In the workshop session, I would like to introduce you my second year research project titled “Exploring Parents’ Perception and Design of Out of School Time”, for which I collected and analyzed data and am in the process of organizing and writing up my findings alongside my literature review. I’m trying to understand how parents’ socio-economic status, neighborhood, housing situation, school choice, race and ethnicity are shaping children’s free time in NYC. I’m analyzing my data (some interviews & demographic information and online documents) by using dynamic narrative inquiry, a methodology that looks at narratives coming from different perspectives, positions and genres in a particular issue of concern as interacting with one another in “social network environments” (Dauite 2014), as all related and talking to one another without literally doing so.

During the workshop time I’m planning to briefly introduce my research and my data but I mainly need your help for my literature review, which I outline in the following paragraphs. It will probably be two sections as such with the content some of which I noted down under. These are the headings that are speaking to my data even though the organization might change a little bit afterwards. I would be very happy if you’d share with me your literature suggestions touching upon these topics I mentioned. I want to write my final paper in the form of this literature review.

–Historical Overview of the Out of School Time in NYC

emerging as an idea of supporting low to middle-income children after children’s participation in labor force dropped and school participation increased, urban change during that time (1880s-1930s…), investment in playgrounds and organized play and after-school programs and then disinvestment in play staff and recess…

the notion of free time of children as “risk and opportunity” (Halpern 2002; 2014)

organized time for well-off – less and less free play (?)

–Parenting ideologies and practices in the context of neoliberalization of education and childhood

safety and security concerns of parents in the city environment

high regulation time and space-wise

ideas about child development : learning over play

individualization of responsibilities as reality (pay for everything, it all depends your social capital etc, parents as partners in school organization, hyperattentive and controlled…) – transferring these to children for upper classes or parenting anxieties – what are we going to do and how are we gonna make sure child is going to be fine..

disinvestment in public services – neighborhood distribution (upper east side, williamsburg vs. flushing….)

no child left behind – assessments and academic pressures

erasure of recess

child as an investment

Thanks all for your help and suggestions,

Bengi