Parenting, Family Policy and Children's Well-Being in an Unequal Society

Parenting, Family Policy and Children's Well-Being in an Unequal Society PDF Author: D. Hartas
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9780230354951
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Western societies face many challenges. The growing inequality and the diminishing role of the welfare state and the rapid accumulation of the resources of a finite planet at the top 1% have made the world an inhospitable place to many families. Parents are left alone to deal with the big societal problems and reverse their impact on their children's educational achievement and life chances. The 'average' working family is sliding down the social ladder with a significant impact on children's learning and wellbeing. We now know that parental involvement with children's learning (although important in its own right) is not the primary mechanism through which poverty translates to underachievement and reduced social mobility. Far more relevant to children's learning and emotional wellbeing is their parents' income and educational qualifications. The mantra of 'what parents do matters' is hypocritical considering the strong influence that poverty has on parents and children. We can no longer argue that we live in a classless society, especially as it becomes clear that most governmental reforms are class based and affect poor families disproportionately. In this book, Dimitra Hartas explores parenting and its influence on children's learning and wellbeing while examining the impact of social class amidst policy initiatives to eradicate child poverty in 21st Century Britain.

Parenting, Family Policy and Children's Well-Being in an Unequal Society

Parenting, Family Policy and Children's Well-Being in an Unequal Society PDF Author: D. Hartas
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137319550
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

Book Description
Western societies face many challenges. The growing inequality and the diminishing role of the welfare state and the rapid accumulation of the resources of a finite planet at the top 1% have made the world an inhospitable place to many families. Parents are left alone to deal with the big societal problems and reverse their impact on their children's educational achievement and life chances. The 'average' working family is sliding down the social ladder with a significant impact on children's learning and wellbeing. We now know that parental involvement with children's learning (although important in its own right) is not the primary mechanism through which poverty translates to underachievement and reduced social mobility. Far more relevant to children's learning and emotional wellbeing is their parents' income and educational qualifications. The mantra of 'what parents do matters' is hypocritical considering the strong influence that poverty has on parents and children. We can no longer argue that we live in a classless society, especially as it becomes clear that most governmental reforms are class based and affect poor families disproportionately. In this book, Dimitra Hartas explores parenting and its influence on children's learning and wellbeing while examining the impact of social class amidst policy initiatives to eradicate child poverty in 21st Century Britain.

Unequal Family Lives

Unequal Family Lives PDF Author: Naomi R. Cahn
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108415954
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Book Description
This volume explores the causes and consequences of family inequality in the United States, Europe, and Latin America.

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty

A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309483980
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 619

Book Description
The strengths and abilities children develop from infancy through adolescence are crucial for their physical, emotional, and cognitive growth, which in turn help them to achieve success in school and to become responsible, economically self-sufficient, and healthy adults. Capable, responsible, and healthy adults are clearly the foundation of a well-functioning and prosperous society, yet America's future is not as secure as it could be because millions of American children live in families with incomes below the poverty line. A wealth of evidence suggests that a lack of adequate economic resources for families with children compromises these children's ability to grow and achieve adult success, hurting them and the broader society. A Roadmap to Reducing Child Poverty reviews the research on linkages between child poverty and child well-being, and analyzes the poverty-reducing effects of major assistance programs directed at children and families. This report also provides policy and program recommendations for reducing the number of children living in poverty in the United States by half within 10 years.

Unequal Childhoods

Unequal Childhoods PDF Author: Annette Lareau
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520271424
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 480

Book Description
This book is a powerful portrayal of class inequalities in the United States. It contains insightful analysis of the processes through which inequality is reproduced, and it frankly engages with methodological and analytic dilemmas usually glossed over in academic texts.

Parenting Matters

Parenting Matters PDF Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309388570
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 525

Book Description
Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy

The Oxford Handbook of Family Policy PDF Author: Neil Gilbert
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019751815X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1089

Book Description
The Handbook examines contemporary trends and issues in the formation of families over the different stages of the life cycle and how they interact with family-oriented social policies of modern welfare states, mainly in the OECD countries of Western Europe, East Asia and the U.S. Focusing largely on family needs in the early stages of the life course, the conventional package of policies tends to emphasize programs and benefits clustered around measures to support marriage, childbearing, care, the reconciliation of employment and childcare during the preschool years. Drawing on a multidisciplinary group of experts from many countries, this book extends the conventional perspective on family policy by also looking at later phases of the family life course. In taking a life course perspective, this Handbook extends the purview to encompass the three main stages of family life. These are (1) cohabitation, marriage and starting a family; (2) the early years of parenting, care and employment, and (3) the period of transitions and later life: family breakdown and intergenerational supports across the life course.

Social justice and public policy

Social justice and public policy PDF Author: Craig, Gary
Publisher: Policy Press
ISBN: 1847423531
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 285

Book Description
Social justice is a contested term, incorporated into the language of widely differing political positions. Those on the left argue that it requires intervention from the state to ensure equality, at least of opportunity; those on the right believe that it can be underpinned by the economics of the market place with little or no state intervention. To date, political philosophers have made relatively few serious attempts to explain how a theory of social justice translates into public policy. This important book, drawing on international experience and a distinguished panel of political philosophers and social scientists, addresses what the meaning of social justice is, and how it translates into the everyday concerns of public and social policy, in the context of both multiculturalism and globalisation.

Educational Research for Social Justice

Educational Research for Social Justice PDF Author: Alistair Ross
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030625729
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
This book presents a series of analyses of educational policies – largely in the UK, but some also in Europe – researched by a team of social scientists who share a commitment to social justice and equity in education. We explore what social justice means, in educational policy and practice, and how it impacts on our understanding of both ‘educational science’ and ‘the public good’. Using a social constructivist approach, the book argues that social justice requires a particular and critical analysis of the meaning of meritocracy, and of the way this term turns educational policies towards treating learning as a competition, in which many young people are constructed as ‘losers’. We discuss how many terms in education are essentialised and have specific, and different, meanings for particular social groups, and how this may create issues in both quantitative survey methods and in determining what is ‘the public good’. We discuss social justice across a range of intersecting social characteristics, including social class, ethnicity and gender, as they are applied across the educational policy spectrum, from early years to postgraduate education. We examine the ways that young people construct their identities, and the implications of this for understanding the ‘public good’ in educational practice. We consider the responsibilities of educational researchers to acknowledge these issues, and offer examples of researching with such a commitment. We conclude by considering how educational policy might contribute to a socially just, equitable and inclusive public good.

Parents in the Spotlight

Parents in the Spotlight PDF Author: Tanja Betz
Publisher: Verlag Barbara Budrich
ISBN: 3847409247
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 352

Book Description
Children and parents have become a focus of debates on ‘new social risks’ in European welfare states. Policymaking elites have converged in defining such risks, and they have outlined new forms of parenting support to better safeguard children and activate their potential. Increasingly, parents are suspected of falling short of public expectations. Contributors to this special issue scrutinize this shift towards parenting as performance and analyse recent forms of parenting support.