Morgan, P 1996 Who Needs Parents? The effects of childcare and early education on children in Britain and the USA. London: IEA Health and Welfare Unit

Looks at the idea of third-party childcare as being good and beneficial for the child. States that it is a hard issue to discuss as many get infuriated when questioning that day care/nurseries is “better” or at least “ harmless” compared to “parental care”.

Advantages
Childcare is seen as something that can benefit a child in preparing them for school and in a wider view into adulthood.

Looks into childcare as an Economic Necessity but not the same as Giddens; but rather employers need women to work to prevent the “shrinking numbers in the young workforce” (Edwina Currie, The Times).
Also, children create labour such as clothes and food, which increases jobs and employment. Childcare therefore creates economic advantages as they allow parents to go back to work and also provides jobs such as nursery workers/assistants, teachers, kitchen staff etc.

Page 3 Quotes

“It increases both the labour supply and the demand for labour”.

“Childcare is the most prominent way in which the personal services and functions performed by families are meant to enter the cash economy”.

“Industrialisation necessarily led to the dependence of all social life, and human interrelatedness, upon the market or ‘social production’ so that the population no longer relies upon organisations like family, kin or community.”

Disadvantages (Page 81)
Children that get placed into day care/ nurseries do not grow up with a good relationship with their mothers and this leads to stress and problems later on in life. Childcare is said to lower depression for mothers, but this is related to financial issues rather than actually caring for the child. The mother knows that if she works, the family income will increase and therefore the chance of depression decreases. “Poor parents make anxious parents”.

The changing of roles between the mother and the father and the impact on the family – either sex resulting in depression as they feel their stereotypical role is being questioned.

Chapter 8 deals with the idea of attachment between child and parent and the similarities/differences between the bond created between the two, if a child is placed into day care/nurseries or not – “Strange Situation” (Page 86-87)

Chapter 9 (Page 90)
“Childcare affects children, so employment affects parenting”.

Attachment depends on the following:

• The mother and fathers work patterns
• The parents’ attitudes and behaviour towards their children
• The family environment as a whole – as a family unit/in a home environment
• The child’s behaviour
• The care that the child is given:
  1 By parents
  2 Who is left to look after the child when parents’ are away?

Since women have increased in numbers within the “labour force” over the last century, it is extremely common to have both parents in full-time employment.
“The amount of ‘total contact time’ between parents and children, is calculated to have dropped 40 per cent for the USA during the last quarter century”. (Page 90)
Therefore, the time spent between the child and the mother/father is/has reduced dramatically. It is hard for parents to not treat their children like objects and to actually form relationships with them, if they are not around that often. If the only time parents get to see and play with their children is the evening when the child is meant to be sleeping it is harder to create and strengthen relationships.

The feeling of guilt within the mother (page 93)

Page 121 – Economic Issues
Children being the workers and employment of the future/ providers of the future, therefore parents should give time to make attachments with their children, as they will be the ones that are in control in the next generation. If they are all suffering from stress and depression due to lack attachment with their parents, then ‘we’ are all to suffer!

Lakoff, G 2004 Don’t think of an Elephant! Know your Values and Frame the Debate. Vermont: Chelsea Green Publishing

Theory and Application. Framing 101: How to take back Public Discourse

Relating family to politics – the need for democracy, equal rights in a family. Language used such as “Founding Fathers” and sending our “sons” to war. As humans we link politics/universal views to family values.

James Dobson ‘Dare to Discipline’ – Strict Father Model (Dictatorship) – Another link between family and right-wing politics (page 61).
Father tells not asks
President tells not asks

The Nurturant Parent – gender neutral – democracy; both parents equally responsible. Honesty, open-two way communication is fundamental in family as well as in a community, country – progressive values.
Page 14 – Six basic types of progressives. All of which are examples of the nurturant parent morality.

Page 46 (Chapter 3) – What’s in a word? Plenty if it’s marriage
Marriage – the connotations of the word. Life-long relationship, a partnership, family, vows, a home.
Why is same-sex marriage then frowned upon, as all of the above can be both hetero as well as homosexual?
Lakoff discusses sex being involved with marriage and many do not favour the idea of gays or lesbians having sex.
The connotations of same-sex marriage and gay marriage – same meaning but one sounds slightly sordid and represents an “irresponsible lifestyle” whilst the other softens the view that many have about gay marriages. There is something about getting the word into the English language and using it more regularly so that it becomes common and therefore the idea of same-sex marriages will become known more in our culture and society as well as our language.
Refers back to the Strict Father Model – they agree with only heterosexual marriage
Father = Leader:

• Role model to sons
• For daughters a model of what a man should be

On the other hand, the Nurturant Parent Model (two equal parents – democracy) stands for: (Page 48)

• Freedom
• Openness - Strong Progressive Politics
• Cooperation
• Community Development
• Fairness

Nurture children, teach children to nurture others. Although still considers marriage to be between man and woman, it does consider and does not rule out same-sex marriage. Strict Father Families follow tradition and are threatened by same-sex marriages.
Civil Unions allow for an economic unit (a family and a partnership) to be created. However, “gay activists” want their marriages to be accepted like a heterosexual marriage in a church so that they are able to represent their love and be treated with a “sense of normality”; the relationship between politics and personal freedom, under the law “equality includes social and cultural as well as material benefits” (page 49). When one thinks of the two aspects, marriage and family the initial thoughts are concerned with love, care and commitment not economic fairness.

The representation of the media – the way reporter phrases their questions to receive the most interesting and controversial answer. Lakoff talks about the ability to reframe, reframing a question can give a completely different answer.

Should be noted that this is an American resource.

A change in direction….

After reading Giddens and Lakoff, I have decided to focus upon the idea of children within society of today and how the idea of a family unit and the reasoning for having children has changed over time. Specifically, in relation to the idea of a family being seen as an economic unit and the number of children within a family decreasing over time.

I know this focus has differed from my original aim, however I see it as progress rather than a complete change. The process of my Independent Study so far has led me to take this path of direction and I feel I will be able to include and discuss this positive progress within my final piece of my Independent Study.

Books to read and summarise:

• Elkind, D 1979 The Child and Society. New York: Open University Press

• Woodhead, M, Light, P & Carr, R 1991 Growing up in a Changing Society. London: Routledge
  
  
• Cunningham, H 2005 Children and Childhood in Western Society Since 1500. Great Britain: Pearson Education Limited
  
  
• Morgan, P 1996 Who need Parents? The effects of childcare and early education on children in Britain and USA. London: The IEA Health and Welfare Unit
  

A session with Neil and Clive – Methodology

The session today I found useful, I think I found it helpful as it allows collaborative work to be carried out on our Independent Studies. It allows me to gain some reassurance about my ideas and work. The sessions have a sense of ‘togetherness’ about them and I feel this to be good as it shows to me that I am not alone on this project.

Literature Review

• What is it you’re reading?
• Who wrote it?
• Why did they write it?
• When did they write it?
• Select and sample research
• Page numbers for citations and Journals needed

The decision NOT to read is as important as the decision to read a piece of text.

Methodologies

• Who has researched into the area before
• Epistemology – the study of knowledge
• Why would it be researched in this way?
• Positivistic/ Interpretivistic
• Do ‘you’ want to find a definite answer or discussing what is already known and creating further areas of study? Exploratory versus Explanatory
• The ‘thinking’ behind the research
• Why are ‘you’ choosing this particular method?
• Ontology
• Nomological/ Positivist – could be followed by everyone, underlying laws
• Idiographic/ interpretivistic – expect to see differences between people’s views (specific understanding)
• Empirical – doing, creating your own research. Generating ‘your’ own data
• Inductive – theory then data
• Deductive – data then theory
• Reliability/ Truth/ Validity/ Collection
• Power
• Ethics – why one way and not another/ be critical and reflective

In your appendix you can explain methodology and do a paragraph explaining certain aspects of the area, for example, paradigms.

Question and Answer

Rachel: If we use an online journal do we have to state in our references that it was found online or can we just simply give the full reference of the journal if it is available?

Clive: You do not have to state that it was found online; you do not have to actually touch the journal!

Useful question that I would have and have already thought to myself!

Check out Bibliographies advice on WebCT

Reading………

Campbell, R (1996) Literacy in Nursery Education. Staffordshire: Trentham Books Limited

• Looks into the role of storytelling in the classroom. The advantages more than the disadvantages.
• The teacher and the play are relationship – how space is relevant in the child’s education
  
  FOUND THE ABOVE TO NOT BE RELEVANT

Gilkes, J (1987) Developing Nursery Education. Milton Keynes: Open University Press

• Why parents decide upon nurseries
• The purpose of nurseries from when they originally established to their purposes today.
• How nurseries carry out their purposes. What activities they carry and why.
• A structure/curriculum for nurseries
• The need to prepare the child for school.

Anthony Giddens “prized child” http://old.lse.ac.uk/collections/meetthedirector/pdf/23-Jan-02.pdf

• Demographic changes
• Infertility
• Changing patterns of the family unit

A summary of the Giddens talk:

Politics within relationships, the need to have a democracy within a relationship, an equal balance between partners and in decisions about children. The shift of family tradition: “you cannot form a type of family which is so different from traditional families and still call it a family. I think this school of thought, which tends to be, but is not inevitably, linked to rightist political positions, would say that the family is in a state of crisis.”
The “prized child”, children are seen as more precious in comparison to tradition where there were many children in one family and they would carry on their fathers work or become house wives. Traditionally, children would contribute to the “economic unit” of the family. However, nowadays family is seen more as “a set of relationships based much more upon communication and especially based upon emotional communication.”
Partners in relationships: same sex, is this considered a family if they decide to have children? Is it morally right? There are concerns here with society and culture. The relationships that same sex partners have with their children; who takes on the role of the mother and of the father? Do they have roles?

14/11/2006

Today, Claire had organised a session of ‘Accessing on-line Journals’ with Emily from the Didsbury Library. I found it extremely helpful and it will definitely benefit me in the researching of my Independent Study. Although there were handouts given out, below are a few points I took away from the session:

• Select key words from working title. For example, Language and Policy: An Investigation into the construction of Nursery Provision (the words in bold, I would choose as my key words).
• Think of different words that mean the same thing. For example, Language could be vocabulary or meaning. Nursery Provision could be childcare or education etc.
• Think about different endings: Truncation. For example, Management will only look for articles containing the word management. Therefore use the stem ‘manag’ and then place an asterisk (*) this will then look for all articles containing ‘manag’ and all its endings.
• Three or four searches may need to be carried out on different databases to find relevant journals.
• It is easier to access when on a MMU campus.
• Check out over subjects as well as Communications as there could be other relevant articles in their databases. For example. Psychology, Social Work etc.
  
  How to access the Journals within MMU:
  
  Library – Resources by Subjects or Databases by title (if you know which database you want to use) – Communications – Choose database Eg/ Expanded Academic ASAP International – Advanced Search
  
  The Find It button will search Manchester Metropolitan University to see if a hard copy is available in the library.
  
  I found Emily to be very easy to talk to and approachable, this helps as if I am struggling at anytime in the library; I know that support is there. Thank you Claire!!!
  

Reflection

In the past two weeks, I have received bad news about one member of family and therefore my Independent Study has been affected and my concentration on my work has suffered. I was not able to work as my mind was not focused and as a result anything that I would have produced would not have been up to my normal standard and much that I had read would not have properly registered in my brain. However, I have to be able to prioritise certain aspects of my life. I have to set out specific goals when it comes to my Independent Study. I will have to decide what needs to be done and do one bit at a time. For example, in relation with my reading and researching which is the stage I am in at the moment, I will read a certain article or piece of text, summarise it and make a full reference and then blog it, so that I have all my information to hand when I come to write up the final piece. Still at this stage, I am worried that my Independent Study will be affected and that I will not achieve the grade I am capable of achieving because of other factors that are playing on my mind. I am hoping that this will change and I can gain a more positive attitude towards my work and towards my mum’s health.