Perspectives on School at Seven Years Old Routledge Library Editions: Education Series

This volume looks at the social and intellectual forces which the child encounters in class-room and playground from the parent?s point of view. School and home are seen as the separate yet overlapping worlds of childhood ? for some children more uncompromisingly separated than for others. In the social development of the child, school functions as a link between the kinds of demands (and immunities) which are characteristic of family life, and those which the child will discover in the wider society of adulthood. The authors provide a meeting-point for developmental psychology, sociology and education, to the illumination of all three. There is a concern with the daily life of ?ordinary?children in ?ordinary? families. School reluctance ? rather than the more clinical school phobia or truancy ? is delicately probed. The back-up that parents provide at home, directly or indirectly, is objectively evaluated, yet with empathy for parents? and teachers? anxieties about their roles.