The return of year-4 exams: school, children and family dynamics in the blogosphere

Authors

  • Benedita Portugal e Melo Instituto de Educação, Universidade de Lisboa
  • Ana Matias Diogo Universidade dos Açores e CISCS.NOVA.
  • Manuela Ferreira Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto e CIIE/FPCE.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7458/SPP2016817617

Keywords:

national year-4 exams, children, family dynamics

Abstract

This text looks at the discourses on year-4 school exams that circulated in the blogosphere in 2012-2015. Its goal is to understand the concepts of school and child within those discourses and to uncover the family dynamics that are tending to occur in the wake of the political decision to bring back those exams. The presented data are derived from an analysis of 159 posts published in 50 blogs. The authors’ conclusions point to the emergence of a “parentocracy” that is led by mothers, is exercised in schooling / school attendance processes that are taking place ever earlier in children’s lives, is subject to tensions and is underpinned by composite concepts of the child as an educational actor.

Downloads

Additional Files

Published

2016-06-07

Issue

No. 81 (2016)

Section

Artigos

License

Authors who publish in this Journal must agree the following terms and conditions:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the Journal the right to first publication, while simultaneously agreeing to a Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows others to share their work on condition that they cite the original author(s) and recognise that the latter’s work was first published in this Journal.
  2. Authors are authorised to enter into additional contracts separately, for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work that is published in this Journal (e.g. publication in an institutional repository or as a book chapter), subject to recognition of initial publication in this Journal.