Mothers and Their Children: A Feminist Sociology of Childrearing / Edition 1

by Jane Catherine Ribbens

Overview

This volume presents a fresh approach to the analysis of childrearing. By focusing on mothers' own understandings of their childrearing, the author reveals how differences in childrearing are rooted in fundamental ideas about the nature of social life and the place of the individual and the family within it.

Broad cultural concepts of family, individuality and the nature of childhood are discussed. The author analyzes the implications of mothers' ideas about these for key childrearing preoccupations of time, discipline and the independence of children. An important theme that emerges is the diversity behind the image of the 'ordinary family'. Drawing on empirical evidence of mothers' concerns and understandings of childrear

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803988354
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
Publication date:	01/24/1995
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.43(w) x 8.50(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jane Ribbens is Senior Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University. She is co-author of Mothers and Education: Inside Out? Exploring Family Education Policy and Experience (with D Miriam, R Edwards and M Hughes, 1993), and Mothers Intuition? Choosing Secondary Schools (with D Miriam and A West, 1994).

Table of Contents

Introduction
PART ONE: CHILDREARING IN CONTEXT
Childrearing, Psychology and Sociology
The Feminist Study of Childrearing
Individuals, Families and Children
Friends and Relations
PART TWO: PORTRAITS OF CHILDREARING IN FOUR MIDDLE INCOME HOUSEHOLDS
Introduction to the Portraits
Fitting Children into Adult Frameworks
Fitting in around the Children
Overview of the Portraits
PART THREE: DEVELOPING THE PICTURES
Conceptions of Children
Childrearing Philosophies in Action
Sociology and Childrearing Reconsidered
Appendix: Further Details of the Sample