Currently, families are being subjected to increasing public attention.
Interest is focussing on their potential strengths and weaknesses in
determining how well children do at school. Alongside such
human-development oriented expectations, families are also becoming a
focus of attention as a resource for human capital in times of economic
crises and criticism of the welfare state. In many European countries,
parents and children are at the forefront of the welfare state and
socio-educational activities in current programs and policies. The
current transformation processes in the welfare state are making the
relationship between families and the state more dynamic in general, and
they are structuring the discourses on the childrearing, education, and
child care services in the fields of both public and private
responsibility. The introduction of all-day schooling in Germany also
has to be viewed in this context. This is gradually changing the
traditional half-day structure of German schools and shifting the
borders of public and private responsibility on the levels of education,
child care, and childrearing institutions. The attention given to
parental childrearing and educational responsibility within the context
of current national and international debates clearly underlines the
fact that issues in private life are increasingly entering the public
discourse and becoming subject to attempts at socio-political control.
This raises the assumption of an increasing politicization of parenthood
in the (post) welfare state that is focusing more and more attention on
the structural conditions of gainful employment and child care as well
as on the current relations between the genders. This context
particularly emphasizes the time and care regimes that decisively
determine the practices in daily family life and the utilization of
all-day education settings.
