Communicating the Authority of Child Care Expertise: Canada's School for Parents, 1942–1960

Abstract

Over the first half of the twentieth century child care experts used multiple communication processes of radio, print and face-to-face discussions to define themselves as authorities over mothers in matters of child-rearing. The Canadian parent education radio program, School for Parents, is presented as a case study of the application of these communication processes in the restructuring of expert-mother social relations. Using the theoretical framework of competent authority, this essay argues that the communication of child care expertise to mothers was a vital part of the attempt to transfer mothers' needs for child care advice from families, friends and neighbors to child care experts.

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Notes on contributors

Donna Varga

Donna Varga (Ph.D., 1991, University of Toronto) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Child & Youth Study at Mount Saint Vincent University. Halifax, Canada. She wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers of this essay for their comments. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1993 meetings of the Canadian Association of Sociology & Anthropology.