Parenting support: Another gender-related policy illusion in Europe?

Daly, Mary E.

doi:10.1016/j.wsif.2013.05.016

Cited by 40 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…This outcome contradicts the ambition to offer parents support that emanates from 'a joint parental responsibility and a gender equal parenthood' (Socialdepartementet, 2009: 9, 16) and it has previously been argued that parenting support tend to reinforce traditional ideals of motherhood since it underlines women's parental responsibilities (Clarke, 2006;Hey and Bradford, 2006). Such problems have been related to instrumental and genderblind parenting support which have also been noted in a broader European context (Daly, 2013;Martin, 2015). Gender-blind parenting can also be argued to be an effect of parental determinism and the focus on the individual parent with no regard to gendered power relations and parenthood.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental Determinism in the Swedish Strategy for Parenting Support

Widding¹

2018

Social Policy & Society

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This article analyses and problematises central assumptions in Sweden's National Strategy for Developing Parenting Support, a document that addresses children's deteriorating psychological health. The analysis was performed with Bacchi's (2009) approach to policy analysis. The results show how parental determinism is expressed; psychological ill health among school-aged children is described as an individualised problem caused by insecure parents, who are represented as the most important persons in a child's life and, therefore, are considered to be risk factors that require continuous support. Evidence-based parenting support programmes in particular are described as a central tool for improving parents’ sense of responsibility and parenting skills. While the strategy aims to offer all Swedish parents support, it underlines ideals that have been related to gendered, middle-class notions of parenting. The issue concerning children's psychological health is problematised and discussed in relation to parental determinism, the risk society, equality, equity and psychological health.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parental Determinism in the Swedish Strategy for Parenting Support

Widding¹

2018

Social Policy & Society

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“…This illuminates how familiarity and trust, as structured through professionals’ gender and social background, bore importantly upon experiences of uncertainty, inferences regarding parents and thus on ‘risk’ assessment and interventions carried out on behalf of the state. Manifestations of gender, ethnicity and class within understandings of parenting adequacy have been understood in the past through more institutional and policy‐framework dynamics (Donzelot ; Daly ; Møller and Harrits ), with these more directly framing street‐level interactions and decisions involving vulnerable families (e.g. Reich ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The everyday risk work of Dutch child‐healthcare professionals: inferring ‘safe’ and ‘good’ parenting through trust, as mediated by a lens of gender and class

Veltkamp

Brown

2017

Sociology Health & Illness

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Amidst intensifying policy concerns with children's wellbeing and development, healthcare professionals are required not only to assess risk of abuse and neglect, but to manage risk of 'poor parenting' more broadly. Drawing on 15 in-depth interviews and non-participant observations of 61 professional-family interactions, across four preventative public health services for children in the Netherlands, we explored how professionals accomplished such risk work amid intractable uncertainties. Building inferences from brief encounters with families, professionals gauged the extent to which they trusted parents to care 'appropriately'. This trust developed most readily with parents experienced as 'familiar' by the largely middle-class female professionals. Harnessing Schutzian phenomenology, we analyse the related manifestations of social structure within the interactionaldynamics and lifeworlds of risk assessment. We argue that social structures of gender, class and ethnicity can be seen as influential both through the differing potential for 'we-relationships' to be formed and via the generalising and stereotyped knowledge applied in their absence.

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“…Parenting support programs are programs that, following Daly's (2013) definition, are aimed at supporting parents in the upbringing of their children. Early education programs [Vroeg-en voorschoolse educatie] focus specifically on the (often cognitive) development of children and are usually offered at kindergarten, school or child-and day-care centres.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ‘turn to parenting’: paradigm shift or work in progress?

Hopman

Knijn

2015

ICEP

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IntroductionThere appears to be a new understanding of the paradigm of parenting support within the field of child and youth support. In general, parenting support policies and programs are seen as interventions and measures helping and assisting parents in raising their children. Daly (2013), for example, defines parenting support as "a suite of resources and measures that aim to educate parents about child raising and, at the more interventionist end of the spectrum, engage them in activities that seek to change their approach to managing and controlling their children's behaviour" (Daly 2013, p. 233). Such services can be provided by a variety of people and organizations, but are generally offered-or at least initialized-by the government and government-funded institutions (Matthijs and Vincken 1997). AbstractIn the field of child and youth support, preventive and parent-oriented support programs are currently emphasized. This is understood as a new paradigm of parenting support, which is sometimes referred to as "the turn to parenting. " Using Campbell's (Annual Review of Sociology, 28:21-38, 2002), Yee's (Organization 50(1):69-108, 1996) and Hall's (Comparative Politics 25(3):275-296, 1993) theories concerning the processes of policy making, this study investigates whether such a turn has indeed taken place. We first trace back the concepts of parenting and parenting support in policy documents of the Netherlands. Hereafter, we study the implications for practice by quantitatively analysing developments in the implementation and use of child and youth support interventions from 1990 onwards using a Dutch database of effective youth care interventions. The results suggest a trend towards preventive and targeted preventive interventions. Contrasting the turn to parenting, we find a statistically significant rise in early education programs. The findings suggest that ideas around the importance of parenting and parenting support have been ongoing, and that policy and practice have mutually influenced each other during the time-frame of this research project . International ideas and national actors have changed the policy discourse, but the impact on practice is ambiguous.

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Parenting support: Another gender-related policy illusion in Europe?

Cited by 40 publications

References 14 publications

Parental Determinism in the Swedish Strategy for Parenting Support

Parental Determinism in the Swedish Strategy for Parenting Support

The everyday risk work of Dutch child‐healthcare professionals: inferring ‘safe’ and ‘good’ parenting through trust, as mediated by a lens of gender and class

The ‘turn to parenting’: paradigm shift or work in progress?

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