Family Literacy In Education

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Throughout a child’s life, there are different ways that the family can be involved pertaining to the child’s education. Family literacy programs have become more prevalent and utilized to aid both the family and the child. While family literacy programs are targeted to help both the mother and the father along with the child, it has been apparent that fathers are not utilizing the programs as much as the mother of the child. In the article “Family Literacy Progammes: A Comparative Study of Gender Roles in England, Ireland, and Malta,” the authors Anthea Rose and Chris Atkin explore why fathers do not attend the programs and what might encourage them to do so. While the fathers do not regularly attend sessions, it is argued that fathers are …show more content…

The term ‘family literacy’ has fluctuated throughout the years, meaning different things to different people in different contexts. The study states that family literacy programs is “a formal program of delivery which is delivered by at least one experienced facilitator while the learners attending generally have dependent children at preschool or primary school with the underlying ethos of the program to teach literacy and numeracy skills” (Atkin 776). While the ideal is to have both parental figures attend the program, it is more often than not just the mother and possibly the child. It is significant for fathers to have a greater involvement within their child’s education, it can lead to “better test results, better attendance and behavior, along with improved life chances” (Atkin 776). Even though traditionally it is the mother that tends to the child’s education, to have father involvement is still beneficial for the …show more content…

The first is Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and field. Field is defined as an identified social space in which struggles or maneuvers take place, and contains its own logic and rules. Habitus is then linked to how an individual within a filed manages and rationalizes the world in which they find themselves, determining what behavior is acceptable and what is not (Atkin 779). This perspective can insinuate why there tends to be a traditional gender division of labor within the family. The other perspective is the idea of social capital and the concepts of networking, bridging and bonding. This then takes in the barriers of the gender roles and bridges them together. As a result, most mothers were open to the notion of the fathers becoming more involved in their child’s education, however some found it