“Doing being an involved parent”

Abstract

The present study investigates the increasingly common phenomenon of parental involvement in children’s education from a dialogic perspective. Drawing on video-recorded parent-child homework conversations in Italian families and adopting a conversation analysis-informed approach, the study analyzes how a value-laden cultural notion like ‘family-school partnership’ is given ‘dialogic existence’ through a variety of discursive practices. Specifically, it identifies four practices deployed by parents when supervising children’s homework: (1) making the teacher speak, (2) drawing parallels between family and school, (3) siding with the teacher, and (4) adopting a teacher-like evaluative stance. Beyond their specificities, all these practices reproduce the school’s institutional culture inside the home. It is argued that, through these practices, parents ‘do being involved’ in homework and implement a partnership based on shared values between family and school.

Development of Blended Learning-Based Family Institution Partnership Model in Stimulating Early Children's Development

“…Understanding children's developmental needs and providing appropriate educational support has become a daunting task for many families (Berryhil et al, 2022). This situation has exposed a critical gap in parents' ability to facilitate learning at home, as they struggle to create a conducive learning environment and maintain the necessary discipline for effective education (Colla, 2023).…”