Challenged parents: Empirical exploration of attitude transformations of mothers and fathers along the first school year

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Christine Hunner-Kreisel (†)
• Subject Area: Education Systems and Educational Institutions
• Term: from 2014 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 265731841

The study focuses on the transition from early childhood education to the end of the first year in school. The aim of the investigation is what this transition might mean in respect to possible changes of attitudes of the parents, respectively the mother and fathers, on the basis of given habitual and institutional challenges. The study wants to know and researches on a microanalytical level and with a quasi longitudinal design, how the mothers and fathers interpret these new experiences for themselves. Based on the empirically proven fact that parents as actors in the children's biography are important; the study asks furthermore how the mothers and fathers then position themselves between the (anticipated) challenges of the school and in respect to the (equally anticipated and also ascribed) responsibilities for the educational biographies of the children. The study's design is qualitative, a central aspect is the longitudinal element, with a data acquisition period of one and a half years. Equally characteristic for the planned study is its explorative character with its methodological foundation based on the Grounded-Theory-Methodology. Therefore, the study aims at a discovery of theory in the data. It's the goal of the study to investigate in an intersectional perspective - and therefor with an analytical interest in the relevance of social and ethnic origins as well as with respect to the relevance of Gender constructions - the positioning processes of the mothers and fathers towards school and towards the educational biographies of their children. The transformation of the mothers' and fathers' perspective will be undergo a systematic comparative analysis, with the goal of typology construction. The analysis will include 30 parents, mothers and fathers narrative based interviewed on two different time-points. It also includes participant observations in the institutional setting and interview embedded herein with kindergarten and school teachers, respectively day-school educational professionals. The analysis of the data will be done by Grounded Theory Method following Strauss/Corbin (1990).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants