Parental work

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Parental work is an umbrella term for the management of communication and cooperation with parents as work in child-related professions .

Parental work is a relatively young technical term that has gradually developed in German-speaking countries since the end of the 20th century and established in the 21st century to describe and professionalize the relationship management of child-related professions or institutions with parents .

As an “umbrella term”, parenting work should essentially refer to the management of “communication and cooperation” with parents and encompass the following sub-areas: “Parent education, parenting education, family education, parenting support, parent coaching, parenting advice, parent involvement, parental involvement, parental participation, parental participation, parenting communication, parents -Cooperation, educational partnerships, educational partnerships or just educational and educational partnerships ”. The terms are formulated "from the point of view of the skilled workers, i.e. the professional-educational side".

The aim of parent work is a “positive development of children and young people”. So far, “the children and young people” have been explicitly seen as “the actual target group” of parental work - and precisely not the parents. In this respect, parents have so far hardly been regarded as a “legitimate target group or stakeholder group” of parental work, so that an in-depth study of parents and the social framework of parenthood as a basis for parental work has so far been missing.

Scientifically, up until now, pedagogy has primarily dealt with parenting. Systematic reflection on the topic in sociology , psychology , gender studies , philosophy or social history has so far hardly been done. Occupational fields and institutions that work with parents are practically all professions or institutions whose direct field of activity is children , young people or families .

Is criticized by terminology such as "parental involvement", "educational partnership", "cooperation", etc., that they might aspects taboo or disguise of problems distracted and gender stereotypes constant over time. It is also criticized that they devalue mothers and parents or question their competence , make their unpaid work invisible and thus devalue them. In addition, it is criticized that the terms favor an ideologization and reflect a self-centered end-means-thinking.

history

middle Ages

In the house of the Middle Ages the socialization of children in the majority of the population - except for the upper classes - primarily took place through the co-existence and cooperation of the children, i. H. about child labor . The domestic servants were usually responsible for supervising small children - so-called child people ( girls or older women and men who were not fully able to work ) and, in wealthier households, increasingly also wet nurses and tutors . With the change in the structures and institutions of socialization, the position of parents, children and household servants also changed fundamentally.

Modern times

The social change since the Enlightenment fundamentally changed social structures and institutions in Western countries. As a central institution of the Middle Ages , the house also changed into a family institution in modern times .

Through social interdependence, integration and differentiation, societies became complex national societies . The shaping of the future was of central importance for nation building ; H. shaping social generativity . The “national interest in children” grew and institutions such as schools , kindergartens , children's homes , youth welfare offices etc. emerged at all levels . As a result, the monopoly on education increasingly shifted from paternal authority to the state . There was gradually a ban or an outlawing of child labor and the enforcement of compulsory education . Children no longer contributed to household income, even in the middle and lower classes, but became a cost factor. The expectations of investing in children have been increasing ever since then - investments in time, money, education , emotions, etc. The functions of the former household were increasingly taken over by the new institutions in professions.

Child-related professions and institutions acted as “transmission belts for inner nation building”, which increasingly enforced the “national habitus” in the socialization of children - especially with regard to parents. The example of the school shows the fundamental change: Before the general spread of schools, teachers were mostly under the authority and instructions of their father as private tutors . This changed fundamentally with the institutionalization. Nation states, their child-related professions and institutions developed into a kind of “upper parenthood” that increasingly sets, demands and enforces the norms of socialization.

Mothers, who are primarily responsible for custody, were no longer primarily subject to the guidelines of paternal violence, but increasingly became the “handlers” of a growing number of experts and their norms.

“It is easy to span the spectrum from mother education in the German Empire and the Weimar Republic to the traditions of conventional parenting work in schools (parenting evenings, parent information) and the parenting initiatives following the children's shop movement in the early 1970s to the diverse traditions of parenting work in Daycare centers, but it wasn't until the end of the 20th century that this relationship was referred to as parenting and at the same time it was apparently gaining relevance. "

This was long referred to as “ mother education” or “cooperation”, which in the bourgeois family model lay with the mother and not with the father as the authority and head of the family.

Since the end of the 20th century

Since the end of the 20th century, social change has led to further changes:

  • The liberalization of the bourgeois family model is changing the family roles of children, mothers and fathers, which leads to a pluralization of lifestyles .
  • Child-related professions and institutions can therefore also be less and less oriented towards the bourgeois family model and, as socialization institutions that complement the family, are under pressure to change. In addition, they are under increasing pressure to expect professionalism and scientific expertise .

In the German-speaking area , a large number of names for the cooperation of mothers emerged - this also includes the term "education and training partnership". In the 21st century, the term parent work became widely accepted, despite fundamental concerns and criticism of the connotations and implications of the term.

Terms parental work, upbringing and educational partnership, etc.

object

In the modern age, parents have become an important target group or stakeholder group for more and more child-related professions and institutions . Numerous terms were developed to describe the complex relationship management with parents:

"Parent pedagogy, parent education, family education, parent support, parent coaching, parent counseling, parent involvement, parental involvement, parental participation, parental participation, parent communication, parent cooperation, parenting partnerships, educational partnerships or just parenting and educational partnerships".

An attempt is made to “order” this “relatively arbitrary confusion of terms” using the terms “parenting work” and “upbringing and education partnership”. The term follows the naming logic of the educational professions, which puts the target group in front of activities beyond the child - as youth work , family work , social work or, here, parental work.

Parental work in this respect describes the work of educators with parents in the context of educational institutions that are attended by their children, as well as of therapists with parents in the context of therapeutic institutions. It is to be distinguished from general parent education within the framework of adult education or through the mass media and from family work within the framework of social work .

Martin Furian defines parental work as the sum of all educational offers for parents and efforts to improve parental upbringing behavior . This includes the disclosure and coordination of upbringing between families and educational institutions outside the family and the improvement of the educational situation in institutions outside the family with the involvement of the parents.

Norbert Huppertz reflects on parental work with regard to crèche and kindergarten. He understands the relationship between the educator and the parents with the help of dialectics : “Dialectics in the sense of a natural tension in two directions - with a centered view of the child. By entering the facility, the child enters a bi-central system of upbringing and education, i.e. In other words, there can be tensions due to the two different poles. By nature, it is basically an ambivalent relationship. ”At Huppertz, in his current position of life-related work with parents, it is above all the activating methods that are reflected.

According to Günter Stürmer , parental work at a day-care center encompasses all of the offers to families in their catchment area . It is an elementary component of the educational work, which is geared towards care, upbringing and education and is based on the constructive, partnership and dialogic cooperation between parents and educators . It includes:

  • Information about the facility,
  • Clarification of mutual expectations,
  • active participation of parents ( parental participation )
  • Opportunities for parents to meet,
  • Support other social networks in the community.

Parents of disabled children and families in difficult life situations are often confronted with specific challenges. Since they usually have no intergenerational experience and routines for them, parenting and family work that accompanies their lives can prove to be helpful.

Problems of terms

“Parental work”, “upbringing and educational partnership” and many other terms are “formulated from the perspective of the skilled workers, that is, the professional-educational side”. As a result, they are often "ideological and obscuring" and include unintentional self-disclosures :

Making aspects of power taboo

The terms “parental work”, “upbringing and educational partnership”, “cooperation” are not reflected in any more detail and thus remain “empty words” that disguise and taboo existing power asymmetries to the detriment of parents (see taboos on power ). They suggest a “win-win situation” and gloss over the relationship “positive and very harmonious”, quasi as a “feel-good culture” ( euphemism ). In this way, the necessary analysis of power aspects and interests is obscured, and the resulting conflicts of interest are not alleviated, but rather favored. The focus of action is not parents or the parents' welfare, but the work of child-related professions and institutions as well as the related goals and interests , norms and ideals . It often goes unnoticed that parental work can even be contrary to the interests of parents or the parents' welfare. B. in the employment of parents or mothers and the resulting impairment of the compatibility of family and work .

Distraction from problems

By focusing on parents, one distracts from structural problems in one's own area. These include, for example, the financial and personnel shortage of educational institutions, the difficulties with internal interfaces in the education system and with political guidelines, the objectification of children, the often negative attributions to parents and the social inequality of families and their productivity.

Continuation of gender stereotypes

Due to the lack of clarification of the historical basis, today's parental work is still largely based on the model of the bourgeois family and its complementary gender roles of man and woman . Despite the fact that today's parental work is largely carried out in professions and institutions with a high proportion of women, their fundamental gender bias is concealed, gender stereotypes are perpetuated and misogynous attitudes are promoted: Because “traditional parental work is ultimately mothers' work”.

Devaluing mothers or parents and questioning competence

Work is a concept of order that has become established with the "transition from the birth to the 'professional' principle". The term “work” emphasizes one's own professionalism as a childhood expert and parents and especially mothers are devalued as “ laypeople ” or helicopter parents . This also favors misogynous attitudes.

Making the work of mothers or parents invisible

The work of parents can no longer be called parent work, as it is used as a technical term by child-related professions, institutions and sciences. This exacerbates the already existing problem that the housework, family work or care work , which is mostly done by mothers to this day, is not viewed as “real work” and is therefore devalued. This, too, favors misogynous attitudes.

Ideology and self-centered end-means thinking

The sciences that deal with the study of the family tend towards normative family rhetoric and a “notorious ideologization of the subject” - this is subsequently continued in family-related professions. In education, the pressure of scientific legitimacy and professionalization since the end of the 20th century has also led to bureaucratisation and an end-means rationality. The lack of scientific and professional reflection and foundation of the collective terms “parents” and “parenthood” as well as the term “parent work” also reflects this ideologization and the self-related end-means-thinking.

Areas of application

Occupational fields and institutions that work with parents are practically all professions or institutions whose direct field of activity is children , young people or families . In the course of time, an "unconnected coexistence of different institutions, organizations and actors" has arisen. This is characterized by complexity , contradictions , individual approaches, uncertainties , ambiguities, diffusion in action, wrong strategies and methods, incorrect assessments and actions.

The institutions, organizations, actors involved in parental work include: public and independent organizations, music schools, day care centers with crèches, day care / child minders, parents' initiatives, health insurance companies, paediatricians, sports clubs, family education centers, parent-child groups, speech therapists, general social services, social pedagogues Family help, civil society organizations, child protection organizations, psychological counseling centers, independent psychotherapists, advanced training institutions, independent parent trainers, family helpers, family visitors, educational counseling, social counseling, pregnancy counseling, early reading promotion, foundation mother and child, family centers.

target group

Ambiguity about target group

Child centering is a central value for professions and institutions related to children, but it has so far hardly been reflected on. In this respect, the goal of parent work is a “positive development of children and young people”. As “the actual target group ” of parental work, “the children and young people” are then expressly seen - and precisely not the parents. On the other hand, they are very much considered a target group without the contradiction being discussed or resolved.

Fears of parents

For those involved in parental work, contact with parents is often fraught with fears : fears of pressure to perform by parents, of non-recognition of their own authority and competence, of their own inability to give expected help, of different educational attitudes. Fears of parents are fostered by starting a career in the phase of youth or young adulthood, i. H. before the potentially own phase of parenthood . The defense against such fears is often counterproductive in parenting work.

Lack of knowledge about parents and parenting

In the work of parents, parents were and remain so far " unknown beings ". Knowledge about family and parenthood is usually fed by the formation of modern myths about the family - fatherhood, motherhood, childhood and youth. A detailed preoccupation with parents and the social framework of parenthood as the basis of parent work is still pending. This also applies to mothers as the main target group for parental work, because parents who are difficult to reach and who are classified as problematic come to the fore, such as fathers, parents with a migration background or single parents. To this extent, parents have hardly been considered a “legitimate stakeholder group” . This favors an instrumentalization and functionalization of parents as well as an impairment of the parents' well-being, which is a prerequisite for the well-being of the child .

See also

literature

  • Martin Furian (Ed.): Practice of parental work in kindergarten, after-school care center, home and school . With contributions by Barbara Furian. Quelle and Meyer, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-494-01091-9 .
  • Norbert Huppertz : Activating forms of parental work in kindergartens and crèches. PAIS-Verlag, Oberried 2015, ISBN 978-3-931992-44-6 .
  • Norbert Kühne : Parent Conflict Discussion, in: Praxisbuch Sozialpädagogik Volume 1, Bildungsverlag EINS, Troisdorf 2005; ISBN 3-427-75409-X
  • Werner Sacher: Parents work. Design options and basics for all types of schools. Bad Heilbrunn 2008.
  • Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt (eds.): Upbringing and educational partnerships. Basics and structures of parent work. Volume 1. Wiesbaden 2012
  • Günter Stürmer: New parenting work . Herder, 2005, ISBN 978-3-451-00223-6 .
  • Désirée Waterstradt: Process Sociology of Parenthood. Nation-building, figurative ideals and generative power architecture in Germany. Münster 2015.
  • Udo Wilken / Barbara Jeltsch-Schudel (ed.): Parental work and disability. Empowerment - Inclusion - Wellbeing. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart, 2014, ISBN 978-3-17-025986-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g Désirée Waterstradt: Process Sociology of Parenthood. Nation-building, figurative ideals and generative power architecture in Germany . Münster 2015, p. 334 ff .
  2. ↑ a b c d e f Waldemar Stange: Upbringing and educational partnerships. Basics, structures, justifications . In: Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt (eds.): Educational and educational partnerships. Basics and structures of parent work . tape 1 . Wiesbaden 2012, p. 12-39 .
  3. ↑ Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt: Foreword . In: Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt (eds.): Educational and educational partnerships. Basics and structures of parent work . tape 1 . Wiesbaden 2012, p. 10-11 .
  4. ↑ a b c Désirée Waterstradt: "Parent work" becomes "Parent Relations" . Ed .: KiTa aktuell. 2017, p. 28–31 (Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg edition).
  5. ↑ Michael Mitterauer : Middle Ages . In: Andreas Gestrich, Jens-Uwe Krause , Michael Mitterauer (Hrsg.): History of the family . Stuttgart 2003, p. 160-363 .
  6. ↑ Sonya Michel, Eszter Varsa: Children and the National Interest . In: Dirk Schumann (Ed.): Raising citizens in the “century of the child”. The United States and German Central Europe in comparative perspective . New York 2010.
  7. ↑ Dietrich Benner , Friedhelm Brüggen: History of Pedagogy . Ditzingen 2010, p. 100 .
  8. ↑ Christian Jansen , Henning Borggräfe: Nation, Nationalität, Nationalismus . Frankfurt 2007, p. 31 .
  9. ↑ Norbert Elias : Studies on the Germans. Power struggles and habitus development in the 19th and 20th centuries . Frankfurt / M 2005 (first edition: 1989).
  10. ↑ Thomas Nipperdey : German History 1866-1918. The world of work and civic spirit . tape 1 . Munich 1990, p. 71 .
  11. ^ Andreas Gestrich : Modern times . In: Andreas Gestrich, Jens-Uwe Krause , Michael Mitterauer (Hrsg.): History of the family . Stuttgart 2003, p. 580 .
  12. ↑ a b Horst Speichert: Parental work . In: Hans-Joachim Petzold and Horst Speichert (eds.): Handbook of pedagogical and socio-pedagogical practice terms , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1981, pp. 125–127.
  13. ↑ Parents' work / relatives groups , Leipzig University Hospital , accessed on June 27, 2014.
  14. ↑ Norbert Huppertz: Activating methods of parental work in kindergarten and crèche . PAIS-Verlag, Oberried 2015, p. 7.
  15. ↑ a b c Werner Sacher: Parental work. Design options and basics for all types of schools . Bad Heilbrunn 2008.
  16. ↑ a b Tanja Betz: The ideal of the educational and upbringing partnership Critical questions about increased cooperation between day-care centers, elementary schools and families. Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2015, accessed on March 1, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Sebastian Conrad, Elisio Macamo, Bénédicte Zimmermann: The Codification of Work: Individual, Society and Nation . In: Jürgen Kocka, Claus Offe (Ed.): History and future of work . Frankfurt 2000, p. 449-475 .
  18. ^ Lothar Gall: bourgeoisie, liberal movement and nation . Munich 1996, p. 83 .
  19. ^ Josef Kraus: Helicopter Parents. No more funding mania and pampering . Reinbek 2013.
  20. ↑ Karin Hausen: Work and Gender . In: Jürgen Kocka, Claus Offe (Ed.): History and future of work . Frankfurt 2000, p. 346 .
  21. ^ Kurt Lüscher: Family and Postmodernism . In: Bernhard Nauck (Ed.): Family in the focus of science and research. Dedicated to Rosemarie Nave-Herz on her 60th birthday . Neuwied 1995, p. 4 .
  22. ^ Lutz-Michael Alisch: Pedagogical Science . Munster 1995.
  23. ↑ Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt: Foreword . In: Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt (eds.): Educational and educational partnerships. Basics and structures of parent work . tape 1 . Wiesbaden 2012, p. 10-11 .
  24. ↑ Eiko Jürgens: Parents' home and school. Suggestions for the design of a successful cooperation . In: teaching, educating . No. 4 , 2002, p. 211 .
  25. ↑ Martin Textor: Are parents customers, educational partners or "unknown beings"? In: KiTa aktuell (Bavaria edition) . No. 02 , 2017, p. 40-42 .
  26. ^ Désirée Waterstradt: Process-Sociology of Parenthood. Nation-building, figurative ideals and generative power architecture in Germany . Münster 2015, p. 201 ff .
  27. ↑ Christoph Grote: Growing together - fathers in educational partnerships . In: Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt (eds.): Educational and educational partnerships. Basics and structures of parent work . tape 1 . Wiesbaden 2012, p. 320-325 .
  28. ↑ Cengiz Deniz: Perspectives for Parents' Work with Migrant Families . In: Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt (eds.): Educational and educational partnerships. Basics and structures of parent work . tape 1 . Wiesbaden 2012, p. 326-331 .
  29. ↑ Cengiz Deniz: Father work with migrant fathers - a reflection on practice . In: Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt (eds.): Educational and educational partnerships. Basics and structures of parent work . tape 1 . Wiesbaden 2012, p. 338-344 .
  30. ↑ Angelika Henschel: Between excessive demands and demands - educational and upbringing partnerships with one-parent families . In: Waldemar Stange, Rolf Krüger, Angelika Henschel, Christoff Schmitt (eds.): Educational and educational partnerships. Basics and structures of parent work . tape 1 . Wiesbaden 2012, p. 332-337 .