Sometimes You Have to Pop Them: Conflicting Views of Violence in a Parenting Education Class

• In Event: Excellence in Education Research: Early Career Scholars and Their Work

Abstract

For the past several decades, educators and social services providers have turned to parenting education programs to help parents be more responsive and effective with their children. Often offered specifically to low-income families, these programs teach early literacy practices, strategies for increasing “bonding” between parents and children, anger management skills, and non-violent approaches to discipline. Informed by an extensive body of research documenting the relationship between a child’s early experiences and brain development, they aim to instill in low-income parents the knowledge, attitudes, and habits that will increase their children’s verbal facility, reduce behavior problems, develop early reading skills, and improve their life chances. In addition, parenting education often serves as an intervention to prevent or reduce neglect and abuse. In the large urban area where this research is conducted, there are at least one hundred agencies offering parenting education; most of these target low-income families, especially mothers.
There is an extensive literature assessing the efficacy of particular parenting skills curricula. However, we know much less about how these programs operate from one setting to another and how parents experience them. More broadly, there is little recognition in the policy and scholarly literatures of the fact that embedded within these programs is a definition of “good parenting” that is normative and draws on cultural practices associated with the middle class. Nor is there adequate recognition of the ways structural barriers (i.e., poor housing, lack of job opportunities, etc.) may obstruct parents’ efforts.
This qualitative study, which includes interviews with providers, instructors, and parents, as well as participant-observation in several parenting education programs, provides a sociological perspective on this issue that has largely been lacking. It focuses on how parents experience such programs; whether or not they agree with the content and underlying assumptions; and the relationships between the material in the programs, parents’ practices, their kinship networks, and the constraints they face in their daily lives.
Here I draw on data from one site, Sutton Social Services, where I conducted over forty hours of participant-observation over an eight-month period and ten interviews with parents and instructors. Sutton is located in a low-income neighborhood in large northeastern city and serves a low-income, mostly African-American population. Classes were held weekly and attracted approximately 7-10 parents each week.

Author

• Maia B. Cucchiara, Temple University