Primary Homework, Mothering and Maternal Agency

Portraits of Relationality, Agency and Care in Educational Support
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-85255-3
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 216 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 453 g

Reihe: Routledge Research in the Sociology of Education

Constructed around powerful stories of maternal agency, care and emotion, this novel volume conceptualises the primary homework experience as a social and relational practice and act of mothering, thereby raising wider questions about parental involvement in education, families’ agency in school practices, and the broader implications on policy.

Using data gathered through repeat interviews, videos of mother-child primary homework interactions and stimulated reflections, chapters present a series of unique maternal portraits that reflect various dimensions such as class, ethnicity, and parenting children with special education needs. The book demonstrates how practices from the educational sphere bleed into family relations, and how in return, mothers shape educational processes through their mothering. Contesting prevalent deficit discourses about mothers, the book highlights their relational skills and investment in their children's education. Chapters contextualise parent involvement and the international reach of primary homework practices, as prompted by neoliberal discourses of parental responsibilisation, and the globalisation of educational approaches.

This book will appeal to researchers, academics and postgraduate students interested in parent involvement and engagement, homework and primary education. The book will also be important for those researching mothering, parenting and gendered practices.

Zielgruppe

Academic and Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Lehner-Mear, Rachel

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Teildisziplinen der Pädagogik Erziehung in der Familie
• Sozialwissenschaften Pädagogik Schulen, Schulleitung Privatschulen, alternative Schulformen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

List of figures

List of tables

Acknowledgements

Preface

Introduction

1  Homework as a core educational and parental practice: disempowering discourses

2  A feminist portrait of mothering and mothers’ educational support

Part A – Portraits of integration

3  Homework as a mothering tool: reinventing a mother’s place

A portrait of Anna and Izzy

A portrait of Nell and Lucy

4 Homework as a family-school partnership: playing the educational game

A portrait of Helen and Corey

A portrait of Leah and Jack

5 The temporal, practical and emotional burden of integrating homework support

A portrait of Fiona and Sam

Part B – Portraits of resistance

6 Resisting and reproducing intergenerational homework practices

A portrait of Ruth and Lois

A portrait of Sian and Emma

7 Navigating homework from outside the dominant educational culture

A portrait of Ting and Ryan

A portrait of Priti, Kuja and Marut

8 Disrupting the gendered responsibility of homework

A portrait of Jenny and Claire

Conclusion

9 The motherisation of homework: centring relationality, agency and care

10 Reconceptualising homework as an act of mothering

Über Autor(innen)

Rachel Lehner-Mear is an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Education, University of Nottingham, UK