In the modern day, it is understood that the role of the teacher comprises aspects of therapy directed towards the child. But to what extent should this relationship be developed, and what are its concomitant responsibilities? This book offers a challenging philosophical approach to the inherent problems and tensions involved with these issues.

Although children and parents often feature in philosophical literature on education, the nature of the parent–child relationship remains occluded by the language of rights, duties and entitlements. Likewise, talk of ‘parenting’ in popular literature and culture implies that being a parent is primarily about performing tasks. Drawing on popular literature, moral philosophy and philosophy of education, I make some suggestions towards articulating a richer philosophical conception of this relationship, and outline some of the implications, questions and problems this raises for (...) philosophers of education. (shrink)

The most popular uniting theme in feminist peace literature grounds women's peace work in mothering. I argue if maternal arguments do not address the variety of relationships different races and classes of mothers have to institutional violence and/or the military, then the resulting peace politics can only draw incomplete conclusions about the relationships between maternal work/thinking and peace. To illustrate this I compare two models of mothering: Sara Ruddick's decription of "maternal practice" and Patricia Hill Collins's account of racial-ethnic women's (...) "motherwork.". (shrink)

This book, the product of a lifetime of research by one of the founders of developmental psychology, takes on the powerful assumptions behind these questions- ...

The new idea of a 'parenting contract', explicitly taking as its point of reference the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is meant primarily to protect children's rights, and specifically the right to a proper upbringing. The nature of the parent-child relationship is thus drawn into the discourse of rights and duties. Although there is much to be said for parents explicitly attending to their children's upbringing, something of the uniqueness of the parent-child relationship seems to be (...) occluded by the language of rights and duties as that relationship becomes narrowed down to the confines of a contractual agreement. What comes to be foregrounded in the parent-child relationship is a defence of the various parties'—the parents' and the child's—interests. By drawing on the work of Annette Baier, we argue that this has considerable consequences in terms of trust and distrust, and parental engagement. It is questioned whether the concept of the parenting contract brings about the positive climate of engagement which it is meant to promote. (shrink)

The project of studying children in order to understand them, which lies at the heart of contemporary thinking about children and their education, is misconceived. It rests, jrst of all, upon a false belief that we can only come to know something properly by deliberately and systematically pursuing knowledge of it. Secondly, it offers a paradigm of knowing children which justifies parents and teachers in not giving themselves to children. By re-interpreting the problems that adults experience with children as technical, (...) as arising from lack of information about them, it ignores the personal and moral dimension of adults’ relations with children and thus further alienates them from one another. (shrink)

This new edition contextualizes Lareau's original ethnography in a discussion of the most pressing issues facing educators at the beginning of the new millennium.