The digitisation – and depoliticisation – of the parent

In recent years, sources of advice and expertise for parents have proliferated. Books, tv shows, web forums, and classes abound. A more recent development in this so-called ‘parenting culture’ are apps designed for parents. Critical analysis of this digitisation has often focused on the child, pointing to the datafication of childhood, while other analyses are concerned with the potential learning gains that can be achieved through the use of such technologies. Here, however, I will focus on the parent; specifically, I consider the implications of parenting apps for the position of the parent by reasserting the representational – political, pedagogical – dimension of the figure of the parent.  While we can see parenting apps as an extension of the instrumentalisation, scientisation, and psychologisation identified in critical analyses of the parenting culture, introducing a pedagogical-philosophical register, drawing on Stanley Cavell and Klaus Mollenhauer, brings out the political aspect of the figure of the parent. An analysis of a selection of apps aimed at the period from pregnancy to three years old shows that, what appears as a politicisation of parents through a sociological lens, can be seen as a depoliticisation of parents through a pedagogical-philosophical lens.

This presentation draws on a recently published article co-authored with Dr Stefan Ramaekers (KU Leuven): Ramaekers, S. and Hodgson, N., (2019) ‘Parenting apps and the depoliticisation of the parent’, Special Issue: Childhood, Parenting Culture, and Adult-Child Relations in Transnational Perspectives, C. Faircloth and R. Rosen (eds), Families, Relationships, and Society. Available at: https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tpp/frs/pre-prints/content-frsd1900009r2

Bio:

Dr Naomi Hodgson is Senior Lecturer in Education Studies at Liverpool Hope University, UK, where she teaches and researches in philosophy of education. Her research focuses on the relationship between education, governance, and subjectivity. Her publications include Philosophy and Theory in Education: Writing in the Margin, with Professor Amanda Fulford (Routledge, 2016), Citizenship for the Learning Society: Europe, Subjectivity, and Educational Research (Wiley, 2016), Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy, with Dr Joris Vlieghe and Dr Piotr Zamojski (Punctum Books, 2018), and most recently Philosophical Presentations of Raising Children: The Grammar of Upbringing, with Dr Stefan Ramaekers (Palgrave, 2019).