“They Want Us to Do Things Right”: Low-Income Mothers’ Experiences With Parenting Education

• In Event: Educational Trajectories: Effects of Social Class and “Significant Others”

Abstract

Parenting education programs aim to instill in parents knowledge, attitudes, and habits that will increase their children’s verbal facility, reduce behavior problems, develop early reading skills, and improve their life chances. This ethnographic study is designed to understand how low-income mothers experience parenting programs, focusing on the extent to which they accept or reject program messages and the structural barriers affecting their parenting. Preliminary findings suggest that parents agreed about the need to provide children with affection but disagreed with instructors’ arguments against corporal punishment. Data further show that parents’ lives were heavily influenced by violence in their families and communities. While parents appreciated the class’s supportive nature, they found the instructors’ suggestions for dealing with this violence inadequate.

Author

• Maia B. Cucchiara, Temple University