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This paper focuses on the working relationship between the director of an HE institute in the UK, and an artist-researcher navigating the higher education dance working environment and motherhood. The paper draws on personal experiences, sections labelled "vignettes" that highlight a tension faced by the individual and reflects on how the director of a HE institution in the UK facilitated egalitarian work environments through her charismatic leadership style. Such leadership from a senior female colleague allowed me to live out my Romani feminism and encouraged an inclusive work culture within higher education and the dance sector.

With a focus on an under-studied group of immigrants in the UK, this paper examines Iranian families' language ideologies and practices at home in relation to Persian acquisition and maintenance for their children. Working within a family language policy (FLP) framework, we draw on sociolinguistic data from semi-structured interviews with eighteen mothers to understand how parental beliefs, their everyday language practices and the attempts they make to maintain, improve, or alter their language use will lead to their children's heritage language acquisition and maintenance. The results of the study suggest that the success in heritage language development and maintenance boils down to parental pro heritage language ideologies and their everyday small-scale practices. It was also found that the interrelationship between language and cultural values and a successful FLP was further reinforced by the parents' migration trajectory and proficiency in English as the societal language. This research also showed that the large size of this diaspora in the UK (particularly in London), their close-knit social network, availability of heritage language weekend schools and the possibility of frequent visits to the home country create a conducive situation for the Iranian diaspora to raise their children bilingually.

There is a paucity of research into female-identifying dancers as parents, how the transition from dancer to pregnancy to parent is managed, and whether and how a dancing parent can maintain a career in dance. This paper shares findings from a qualitative interview study with (n = 30), predominantly female professional contemporary dancers that have become parents and are working within the contemporary dance industry in the UK. It uses Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual framework of belief and practice to make greater sense of how the dancers navigate becoming parents and the disruption to their dancer's habitus and embodied identity, as they attempt to manage work-family conflicts within contemporary dance. Findings reveal that when the dancers became a parent the disrupted taken-for-granted norms and expectations of the dancer's habitus and identity as a dancer, intensified the fragility of lives and livelihoods and brought new physical, psychological, social and economic vulnerabilities. The dancers in the study shared experiences of barriers, but also enablers for dancers that are parents within the contemporary dance industry in the UK, with examples of managing transition, evolution of identities and capital gain.

This paper analyses the impact of a UK local authority initiative--Fathers' Friday--aiming to involve fathers in their children's education, which took place in 20 early years' and primary school settings. Whilst the study involved a range of methods, in this paper interview data associated with practitioners' perspectives of the initiative are used. Theoretically, Bernstein's concept of boundary and related notions of classification and framing provide a framework for exploring fathers' positioning, and Bernstein's concept of "voice" helps to explain how relations are repositioned, as fathers engage with settings through their participation in the initiative. The authors' contention is that whilst an existing structure of social relations positions how settings and individuals can relate to one another, experiencing the Fathers' Friday initiative under changed conditions produces a weakened boundary space for fathers, from which "conversations can start". Children themselves form part of this process of redrawing weakened boundaries.

Since Edwards' influential study on mature women students and families in the 1990s, questions have been raised about the effects of Higher Education (HE) on family lives. Edwards maintained that relationships were at risk of breakdown due to the changing identity, increased self-esteem and enhanced confidence levels of women students. Men were perceived negatively as often being unsupportive of their wives' return to HE, or threatened by the changes they observed in her. This paper is based on qualitative research methods focusing on whether HE changes a woman's identity and reconstructs family relationships. A narrative line of inquiry was used to build detailed stories of a small group of women students and their husbands. The 11 women students were selected from one Foundation degree in Early Years programme at a further education institution. Data was constructed using mind mapping, focused interviews and a mosaic approach of participant-led research. Research findings showed that HE had the potential to transform a woman's identity and position within her family relationships. The results also demonstrated that family capital, in the form of practical and emotional strategies of support from both husbands and children, played an instrumental part in the women's success and participation in HE (though this aspect will be discussed in a subsequent paper).

Given the disadvantaged position of working-class children in the education system, it is important to understand how parents and families might support their children to succeed academically. This paper reports on 35 case studies that were conducted as part of the Effective Provision of Pre-School, Primary and Secondary Education (EPPSE 3-16) research project. Using in-depth interviews with children and parents this study investigates parental involvement with school and learning during primary and secondary school years in working-class families with children who are academically succeeding above prediction and children who are progressing as predicted, given their background characteristics. The paper provides descriptions of emotional and practical support for academic learning in these families and discusses how parents explain their involvement or lack thereof. This paper identifies differences in socialisation practices between the two groups of working-class families: "accomplishment of natural growth" in families with children progressing as predicted (Lareau, 2003) and "active cultivation" in families with children succeeding above prediction.

Growing pressure on parents to equip their children with the skills required for future success, coupled with an increased focus on providing quality learning experiences in the early years, has contributed to an upsurge in the enrolment of young children in formal (often privatised) activities. Moreover, in response to growing societal concerns over the perceived risks of obesity and sedentary lifestyles, parents are often acutely aware of the importance of providing plentiful physical activity opportunities for their children within this enrichment context. In this paper, the tendency for parents to provide copious developmental opportunities is referred to as "intensive mothering" and is explored through the theoretical lens of Bourdieu, specifically his concepts of "habitus" and "capital." This paper reports on a small-scale study undertaken within the UK, which sought to explore the impact of social class on access to early years' provision as well as parental attitudes towards physical activity and the provision of preschool physical development opportunities. Data were generated through a questionnaire (disseminated via early years settings) as well as three in-depth interviews with "middle-class" parents and were analysed to draw out key themes relating to the cultivation and consolidation of (physical) capital. The data indicate that many parents perceive a "responsibility" to aid their children's physical development and demonstrate a willingness to facilitate the acquisition of physical capital via the provision of play equipment, privatised classes and additional (informal) physical activity opportunities. Moreover, they suggest that "middle-class" parents, in particular, articulate the need to invest heavily in enrichment activities, influenced by their own experiences, tastes and values. It is argued that "intensive mothering" is illustrative of the reproduction of a class-based habitus and can be perceived as an attempt to maintain or improve social position through the cultivation, consolidation and, ultimately, conversion, of appropriate capital.

This paper challenges the dominant discourse that Higher Education (HE) choice is a consumer choice and questions assumptions underpinning government policy and HE marketing. HE choice is largely viewed as a rational, decontextualised process. However, this interpretivist study found it to be much more complex, and to be about relationships and managing a transition in roles. It focuses on parents, an under-researched group, who play an increasing part in their child's HE choice. It finds that they experience this process primarily as parents, not consumers and that their desire to maintain the relationship at this critical juncture takes precedence over the choice of particular courses and universities. The role of relationships, and in this context relationship maintenance, is the main theme. This is experienced in two principal ways: relationship maintenance through conflict avoidance and through teamwork. These significant findings have implications for the way governments and universities consider recruitment.

This paper presents a critical discourse analysis, situated within a broad Foucauldian framework, focusing on the construction of food and eating within the context of youth, schools and education, drawing on speeches, documents and public texts produced or sponsored by members of the UK Coalition Government (2010-2014). Michael Gove, the then Secretary of State for Education, spoke of the "clear moral purpose" (June 2011) of the education reform agenda, one key policy of which was the provision of free school meals for all infant school pupils from September 2014. Gove has said of this policy that "the reason that is so important is they won't just get the right nutrition, they will get the right values" (October 2013). The analysis draws on such statements, and other speeches, policy documents and public availably texts to delineate six discourses. These are the discourses of: School (Attainment and Community); Health; Party Political Identity; "Manners Maketh Man"; Economics; and "Good Parent/ Bad Parent". Within these, two overarching themes emerge: a tension between neoliberalism and liberal paternalism, and a link between meals and morality.

This paper considers the impact of research and development work around parenting by adults with a learning difficulty undertaken at the Norah Fry Research Centre (NFRC) since 2005. It discusses how our understanding of the support needs of parents with learning difficulties grew through an initial mapping study which led to the concept of "Parenting with Support". It then discusses the development of the Working Together with Parents Network which has endeavoured to continue to draw together and promote positive support for parents with learning difficulties and how the subsequent research at NFRC has been undertaken with a desire to further understand and support the development of this positive practice. It describes how this work has supported professionals already aware of parents with learning difficulties' support needs and but has yet to engage with the far wider range of professionals and agendas involved in supporting vulnerable families.

Parenting occurs within families and communities and is shaped by parents' internal resources and the structures that surround their life. Utilising a large national data-set, "Understanding Society," this study examined the extent to which variation in mothers' personality, cognitive ability and well-being, as well as structural and background factors is associated with affective and dialogic parenting and homework support. The findings revealed that psychosocial and structural factors had differential effects on aspects of parenting. Although mothers' well-being, personality and cognitive factors exerted small-to-modest effects, filial and neighbourhood interactions and background factors emerged as strong predictors for affective and dialogic parenting and homework support. These findings have implications considering that families' social contexts, in the form of social support networks and neighbourhood connectedness, are shrinking in the face of global recession and disappearing national resources and public services.

In many developed countries lone parent families face high rates of child poverty. Among those lone parents who do get child maintenance there is a hidden problem. States may retain all, or a proportion, of the maintenance that is paid in order to offset other fiscal costs. Thus, the potential of child maintenance to alleviate poverty among lone parent families may not be fully realized, especially if the families are also in receipt of social assistance benefits. This paper provides an original comparative analysis exploring the effectiveness of child maintenance to reduce child poverty among lone parent families in receipt of social assistance. It addresses the question of whether effectiveness is compromised once interaction effects (such as the operation of a child maintenance disregard) are taken into account in four countries Australia, Finland, Germany and the UK using the LIS dataset (2013). It raises important policy considerations and provides evidence to show that if policy makers are serious about reducing child poverty, they must understand how hidden mechanisms within interactions between child maintenance and social security systems can work as effective cost recovery tools for the state, but have no poverty reduction impact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the political implications of a subject not always thought of as directly political, but which has an important ideological component: child-rearing advice. The period after 1945 offers an important example of how this topic can interact with developments in political ideology. This article takes the example of France, with substantial comparative reference to the US and Britain. It argues that the mid-twentieth century was characterized by a move from a hygienist and behaviourist approach to child rearing to a more liberal, humanist approach informed by Freudian psychoanalysis. This occurred significantly later in France – in the 1970s – than in Britain or the US, where it is associated with the years immediately after World War II. Through a comparison of two celebrated childcare experts who epitomized the change – Françoise Dolto in France, Benjamin Spock in the US – the paper explores the reasons for this temporal discrepancy. It shows that Anglo-American experts believed that the widespread application of psychoanalytic theory would help produce democratic citizens and ward off the dangers of authoritarian personalities. In France, psychoanalytic approaches became allied with conservative Catholic views of the family and women's roles, with implications for family policy into the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Assent guidelines currently fail to include an assessment of a child's decision‐making ability, experience and interest. This paper summarises a two‐stage study, conducted in the United Kingdom, exploring perspectives on children's decision‐making power and ability within their family, as an indicator for overall decision‐making readiness. Children desired to make some decisions but knew their parents held ultimate authority. Parents believed their children could make some decisions and actively trained them through involvement in daily decisions. Researchers should strive to include children in enrolment decisions to some degree, based on a consideration of their expectations for involvement informed by their daily family context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a host surrogate motherhood arrangement, the surrogate agrees to be implanted with, and carry to term, an embryo created from the commissioning couple's gametes. When the surrogate child is born, it is the surrogate mother who, according to UK law, holds the legal status of mother. By contrast, the commissioning mother possesses no maternal status and she can only attain it once the surrogate agrees to the completion of the arrangement. One consequence of this is that, in the event that a host arrangement fails, the commissioning mother is left without maternal status. In this paper, I argue that this denial of maternal status misrepresents the commissioning mother's role in the host arrangement and her relationship with the surrogate child. Consequently, I suggest that commissioning mothers participating in host surrogacy arrangements ought to be granted the status of mother in the event that the arrangement fails. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child poverty remains high on the UK political agenda. This paper informs these debates by examining trends over time in perceptions of child necessities, rates of child poverty and parental behaviours. Results indicate high levels of stability between 1999 and 2012 in public perceptions of child necessities, stable or increasing rates of child poverty and similarities in the profile of child poverty vulnerability. In both 1999 and 2012, findings show that the majority of parents prioritise children's needs, posing a challenge for coalition rhetoric, and suggesting that a focus on structural rather than individual causes of poverty may be needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most developed countries, children in lone parent families face a high risk of poverty. A partial solution commonly sought in English-speaking nations is to increase the amounts of private child maintenance paid by the other parent. However, where lone parent families are in receipt of social assistance benefits, some countries hold back a portion of the child maintenance to reduce public expenditures. This partial ‘pass-through’ treats child maintenance as a substitute for cash benefits which conceivably neutralises its poverty reduction potential. Such neutralising effects are not well understood and can be obscured further when more subtle interactions between child maintenance systems and social security systems operate. This research makes a unique contribution to knowledge by exposing the hidden interaction effects operating in similar child maintenance systems across four countries: the United Kingdom, United States (Wisconsin), Australia and New Zealand. We found that when child maintenance is counted as income in calculating benefit entitlements, it can reduce the value of cash benefits. Using model lone parent families with ten different employment and income scenarios, we show how the poverty reduction potential of child maintenance is affected by whether it is treated as a substitute for, or a complement to, cash benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

UK governments have historically viewed lone parents as a political and social problem. This article argues that present-day political discourse increasingly positions lone parents as deficient parents, suggesting that they are more likely to fail to engage with good parenting practices than parents in couple households and may lack the resource management skills of successful families. We critique claims of an association between poor parenting and lone parenthood status using data from the UK Poverty and Social Exclusion (PSE) 2012 survey. We find negligible differences in the parenting behaviours of those living in lone and couple households, and lone parents (who are mainly mothers) actually cut back on their own expenditure to a greater extent than other parents in order to provide for children. These findings undermine the viability of links made between ‘poor’ parenting and family living arrangements; such claims are grounded in erroneous individualised accounts of disadvantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]