Regimes of motherhood
Social class, the word gap and the optimisation of mothers' talk
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3471209 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ansgar Allen (0000-0003-0533-6251, University of Sheffield), Sarah Spencer (0000-0002-0487-056X, University of Sheffield, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 1181-1198 |
| Publication date | 2022-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0038-0261 • E-ISSN: 1467-954X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/00380261221104378 |
| OpenAlex | W4283521039 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 88 |
The role of working class mothers' talk in explaining their child's 'impoverished' language development and the resulting 'word gap' between social classes is hotly debated. Academic research in this area spans decades, crosses continents, and gathers up a wide range of disciplines and positions, ranging from research seeking to intervene in and optimise mothers' talk, to research that vigorously criticises any attempt to do so. Through an extended analysis of Jacques Donzelot's seminal study The Policing of Families, and Michel Foucault's concept of a 'regime of truth', we explore how motherhood is constructed by academic debate as something to be endlessly optimised. Academic debate functions by (1) reducing expectations concerning the role and remit of experts so as to place the onus on mothers to implement findings which the former will facilitate, (2) complicating the contributing factors to language delay, thus avoiding apportioning blame too directly whilst giving endless cause to do further research, and (3) committing mothers to a permanent labour in which they are expected to better themselves as measured by the manifest language development of their children. Its strongest critics remain within the constraints of this regime of truth to the extent that they argue for humility of expertise, for recognition of broader sociocultural factors, and for the importance of privileging the expertise and agency of mothers. This article considers how all parties are, in effect, obliged to declare the truth of motherhood and will find themselves implicated in its governance
Agency (philosophy) · Blame · Corporate governance · Economics · Epistemology · Humility · Political science · Social science · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Early Childhood Education and Development · Gender Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Partnering with Young Parents to Improve Early Hearing Detection and Intervention Programmes
Tiny happy people? Brain building and the ‘word gap
Fostering Infant/Toddler Mental Health and Language in Underserved Family Child Care Settings
Child-directed speech in a large sample of U.S. mothers with low income
Follow the Word Gap
Deconstructing Developmental Psychology
Growing Up Girl
The Handbook of Language Socialization
Mother and father language input to young children
Family Socioeconomic Status and Child Executive Functions
Differences in Early Gesture Explain SES Disparities in Child Vocabulary Size at School Entry
Sources of variability in children’s language growth
Language Matters
Catalise
Teaching by Listening
The Specificity of Environmental Influence
Understanding Socioeconomic Differences in Parents’ Speech to Children
How the Word Gap Argument Negatively Impacts Young Children of Latinx Immigrants' Conceptualizations of Learning
Talking to Children Matters
Mapping the Early Language Environment Using All-Day Recordings and Automated Analysis
Trajectories of the Home Learning Environment Across the First 5 Years
Language input and child syntax
Pathologizing the Language and Culture of Poor Children
The Contribution of Early Communication Quality to Low-Income Children’s Language Success
A Longitudinal Investigation of the Role of Quantity and Quality of Child-Directed Speech in Vocabulary Development
The weirdest people in the world?
Talking to children
Language Socialization and Multiparty Participation Frameworks
Good Enough Mothering?
Class, Self, Culture
Socioeconomic Disparities in Language Input Are Associated With Children's Language-Related Brain Structure and Reading Skills
Unseen Weird Assumptions
Meaning-Less Differences
Child-directed speech
Working-Class Children’s Experience through the Prism of Personal Storytelling
Expanding the Angle of Vision on Working-Class Children’s Stories
Discipline and Punish
Regulating Womanhood
Formations of Class and Gender
The Order of Things
Becoming a Communicative Partner
Language Disparities Related to Maternal Education Emerge by Two Years in a Low-Income Sample
A systematic review of language intervention research with low-income families
Identifying Pathways Between Socioeconomic Status and Language Development
Debunking the “language gap”
Predictors of Variation in Maternal Talk to Children
Emerging Forms of Cultural Capital
The domestication of Foucault
Enriching home language environment among families from low-SES backgrounds
Evaluating socioeconomic gaps in preschoolers’ vocabulary, syntax and language process skills with the Quick Interactive Language Screener (Quils)
The effects of parent-implemented language interventions on child linguistic outcomes
Measuring success
Brain science and early years policy
The varieties of speech to young children
Interpreting the early language trajectories of children from low-SES and language minority homes
Maternal responsiveness to young children at three ages
Language specificity in the relation of maternal education to bilingual children’s vocabulary growth
A responsive parenting intervention
What counts in the development of young children's number knowledge
Reexamining the Verbal Environments of Children From Different Socioeconomic Backgrounds
Are child-directed interactions the cradle of social learning
Mothering, Class and Rationality
What no bedtime story means
Invited Forum
The detailed age trajectory of oral vocabulary knowledge
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,67 |
| Citation span | 2023 - 2025 (3) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |