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.     

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.     

Empowering and Enabling or Patronising and Pressurising?: Opening dialogues between staff and students

In this article we reflect on the process and experience of our attempts to open dialogues between Women's Studies staff and students on the topic of feminist teaching practices. The article provides biographies of the staff and students concerned, discusses what is meant by empowerment and delinates the debates regarding the Women's Studies teaching model. By reflecting on the responses made to the points in an earlier conference paper on teaching practices we address the contradictions and conflicts inherent in attempting 'empowering' education and opening dialogues.