SAGE Journal Articles

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Mason, J. & Tipper, B. (2008).Being Related: How children define and create kinship. Childhood, (15)4, 441-460.

This article builds on sociological accounts of the negotiated, creative character of kinship and on previous studies of children's involvement in family life to ask how children actively create and define kinship and relatedness. Drawing on data from a qualitative study with children aged 7—12 in the north of England, the authors identify five interconnected ways in which children made sense of kinship. They explore how children understood genealogical kinship conventions, creatively deployed or interpreted kin terms, and defined some unrelated others as `like family'. The interplay between children's creative agency and adults' involvement in children's kinship is considered. 

Timmons, K. & Pelletier, J. (2014). Understanding the importance of parent learning in a school-based family literacy programme. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, (0)0, 1-23.

This study examined how parents’ own learning affected their support for their children in a school-based Family Literacy Programme. Seventy-two children in junior kindergarten (4-year-olds) and senior kindergarten (5-year-olds) and their parents participated in the programme; complete data were available for 52 parents. Comparisons of pre- and post-programme parent surveys indicated that there was no significant difference in how parents viewed their role in affecting their child’s reading as a result of the programme. However, parents’ teaching behaviour and provision of literacy activity (library visits) with their children significantly increased as a result of the programme. Furthermore, parents’ reported level of enjoyment of literacy activities with their children increased significantly in the areas of reading, drawing and writing. Finally, parents’ goals for attending the programme were aligned with what they described learning from the programme. The results suggest that family literacy programmes help parents to gain literacy knowledge and skills that they then incorporate in daily interactions with their children, particularly when programme objectives match parents’ goals. The findings suggest that parents may benefit from longer programmes to provide them with additional learning strategies for engaging in literacy activities with their children.

Miller, A.L., Lambert, A.D., & Speirs Neumeister, K.L. (2012). Parenting Style, Perfectionism, and Creativity in High-Ability and High-Achieving Young AdultsJournal for the Education of the Gifted, (35)4 344-365.

The current study explores the potential relationships among perceived parenting style, perfectionism, and creativity in a high-ability and high-achieving young adult population. Using data from 323 honors college students at a Midwestern university, bivariate correlations suggested positive relationships between (a) permissive parenting style and creativity and (b) authoritarian parenting style and socially prescribed perfectionism. Furthermore, negative relationships were also found between authoritarian parenting style and creativity. These relationships were further investigated using a path model that included control variables for gender and parent education level. Findings suggest statistically significant relationships between creativity and gender, authoritarian parenting and socially prescribed perfectionism, authoritarian parenting and creativity, and permissive parenting and creativity.