How does homework ‘work’ for young children? Children’s accounts of homework in their everyday lives

Abstract

Homework is an increasing yet under-researched part of young children's everyday lives. Framed by the international agendas of starting strong and school accountability, homework in the lives of young children has been either overlooked or considered from the perspective of adults rather than from the perspective of children themselves. This paper redresses this situation by reporting on an Australian study of 120 young children, aged four to eight years, where homework emerges as a key part of their everyday lives. Children's own accounts of their everyday decision-making, using audio-taped conversations and concurrent paper-based timeline activities, show homework as accomplishing the institutional purposes of the school, while affording the children opportunities to demonstrate their competence in operating in an adult-generated education regime.

Linking Homework to Achievement in Mathematics: An Examination of 8th Grade Arab Participation in TIMSS 2015

“…Valle, et al (2016) found a positive relationship between school achievement and the homework quantity, time management being related to homework quantity, type of approaching homework being related to time management. Other researchers connected homework quantity to characteristics such as family's socio-economic level; motivation to learn (Rønning, 2010;Dettmers, Trautwein, & Ludke, 2009) and parent's involvement while doing homework (Farrell & Danby, 2013;Margolis, 2015). Rudman (2014) claimed over the fact that homework is not investigated sufficiently.…”

Child's home preparation for school - views of parents. Followed, or unheeded issue in education?

“…The findings in the area of the parent's involvement in home preparation compared in foreign researchers, e.g., Carvalho (2001) Farrell, & Danby (2015), argue that: -parents become involved in home preparation because they think that it helps their child succeed at school; -parents become involved in home preparation because they care about the future of their child and his/her future education; -parents consider home preparation to be an emotional, relationship, communicational and, most importantly, time investment into the education of their child, often accompanied by negative behavioral aspects (stress, time pressure, inability or impossibility to help their child); -parents do not dispute the role of home preparation, they consider it as natural and obligatory arising from their role of the parent.…”

How Homework Shapes Family Literacy Practices

“…Homework is referred to here in the same manner as Farrell and Danby (2015) described: "school-prescribed tasks undertaken by children and usually under the supervision of an adult, most often a parent/parents within the home" (p. 250). "Homework is one of the recurrent activities in the lives of children" (Wingard & Forsberg, 2009, p. 1576, with some researchers reporting that it holds parents and children captive, to the extent that they can no longer develop family priorities and explore interests (Gill & Schlossman, 2004;Kralovec & Buell, 2000).…”