Intensive Mothering and the School Day in Spain: A Class Affair

The concept ‘intensive motherhood’ and much research using it has focussed on the Anglo-American context. In this seminar we are delighted to welcome Sandra Obiol-Francés from the Universitat de València, to share findings about her research with mothers raising children in Spain.

In Spain, the school timetable has been largely confined to the mornings since the 1990s. The school day was shifted from a schedule that included a lunch break to one that no longer does. One of the main arguments for this change has been to limit school hours in the mornings, which could allow children to spend more time with their families and take part in extracurricular activities. This transformation should affect how the children’s care is organized; however, no research has examined this issue, as attention has been focused on academic outcomes. Our purpose has been to evaluate this educational policy from a family perspective.

The aim of this seminar is to present the first results of our analysis on the impact of the continuous school day on family and care arrangements, and, by extension, on women's available time. Through discussion groups with mothers and teachers, as well as in-depth interviews with mothers, we have observed the various family strategies for managing care on a continuous school day. Across mothers’ narratives, the ideal of good parenting emerges as an endless investment of time, financial, and emotional resources. The ways in which this ideal takes shape are strongly influenced by social class.

Sandra Obiol-Francés is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at the University of Valencia. Her research interests include families, mothering, care policies, and subjectivities.

This will be held on Zoom, joining link here: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/93856454356