Parents’ perspectives of social support and social cohesion in urban contexts of diversity

ABSTRACT

Although provisions for young children are increasingly considered as ideal places to foster an inclusive and socially just society by embracing issues of social support and social cohesion, there is no in-depth understanding of the role these provisions can play in enabling supportive and cohesive encounters in contexts of diversity. Even more striking is the absence of parents’ voices in this discussion. Based on an analysis of qualitative interviews with 18 parents who use childcare services in urban contexts of diversity, our findings show the relevance of ephemeral contacts with diverse people that could offer bridging opportunities in terms of social connectedness to familiarise within diversity while decoding the other in urban contexts of diversity. However, neither bonding nor bridging contacts appear as self-evident. Our research shows that the role of childcare services might be vital in creating light and temporal communities as the prerequisite for social cohesion to flourish, in both individual as well as collective dimensions.

SAMENVATTING

Voorzieningen voor jonge kinderen worden steeds meer gezien als ideale plaatsen om een meer inclusieve en sociaal rechtvaardige samenleving te realiseren. Hoe deze voorzieningen echter kunnen inzetten op processen van sociale steun en sociale cohesie in contexten gekenmerkt door diversiteit, is tot nu toe nog nauwelijks onderzocht. Opmerkelijk daarbij is de afwezigheid van de stem van ouders hierin. Op basis van een analyse van kwalitatieve interviews met 18 ouders die gebruik maken van kinderopvang in stedelijke contexten, stellen we vast dat de zorg voor jonge kinderen een grote impact heeft op het sociaal leven van ouders. Het kondigt tegelijk een periode aan van meer op zichzelf aangewezen zijn (isolatie) én zich meer verbonden voelen met het ruimere sociaal leven (integratie). Ouders hechten belang aan zowel kortstondige contacten met onbekenden als duurzame relaties met familie, vrienden en kennissen. Echter, noch duurzame bonding relaties, noch kortstondige bridging relaties komen vanzelfsprekend tot stand in stedelijke contexten gekenmerkt door een grote diversiteit en veel verhuizingen. Verschillende ouders delen hun ervaring van er alleen voor staan, ondanks dat ze gebruik maken van kinderopvang. Andere gezinnen tegenkomen in het kinderdagverblijf betekent namelijk niet dat gezinnen er elkaar ook werkelijk ontmoeten. De resultaten in dit artikel tonen aan dat de ervaring van ouders samenhangt met hoe voorzieningen hun eigen rol conceptualiseren en de mate waarin professionelen de bezorgdheden van ouders in acht nemen.

KEYWORDS:

• Early childhood education and care services
• parenting
• equality/diversity
• family relationships
• human rights/social justice

TREFWOORDEN:

• Gelijkwaardigheid/diversiteit
• Opvoeden
• Voorzieningen voor jonge kinderen
• familiale relaties
• mensenrechten/sociale rechtvaardigheid

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Michel Vandenbroeck is professor in family pedagogy and head of the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University. His research interests include early childhood care and education, parent support and family policies with a special interest for contexts of diversity and processes of in- and exclusion.

Griet Roets is professor in social work at Ghent University. Her research interests include social work in relation to issues of poverty, gender, disability and age, theoretical conceptualisations of citizenship and welfare rights, and qualitative research methodologies.

Naomi Geens has a Ph.D. in social work, focusing on the role of early childhood services in enabling processes of social support and social cohesion in contexts of diversity. Currently she brings her research insights to the field of policy and practice as a freelance speaker, trainer and illustrator (Compagnon de route).

Notes

1. Considering the overwhelming and increasing amount of literature, we limited our selection to the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), as it covers all research fields, is readily accessible and includes journals with a relevant number of citations, which ‘is considered as evidence of the usefulness, quality and/or impact’ (Archambault, Vignola-Gagne, Cote, Lariviere, & Gingras, 2006, p. 331). We selected articles between January 2000 and November 2011. The analysis included studies that were categorised as ‘articles’, ranging from empirical studies to more conceptual and theoretical reflections. Book reviews and proceedings papers were not included. All articles containing social support* AND parent* OR mother* OR father* in the title and articles containing social network* AND parent* OR mother* OR father* in the title were included. This generated 225 unique articles on which a screening was conducted to see whether they related to the topic of interest. Fifty-four articles were excluded, mainly because the studies were focusing on (i) social support from parents, peers and others as experienced by childless adolescents and (ii) social support between parents and their adult children. The remaining 171 articles were included in this literature review to gain a better understanding of how social support was used as an object of study.