Creating an educational home
Mothering for schooling in the Australian Women’s Weekly , 1943–1960
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10325896 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Helen Proctor (0000-0003-3293-6789, The University of Sydney, corresponding author), Heather Weaver (0009-0001-9948-4855, The University of Sydney) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 53 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 49-70 |
| Publication date | 2016-11-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Paedagogica Historica (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0030-9230 • E-ISSN: 1477-674X |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00309230.2016.1240209 |
| OpenAlex | W2548480529 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
This article examines cultural representations of the mid-twentieth century mother of schoolchildren in a mass-circulation Australian women’s magazine, arguing that schools and schooling have been under-acknowledged in the historiography of mothering, despite their importance in shaping modern childhood and family life. Framing the Australian Women’s Weekly as a medium of public instruction, we identify and analyse its advice about schooling, both direct and implied, across a variety of the magazine’s sections: in illustrations, news, feature articles, advertising, letters and advice columns. This advice was informed by the popular dissemination of medical, psychological and educational expertise, by managed exchanges amongst the magazine’s readers and by the availability of a variety of consumer products. Much of the guidance offered to mothers was aspirational, aimed at educating and thereby modernising the readership. The interconnectedness of advertising and editorial produced visual and textual images of an “educational home” in which children had their learning supported or enriched, just as their bodies were capably fed and clothed. By the 1950s there was an increasing emphasis on interpersonal relations and therapeutic psychology and the Weekly had embarked on a project of encouraging mothers to learn more about schooling, to do more to support their children’s learning and to take an interest in education as a social project. Despite her strong and growing connection to the school through her children, however, the school mother was almost always represented as working outside its physical boundaries during this period
Audience measurement · Framing (construction · Historiography · Interpersonal communication · Pedagogy · Political science · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Variety (cybernetics · Australian History and Society · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · Law · Psychology
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,75 |
| Citation span | 2018 - 2026 (9) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |