Martina Richter’s research while affiliated with University of Vechta and other places

The all-day school is currently being discussed as an opportune and appropriate response to changing societal needs. Both politicians and scientists see its expansion as a means to address the need to not only increase female employment rates but also counter social inequality in the education system. German policymakers view the all-day school as a major way to support a reconciliation of family life and labor market participation, to respond to changing gender roles and the growth of different family lifestyles, and simultaneously to try and counter the impoverishment and marginalization of many families in the country. Against the background of these processes of societal transformation, there are signs of changes in traditional familial responsibilities and institutional orders. Currently, these are being discussed as a “shift in the borders” (Kolbe et al. 2009, p. 151, translated) or as a “breaking down of the borders” delineating responsibilities on the level of education, care, and child-rearing institutions (Fegter and Andresen 2008, p. 832) marking the functional relation or the societal division of labor between the family and the school (Schlemmer 2004, p. 26). Our qualitative research project asked about the potentially new relation between family and institution in the all-day school. This chapter presents its theoretical framework and selected findings. It focuses particularly on elementary school, because elementary school children are still particularly dependent on parental support. The question we are asking here on the basis of our longitudinal findings on all-day schooling in Germany is whether and how new controversies are emerging over the responsibilities of the school and the responsibilities of the family (Holtappels et al. 2007; Züchner 2007, p. 314). Our empirical findings deliver knowledge on how far it is necessary to assume a reorganization or a new mixing of the public and the private in Germany and a shift in responsibilities within the context of the current economic crises and ongoing welfare state transformation processes (Richter et al. 2009). This is then accompanied by the question regarding how the actors involved (i.e., the parents and the professionals in all-day schools) themselves consider where differences may be found, particularly in the concepts of responsibility and the ideas of family, and how they are negotiating them.

Against the background of ongoing welfare state transformation processes, there are signs of changes in traditional familial responsibilities and institutional orders. Attention is especially focusing on the educational significance of family for children. The article analyses the shift of public and private responsibilties in education and child rearing and asks how families and all-day schools are constituted as locations of a "good" childhood. We use a case study from the BMBF-research project of "families as actors in all-clay schools" to reconstruct how parents realise their daily life and organise the "shared" responsibilty for their children.

Currently, families are being subjected to increasing public attention with interest focusing on their potential strengths and weaknesses in determining how well children do at school. Parents and children are at the forefront of the welfare state and socio-educational activities in current programs and policies. This book examines the resulting changes in the relationship between families and the state, and the shifting borders of public and private responsibility in education, child care, and childrearing. It considers international and national debates that underline the fact that issues in private life are increasingly entering the public discourse and becoming subject to attempts at socio-political control. Finally, it discusses the growing politicization of parenthood in the (post) welfare state and the increasing attention being paid to the structural conditions of gainful employment and child care as well as to the current relations between the genders.

Mit der Einführung von Ganztagsschulen ist die Etablierung eines veränderten Verhältnisses von Familie und öffentlicher Erziehung, Bildung sowie Betreuung beabsichtigt. Im Rahmen des Bielefelder Forschungsprojekts zu „Familien als Akteure in der Ganztagsschule“ wurde dieses Verhältnis aus der Perspektive von Kindern, Eltern bzw. Müttern und Professionellen empirisch rekonstruiert, um darüber systematische Aussagen zur Passung von Familie und Schule zu formulieren. Die gegenwärtige spezifische politische Aufmerksamkeit für familiales Handeln sowie die erhöhten Anforderungen an die Bildungsbiografie sind dabei im Kontext veränderter Wohlfahrtsstaatlichkeit zu analysieren. Der Beitrag geht auf ausgewählte Forschungsbefunde ein und diskutiert sie hinsichtlich der Frage nach Passungs- und Anerkennungsverhältnissen. Der Ausbau von Ganztagsschulen ist insgesamt nicht nur als bildungspolitische Maßnahme zu begreifen, sondern berührt insbesondere auch familien- und arbeitsmarktpolitische Zusammenhänge, die es gilt, weiterführend zu analysieren. Abstract With the implementation of all-day schools a modified relation between family and public education is intended. The Bielefeld research project “Families as Actors in All-day schools” empirically reconstructed that relation from the perspective of children, parents or mothers, and professionals in order to make statements referring to the cultural fit of family and school. The current specific political attention on familial action and the increased requirement on the educational biography are to be analysed in the context of a modified welfarism. The article presents selected research findings and discusses them referring to the question of cultural fit and recognition. Overall the expansion of all-day schools is not just an educational policy measure but also refers to family and labour market policy which needs to be further analysed.

Within contemporary childhood studies, interest is focusing increasingly on the wellbeing of children in the here and now. However, the theoretical conceptualization and the operationalization of well-being confront research on childhood with fundamental and methodological challenges. First findings from recent international and german research are delivering some indications regarding the ideas children themselves have about what constitutes a "good life." The present paper pursues the assumption that the capability approach-particularly in the form proposed by Martha Nussbaum - offers a theoretically promising framework for studying wellbeing of children.

Bildungs- und Lernprozessen von Kindern in Familien kommt gegenwärtig in bildungstheoretischen und -politischen Debatten, aber auch vermehrt in der Schul- und Jugendhilfeforschung, eine besondere Aufmerksamkeit zu. Infolge der PISA-Befunde, aber auch bereits im Elften Kinder- und Jugendbericht, wurde der Stellenwert informeller Bildungsprozesse in Familien hervorgehoben und damit neben der Bedeutung der Schule auch die Bedeutung nicht-schulischer Lernorte für das Aufwachsen von Kindern betont (vgl. Baumert u. a. 2001; BMFSFJ 2002). Die Familie als Bildungsort sowie ihre Leistungen im Bereich gesellschaftlicher Reproduktion, Erziehung und Sozialisation nachfolgender Generationen ist vor diesem Hintergrund wieder ins Zentrum des öffentlichen Interesses gerückt (vgl. BMFSFJ 2005a; 5Holtappels u. a. 2007). Diesen Erkenntnissen soll vor allem in Modellen der Ganztagsbildung Rechnung getragen werden. Beabsichtigt ist eine systematische Zusammenführung von Familien, Schule und Jugendhilfe als bislang weitgehend unabhängig voneinander agierenden gesellschaftlichen Bildungsorten. Insbesondere soll eine stärkere Öffnung hin zu familialen Lebenswelten und eine vermehrte Beteiligung und Mitwirkung von Eltern erreicht werden (vgl. BMFSFJ 2005b).