TY - JOUR
T1 - Parenting priorities and pressures furthering understanding of ‘concerted cultivation’
AU - Vincent, Carol
AU - Maxwell, Claire
PY - 2016/3/3
Y1 - 2016/3/3
N2 - This paper re-examines the purposes of a planned and intentional parenting style – ‘concerted cultivation’ – for different middle-class groups, highlighting that social class fraction, ethnicity, and also individual family disposition, guides understandings of the purposes of enrolling children in particular enrichment activities. We examine how parents and their children engage in extra-curricular activities for instrumental reasons with a view to securing skills, qualities and distinction for the future. Additionally, however, enrichment activities are understood as offering present-day values such as enjoyment, social bonding and purposeful activity. The paper also highlights that current policy and broader commercial discourses call for the increased responsibilisation and intensification of parenting, which means that ‘good’ parents are required to ‘buy into’ extra-curricular activities for their children, with concomitant implications for those whose access to activities is limited by economic circumstance.
AB - This paper re-examines the purposes of a planned and intentional parenting style – ‘concerted cultivation’ – for different middle-class groups, highlighting that social class fraction, ethnicity, and also individual family disposition, guides understandings of the purposes of enrolling children in particular enrichment activities. We examine how parents and their children engage in extra-curricular activities for instrumental reasons with a view to securing skills, qualities and distinction for the future. Additionally, however, enrichment activities are understood as offering present-day values such as enjoyment, social bonding and purposeful activity. The paper also highlights that current policy and broader commercial discourses call for the increased responsibilisation and intensification of parenting, which means that ‘good’ parents are required to ‘buy into’ extra-curricular activities for their children, with concomitant implications for those whose access to activities is limited by economic circumstance.
KW - enrichment activities
KW - ethnicity
KW - parenting
KW - social class
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84958764319&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/01596306.2015.1014880
DO - 10.1080/01596306.2015.1014880
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:84958764319
SN - 0159-6306
VL - 37
SP - 269
EP - 281
JO - Discourse
JF - Discourse
IS - 2
ER -