueness of individuals and the particularity of their educational needs.     

先秦儒家道德文化及其现代教育价值

在多元化的中国传统文化中,儒家道德文化占据主导位置,并对中国思想文化的发展产生了深刻而长久的影响。儒家道德文化倡导个体对自身生命价值的追求,井形成一种崇高的理想主义信仰,它主张个体发展和社会追步的有机统一以及人与自然协调发展。儒家的理想社会是一个“道德化”的社会,先秦儒家在封“生命本质”的追问中,寄托了一种封人类历史和现实社会中的人文和道德的“终极关怀”和信仰追求。当代社会科学技术迅猛发展与道德建设相对滞后的现实,先秦儒家的道德文化及其中所蕴涵的深刻教育价值无疑会给我们诸多启示。     

Mothers' Beliefs about Feelings and Children's Emotional Understanding

We revised Hyson and Lee's (1996) Caregiver's Beliefs about Feelings questionnaire for use with parents. One hundred and fifteen mothers of 4- to 6- year-old children completed the Parents' Beliefs about Feelings questionnaire (PBAF). We assessed emotional understanding of 60 of the children using Denham's (1986) measure. Factor analysis supported a 2-factor solution for the PBAF. The first subscale (Emotion Language) reflected mothers' belief in socializing emotion language. The second subscale (Developmental Beliefs) assessed mothers' belief that their children were not developmentally ready to control or talk about emotions. Mothers' Developmental Beliefs scores were positively related to mothers' negative emotional expressiveness. Mothers' Emotion Language scores were positively related to children's knowledge of emotion terms. Results may help educators design intervention programs to teach children emotional and social skills.     

CRITICAL LISTENING AND THE DIALOGIC ASPECT OF MORAL EDUCATION: J.F. HERBART'S CONCEPT OF THE TEACHER AS MORAL GUIDE

In his central educational work, The Science of Education (1806), J.F. Herbart did not explicitly develop a theory of listening, yet his concept of the teacher as a guide in the moral development of the learner gives valuable insight into the moral dimension of listening within teacher‐student interaction. Herbart's theory radically calls into question the assumed linearity between listening and obedience to external authority, not only illuminating important distinctions between socialization and education, but also underscoring consequences for our understanding of the role of listening in educational relations. In this inquiry, Andrea English argues that critical listening in teaching contributes to the moral education and development of the learner. To do this, she examines Herbart's view of the teacher's task as a moral guide in the realm of moral education. English contends that reexamining Herbart's theory of education (a theory that is, for the most part, no longer discussed in Anglo‐American educational philosophy) can productively inform our understanding of moral education in democratic and pluralist societies.     

Family Structure and Parental Involvement in the Intergenerational Parallelism of School Adversity

Abstract

A theoretically informed model in which the effects of negative junior high school experiences of mothers on the junior high school experiences of their children were examined. The model was estimated with the LISREL VIII program using panel data from 1,144 mother–adolescent child pairs. Mothers were first tested in 1971 when they were 7th graders, and both mothers and their children were subsequently interviewed in the 1990s. Results reveal the existence of a significant relationship between mothers' negative junior high school experiences and those of their children, which is partially mediated by family structure, mothers' educational attainment, and level of mothers' involvement in their children's school activities and interest in their progress at school.