“Don’t complain and do it properly”: ‘Pedagogicalized parents’ and the morality of doing homework

Abstract

In the last decades, pedagogical studies and policies in western countries have proposed parental involvement in education as the formula for maximizing students’ success and increasing social equality. In the building of the family-school partnership, a crucial role is commonly attributed to parent-assisted homework. Therefore, parental involvement in homework has increased and the model of the “involved” and “pedagogically competent” parent has become common. Analyzing video-recorded parent-child interactions during homework, this paper illustrates how parents make relevant and educate their children to moral horizons concerning homework, education, and schooling. The moral beliefs evoked by the parents in the study are significantly aligned with the school culture. Parent-assisted homework therefore becomes a particularly relevant arena for children’s socialization into the cultural and moral horizons of the school system. Yet a socio-pedagogical issue emerges: if the school relies heavily on the family for homework activities, what happens to those children who cannot rely on school-aligned, pedagogically competent parents?

Beyond School-Related Learning: Parent-Child Homework Talk as a Morality Building Activity

“…As research has recently pointed out, homework constitutes a crossroad between family and school (Pontecorvo, Liberati, & Monaco, 2013) or, more radically, the main means through which the 'school voice' enters the domestic space on a daily basis Colla, 2022;Hedegaard, 2014), thus fostering (or hindering) the so-called "family-school partnership" (Epstein & Sanders, 2000). As we mentioned above, despite its crucial role in bridging the school institutional culture and the families' small cultures, homework is still little explored as a 'morality-shaped, morality-renewing activity' (Heritage, 1984a): little is known about the ways in which moral beliefs, norms, and expectations are evoked and transmitted to children in the unfolding of this ordinary family activity.…”

“…The examples in this section illustrate how the parents in the study took for granted, evoked, and conveyed the moral obligation to do homework neatly (Colla, 2022;Kremer-Sadlik & Fatigante, 2015). By assessing children's homework performance and urging them to be tidy and write neatly, parents delineate high, school-like standards that the child should meet, and present failing to meet such standards as a moral breach.…”

“…Homework is mostly and extensively addressed by research as a school practice fostering (or hindering) pupils' subject-related learning, academic success, and the building of the family-school partnership (Colla, 2022;Epstein & Sanders, 2000). However, there is much more at stake in the unfolding of this everyday activity.…”

“…The present paper contributes to this underexplored line if inquiry. Building on the results from previous video-based studies Colla, 2022) and adopting an analytical perspective that focuses on the interactive unfolding of ordinary parent-child interactions during homework, the paper sheds light on the socializing function of this family activity. Through the analysis of parent-child conversations, the paper illustrates that homework is far more than a learning-oriented activity characterized by intentional teaching practices.…”

“…Previous research has extensively described the interactive practices whereby homework unfolds as a family activity (Colla, 2023;Forsberg, 2007;Kremer-Sadlik & Fatigante, 2015;Wingard, 2006;Wingard & Forsberg, 2009) as well as the effects of parent-child homework interactions on children's subject-related learning and school success (e.g., Van Voorhis, 2001;Battle-Bailey, 2004). However, less attention has been devoted to investigating homework as a morally dense activity, a vehicle of cultural knowledge and a means whereby children are socialized into becoming "speakers of cultures" (Ochs, 2002) far beyond the academic subject-matters (but see Colla, 2020Colla, , 2022. In a few words, literature largely fails to address the moral relevance of parent-child homework talk and the ways in which it contributes to socializing children into morally competent members of the communities where their sociocultural development mostly occurs, i.e., family and school.…”