TY - JOUR
T1 - Defining and measuring parenting for educational success
T2 - A critical discourse analysis of the parent education profile
AU - Prins, Esther
AU - Toso, Blaire Willson
PY - 2008/9
Y1 - 2008/9
N2 - The Parent Education Profile (PEP) is an instrument used by family literacy programs to rate parents' support for children's literacy development. This article uses Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how the PEP constructs the ideal parent, the text's underlying assumptions about parenting and education, and its ideological effects. The analysis shows how many features of the PEP evaluate parents according to a middle-class, predominantly White model of parenting and family-school interaction. Furthermore, the PEP tends to assume a universal, normative model of parental support for literacy, parental (mothers') responsibility for educational outcomes, equal access to resources required to meet the PEP standards, and a limited parental role in assessment. In so doing, the PEP lends support to several dominant discourses regarding poor and minority families, such as the discourse of parent involvement and the "mothering discourse," which encourages mothers' supplementary educational work. Implications for policy, research, and practice are discussed.
AB - The Parent Education Profile (PEP) is an instrument used by family literacy programs to rate parents' support for children's literacy development. This article uses Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how the PEP constructs the ideal parent, the text's underlying assumptions about parenting and education, and its ideological effects. The analysis shows how many features of the PEP evaluate parents according to a middle-class, predominantly White model of parenting and family-school interaction. Furthermore, the PEP tends to assume a universal, normative model of parental support for literacy, parental (mothers') responsibility for educational outcomes, equal access to resources required to meet the PEP standards, and a limited parental role in assessment. In so doing, the PEP lends support to several dominant discourses regarding poor and minority families, such as the discourse of parent involvement and the "mothering discourse," which encourages mothers' supplementary educational work. Implications for policy, research, and practice are discussed.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=49749147976&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=49749147976&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3102/0002831208316205
DO - 10.3102/0002831208316205
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:49749147976
SN - 0002-8312
VL - 45
SP - 555
EP - 596
JO - American Educational Research Journal
JF - American Educational Research Journal
IS - 3
ER -