Miriam E. David

Motherhood and social policy-a matter of education?

FAMILY AND SOCIAL POLICY Motherhood, although often disguised in talk of the family, parenthood, home or child care, is at the heart of much contemporary social and political discussion. Its nature is usually taken as given a deeply held assumption of the right and proper way of bringing up children. But changes in the current nature of family life increases in one-parent families, ’working mothers’, ’teenage mothers’ provoke contradictory proposals for changes in the activities and responsibilities of motherhood. For some, especially those who call themselves ’pro-family’, (eg New Right political pressure groups) such demographic and economic trends invite demands for their reversal by specific preventive policies such as education for family life, parent education or the creation of family centres. For others, (eg Rights of Women or NCCL’s * Paper originally prepared for the Girl Friendly Conference held at Manchester Polytechnic, Faculty of Educational Studies, Sepiember l-13th, 1984. The paper comes out of a much larger study, with Caroline New, which is to be published by Penguin, in Spring 1985, entitled For the Childrerr’s Sake: Making Child Care More Than Women’s Business. I would like to thank Sandy Acker, David Bull, Jen Dale, Gill Hague, Norman Ginsburg, Ann Manicom, Roy Parker, Hilary Rose, David Watson, Fiona Williams, Gaby Weiner for helpful comments on a previous draft of the paper.

The New Right in the Usa and Britain: A new anti-feminist moral economy

Moral issues, especially about the family and sexual morality, have become central to debates on social policy in both Britain and the USA. This article examines the genesis and form of those debates in both countries at the level of national politics. It is argued that the new right, in the USA represented chiefly by the Moral Majority, and in Britain by rightwing pressure groups on the present Tory government, have stolen the initiative and are attempting to reconstruct a social and moral order through policies on sexual morality such as religious and sex education in schools, birth control policies for teenagers, etc. The impact of this pressure on policy initiatives, such as the US teenage chastity programme and the British Health Education programme, are discussed.

Social Policy and Education: towards a political economy of schooling and sexual divisions

When asked to write this review essay I accepted with alacrity, assuming that it would be quite easy, since social policy and education is both my teaching and research interest. On reflection, the topic has turned out to be difficult to pursue, not least because of the apparent paucity of published studies in this general area over the last few years. Books apart, deciding what comes under the rubric of social policy and education is no simple task. Is the area characterised by the work of those in social policy or social administration departments who study education? Hardly, since these academics can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Not wishing to disparage the work of the two most famous, Professors Tessa Blackstone and Maurice Kogan, their contribution is not distinguishable from that of people working in education departments, or on the politics or the sociology of education. Can, then, social policy and education be seen as a distinctive discipline, analogous to the sociology of education? On criteria of subject-matter or methodology, this claim cannot be upheld. Traditionally, the subject-matter has been narrow and specific: it has been about the question of equality of educational opportunity and the various government policies mounted to achieve that rather evanescent objective. However, that concern has not been exclusive to those within the social policy field: for several decades it also dominated the sociology of education. This was in large part because the concern has been double-edged-both research-based and also policy-oriented, including a contribution to the debate on policy proposals, most particularly comprehensive education. As Finn, Grant & Johnson (1977) have argued so well, social scientists were, throughout the 1950s and 1960s, locked into the actual policy process, as allies particularly of the Labour party, and their research findings were seen as crucial to the policies developed [1]. More recently, political debate about education has moved away from an apparent concern with

Morality and maternity: towards a better union than the moral right's family policy?

A ’war over the family’ rages, not only in the USA, as Berger and Berger have argued recently (1984), but also in Britain. They identify three parties to the conflict new right political pressure groups, feminists and liberals. As liberals, they develop a spirited defence of the ’liberal’ state for providing both sexual equality in public life and also sustaining the privacy of the family. In Britain, the combatants are similar although the positions are less well articulated (David, 1986). Lucy Bland is one of the few feminists who attempts a feminist vision of the family, in arguing for an alternative ’sexual morality’ (1985, p.21). Building on Bland’s vision, I examine the ’pro-family’ views of the new right the Thatcher government and the ’moral’ and ’liberal’ right pressure groups. There is a core value of ’motherhood’ in the conservative notion of the family (New and David, 1985). Digby Anderson expresses this notion well, in an article aptly entitled ’Ripe for a British Moral Majority’. He argues for ’the cause of the normal family ... husband and wife living with their own children, the husband the major earner, the spouses intending and trying to stay together, (The Times, 15.10.85, p.12). This notion underpins the various issues about the family which have dominated the political agenda in the last year. They range from the Gillick case on parental consent over contraceptive advice to girls under 16 years old, to the Warnock Committee’s report on human fertilisation and embryology and the consequent debates on reproductive technology and surrogate motherhood, and Enoch Powell’s two private member’s bills in parliament on the protection of (unborn) children. There has also been a debate about child care as well as the conditions of maternity and childbirth, namely over the taxation of workplace nurseries, and parental or family leave from employment to care for sick children and

Teaching Family Matters

Abstract Teaching family matters is a matter of some political controversy. The New Right—both government and ‘pro‐family’ political pressure groups—seeks to reinforce and revive the traditional nuclear family through education, especially for family life. This is a response to what is perceived as the ‘problem of the family‘—the increase in ‘working mothers’ in lone or two‐parent families, and lone‐parent families as a result of divorce, separation, teenage or underage sex. These changes in the family have indeed occurred. The New Right blames previous administrations, in the liberal/social‐democratic consensual mode, for their creation. But no postwar government was committed to transforming the privacy of the family but to equality of educational opportunity between the sexes as a means of improving job opportunities. Such measures left the family untouched. If the ‘problem of the family’ is to be solved, more attention, from educators amongst others, must be given to the ways in which women as parents...

Teaching and Preaching Sexual Morality: The New Right's Anti-Feminism in Britain and the U.S.A.

This paper explores the subtle transformation of the education system and its relationship to families that has been set in train by the policies of the New Right, in both Britain and the U.S.A. It argues that the attempts to “reprivatise” families through both reductions in state intervention and the teaching or preaching of a narrow sexual morality are fundamentally antifeminist. Through a review of the policies of the New Right, whether as pressure groups or government, it demonstrates the nature of the shift in the relationship between schools and families. It highlights both changes in formal schooling and informal “teaching” provided by voluntary or religious bodies and especially “volunteer” unpaid workers. It thereby demonstrates the shifts in the character of womens work as housewives, mothers, and teachers and their implications for what girls learn about their future work as wives and mothers. It argues against the current celebration of womens unpaid “voluntary” work.

Women and Pre-School Child Care in the U.S.A

N this paper, 1 focus upon the policies t that exist in the USA for preschool children an.d their parents, both mothers and fathers. My concern, however, is not only with describing the pattern of such policies but also with the political debates surrounding their possible implementation. These debates, over the last 10 years, illustrate the way in which the State, crs government, tries, through its use of social and educational policies, to ensur e the co~nfiinuation of certain

Book reviews : Family Obligations and Social Change Janet Finch Polity Press and Basil Blackwell Inc., 1989, 268pp + viii, £35.00 hbk and £9.95 pbk. Who Cares: Looking after people at home Cherrill Hicks Virago, 1988, 271pp, £5.95 pbk

These two books are on very similar subject areas, namely the issue of family care of relatives and largely in the privacy of the family and at home. However, here the similarity ends for the two books are written in totally different styles and for rather different audiences. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that the two books will be considered together as they complement each other extremely well for students of, or those interested in, social policy and social work. Given that Finch’s book is a thorough summary of the literature, it is something of a surprise that Hicks’ book, published a year earlier is not included in Finch’s bibliography nor referred to in the text. Finch’s book is a tour de force, reviewing the now voluminous literature on the broad area of how family members view their obligations to care for each other, especially in adult life. It will probably become a classic textbook on a range of undergraduate and postgraduate academic courses from sociology to social policy to social history to gender and women’s studies. It may also be of use to students on social work courses. Cherrill Hicks’ book, on the other hand, is an incredibly readable and intimate book, providing a wealth of detail and data in

Book reviews : Woman-nation-State N. Yuval-Davis and F. Anthias (eds) Basingstoke: Macmillan, 272pp, £29.50 hbk, £9.95 pbk

cesses involved in the social construction of problem populations. Second, is there a potentially harmful educational effect contained in the ’packaging’ of sociology into what can often look like a ’duffer’s guide’ (the important points and arguments are assembled for rote learning by students in order to pass public examinations). There are weaknesses in a style of book which seeks to be stimulating and eye catching to students rather than scholarly and worthy. I have some sympathy with the view that sociology ought to be presented in a bright way, pointing up its relevance for illuminating a number of very interesting topical and serious problems which are often ignored by the shallow immediacy of what passes for political and media journalism. Moore’s book does not over-simplify the range of issues in the sociology of deviance, but he does package arguments, concepts and theories for students and therefore may ironically encourage the less interested student to memorise the important points rather than ’do’ sociology. Ultimatly the success of a book like this depends on the lecturer/teacher who needs to provide the enthusiasm and guidance to students in order to release their energy for learning in a positive and directed way. This is particularly important now that advanced work within the school involves a continuous

Review article : The Politics of multi-racial Education Madan Sarup RKP, 1986, pp140, £6.95 pb Racism, Education and the State Barry Troyna and Jenny Williams 1985, pp138, £14.95 hb, £6.95 pb

only a small minority have discovered their African roots ... For all its legality and superficial respectability, formal marriage rarely brings out the most positive virtues of West Indian family culture of those who embrace it (sic) ... Very few West Indian children are aware of the power of language as a tool of communication. They fail to see this because they lack the reasoning skills which most of us take for granted: the ability to rationalize in a language, to build up an argument, and so on ... you cannot realistically expect someone with a deep feeling of insecurity to admit that they have failed to grasp something.’ This is the level of their scholarship; this could only have been published by a publishing house in which Gibson has a powerful interest, because no self-respecting publisher would have touched this book with a barge pole. A book like this has the potential to do incalculable harm to black people. It will undoubtedly be welcomed and used by racists inside and outside the educational establishment to attack black people. Gibson and Barrow ought to be ashamed of themselves for their disservice to the black community and should never again attempt such an exercise in betrayal.