Thinking with Bourdieu’s field theory, this chapter critically examines how corporatised multi-academy trust (MAT) governance has secured parental engagement as a corporate…
Abstract
Thinking with Bourdieu’s field theory, this chapter critically examines how corporatised multi-academy trust (MAT) governance has secured parental engagement as a corporate activity to acquire, regulate and naturalise parents, strengthening the position of the organisation and those leading and governing in the MAT. The embodiment of corporate practice within the field has ensured that the ways of thinking, being and doing of institutions and those that govern them, both secure and are secured by recognition of corporate practices as ‘natural’ and legitimate. I make both a theoretical and empirical contribution to the field. First, theoretically, I contribute to Bourdieu’s field theory by extending it to include how corporate practices diminish the agency of parents in dominated positions in the field, in that parents are acquired, regulated and naturalised to secure the field’s logic of practice. Second, I make an empirical contribution to the arguments concerned with the position and stance of actors in a corporatised field with the reframing of parental engagement as a corporate activity concerned with acquisition stability. Further these arguments empirically contribute to the literature concerned with the positioning of parental engagement in a corporatised field providing a model that allows for critical analysis of educational leaderships engagement with parents in a corporatised field. In making this contribution, I offer a model to explain the corporatised framing of parental engagement as it seeks to acquire, regulate and naturalise the practices of parents in their engagement with the MAT and its schools.
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Rebecca C. Den Hoed and Charlene Elliott
Despite their responsibility for mitigating the influence of commercial culture on children, parents' views of fun food marketing aimed at children remain largely unexplored. This…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite their responsibility for mitigating the influence of commercial culture on children, parents' views of fun food marketing aimed at children remain largely unexplored. This article aims to probe parents' views of supermarket fun foods and the packaging used to promote them to children.
Design/methodology/approach
In total 60 in‐depth interviews were conducted with parents from different educational backgrounds, living in three different Canadian cities. Interview responses were analyzed and coded thematically using an iterative process in keeping with grounded theory.
Findings
Parents generally discussed the promotion of supermarket fun foods to children as either an issue of the nutritional quality of foods promoted to children and/or in light of the communication quality of marketing aimed at children. Parents were also divided along education lines: parents with higher educational backgrounds were more likely to oppose fun foods and praise more pastoral ideals food production and consumption, while those with less education more often praised fun foods.
Research limitations/implications
These findings cannot be generalized to other parents or parents in other countries. The findings, however, suggest that a more nuanced consideration of differences within and across parents' views is warranted in debates about responsible marketing to children.
Originality/value
This article provides a qualitatively rich snapshot of the views of 60 Canadian parents regarding child‐targeted food marketing, and raises important questions about how to incorporate parents' views into discussions about responsible marketing, rather than presuming they are all of one mindset.
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The legalization of same-sex marriage changed the parenting landscape for LGBTQ parents in a variety of ways. Parenthood is presumably different now that same-sex marriage is…
Abstract
The legalization of same-sex marriage changed the parenting landscape for LGBTQ parents in a variety of ways. Parenthood is presumably different now that same-sex marriage is officially legal. Experiences among LGBTQ couples in the post-legalization of same-sex marriage era raise questions about the context of growing recognition and cultural acceptance of same-sex relationships. I conducted in-depth interviews with LGBTQ parents to learn how they navigate parenting and the construction of parenting roles in the context of a society that has legalized same-sex marriage, yet still is rooted in heteronormative notions of family and parenthood. Specifically, I ask: How do LGBTQ couples construct and make sense of their roles as parents, particularly within the contemporary context of the legalization of same-sex marriage? Understanding the contexts that shape LGBTQ parents’ experiences aids in not only understanding the lives of LGBTQ parents and their families better, but also developing a deeper understanding of contemporary parenting identities and experiences more broadly.
Stresses the importance of examining the changes that children go through in moving from “tweenagers” of eight to 12 years to the more difficult stage of teenagers, and also that…
Abstract
Stresses the importance of examining the changes that children go through in moving from “tweenagers” of eight to 12 years to the more difficult stage of teenagers, and also that teenager characteristics change between generations. Outlines some of these changes and concerns, and characteristics of teenagers such as daydreaming, the search for identity, and the high degree of techno‐literacy and communication skills ‐ featuring for example mobile phones. Describes a research study carried out for the Carphone Warehouse by Kids and Youth: this compared parents’ and teenagers’ views on why teenagers would contact a helpline, and other issues concerned with communication between teenagers and their parents. Observes that teenagers are not only consulted by their parents on marketing decisions over products like the internet and mobile phones, but they are becoming more altruistic and politically involved compared to earlier generations.
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Ana Campos-Holland, Grace Hall and Gina Pol
The No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and Race to the Top (2009) led to the highest rate of standardized-state testing in the history of the United States of America. As a result…
Abstract
Purpose
The No Child Left Behind Act (2002) and Race to the Top (2009) led to the highest rate of standardized-state testing in the history of the United States of America. As a result, the Every Student Succeeds Act (2015) aims to reevaluate standardized-state testing. Previous research has assessed its impact on schools, educators, and students; yet, youth’s voices are almost absent. Therefore, this qualitative analysis examines how youth of color perceive and experience standardized-state testing.
Design/methodology/approach
Seventy-three youth participated in a semistructured interview during the summer of 2015. The sample consists of 34 girls and 39 boys, 13–18 years of age, of African American, Latino/a, Jamaican American, multiracial/ethnic, and other descent. It includes 6–12th graders who attended 61 inter-district and intra-district schools during the 2014–2015 academic year in a Northeastern metropolitan area in the United States that is undergoing a racial/ethnic integration reform.
Findings
Youth experienced testing overload under conflicting adult authorities and within an academically stratified peer culture on an ever-shifting policy terrain. While the parent-adult authority remained in the periphery, the state-adult authority intrusively interrupted the teacher-student power dynamics and the disempowered teacher-adult authority held youth accountable through the “attentiveness” rhetoric. However, youth’s perspectives and lived experiences varied across grade levels, school modalities, and school-geographical locations.
Originality/value
In this adult-dominated society, the market approach to education reform ultimately placed the burden of teacher and school evaluation on youth. Most importantly, youth received variegated messages from their conflicting adult authorities that threatened their academic journeys.
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Lin Zhu, Yan Wang and Yanhong Chen
Mothers sharing images and information on social media about their children is a contemporary cultural norm. While the practice has been heavily discussed in popular media, there…
Abstract
Purpose
Mothers sharing images and information on social media about their children is a contemporary cultural norm. While the practice has been heavily discussed in popular media, there is a lack of empirical research examining the phenomenon from the perspectives of parents and adolescent children in China. The current study aims to find out whether or not mothers and their children engage in discussions about sharenting and how adolescents negotiate their privacy concerns with their mothers.
Design/methodology/approach
The current study examined how parents and their children make sense of sharenting via semi-structured interviews with 16 Chinese mothers. In addition, the study enlisted 21 adolescents to examine their perspectives on sharenting. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis.
Findings
Results showed that although documentation is articulated as the primary sharenting motivation, identity management is a major drive behind sharenting. The dynamics between mothers and their children, as well as between adolescents and their parents, are also explored regarding the issues of consent, privacy and identity.
Research limitations/implications
This study has theoretical implications for the communication privacy management (CPM) theory, as it underscores the dynamic nature of privacy management, shaped by cultural norms, family dynamics and evolving communication technologies. It also adds value for campaign practitioners to provide education programs on the serious consequences of sharenting.
Originality/value
This research serves as a starting point to further explore a child’s entrance to adulthood as our culture’s first true digital natives who will bear extensive online and offline identities.
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This paper aims to argue that contextual safeguarding complements existing theoretical models and approaches. Its successful integration with dominant thinking and practice in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to argue that contextual safeguarding complements existing theoretical models and approaches. Its successful integration with dominant thinking and practice in safeguarding potentially offers new insights to improve system-wide practice.
Design/methodology/approach
A theory synthesis design was used to purposively identify, summarise and compare selected safeguarding theoretical models and approaches to establish both convergence and divergence.
Findings
The arguments provided in this paper suggest that synthesising theory offers a confluence of perspectives that promise to develop a more eclectic and holistic approach to safeguarding practice. The paper demonstrates how contextual safeguarding can be integrated with existing theoretical models and approaches.
Research limitations/implications
This is a conceptual paper and therefore is not based on empirical data.
Practical implications
This paper's conceptual insights include that integrating contextual safeguarding with existing theoretical models and approaches can broaden the knowledge base to whole system-wide safeguarding practice in the UK. The paper also confirms that the methodology used is feasible, although more work is required to test its efficacy on a larger scale. The conceptual paper argues for synthesis of contextual safeguarding and commonly used child safeguarding theoretical models and approaches to deal with both intra and extra familial forms of risk of harm to children effectively.
Social implications
The neglect and abuse of children is a topical issue; hence, this paper has social implications regarding understanding of how the issue child abuse and neglect in the UK and globally should be dealt with.
Originality/value
There is a dearth of studies that have gone beyond binary comparisons of contextual safeguarding and other theoretical models and approaches, which leaves a significant knowledge gap that has prompted the purpose of this paper.