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Paper short abstract:

On the basis of an empirical study of teacher-parent conferences in Danish ECEC institutions I analyse how ECEC practitioners meet and approach parents diffently. These differences emanate from ECEC teachers’ readings of the appearance and ethos of the families.

Paper long abstract:

On the basis of an empirical study of teacher-parent conferences in Danish ECEC institutions I analyse how ECEC practitioners meet and approach parents differently. These differences emanate from ECEC teachers’ readings of the appearance and ethos of the families. In Denmark ECEC have a long tradition for what is called “parent collaboration”. There has been an increased focus on parents’ roles and responsibilities recently, so the meetings and collaboration is affected. I examine the question of inequality within these frames.

The study shows that parents work hard to perform good parenthood when meeting with ECEC staff and at home. Nevertheless, parents are interpreted in quite different perspectives depending on how staff read their bodies, linguistic performance, their social status, parental abilities etc. The material documents how inequality is produced in subtle processes in social interaction.

Theoretical inspirations and methods

The theoretical inspirations combine studies of parenthood and parenting cultures (Lee et al.) with a Bourdieuan perspective on the (re)production of social inequality.

The study is based on an ethnographic approach, exploring everyday meetings and parent-teacher conferences in four ECEC institutions in Denmark. The empirical material was produces through fieldwork, combining participant observations, observations, qualitative interviews, audio recordings of parent-teacher conferences and other meetings. This presentation focuses on parent-teacher conferences and draw on the total body of empirical material for establishing a deeper understanding.