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Gender, Power and the Household pp 116–136Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Negotiating the Home and the School: Low Income, Lone Mothering and Unpaid Schoolwork

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Abstract

At the same time as the number of lone-mother families living on low incomes has increased (Department of Social Security, 1993), schools and education policy in the UK has demanded the greater involvement of parents in their children’s schooling (Department of Education, 1994). Parental involvement, however, is presented as an ungendered concept — ungendered on paper but not in practice. It is primarily mothers who are involved in the day-to-day work of their children’s schooling, regardless of their marital situation (Lareau, 1989; Reay, 1995; David et al., 1996) — it is maternal, rather than parental involvement — and performed under differing material conditions.

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Authors
  1. Kay Standing
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Aberdeen, UK

    Linda McKie (Senior Lecturer in Health Education) (Senior Lecturer in Health Education)

  2. University of Reading, UK

    Sophia Bowlby (Senior Lecturer in Geography) (Senior Lecturer in Geography)

  3. University of Surrey, UK

    Susan Gregory (Doctoral Student) (Doctoral Student)

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© 1999 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc.

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Standing, K. (1999). Negotiating the Home and the School: Low Income, Lone Mothering and Unpaid Schoolwork. In: McKie, L., Bowlby, S., Gregory, S., Campling, J. (eds) Gender, Power and the Household. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376632_7

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