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Abstract:

In the traditional, Western understanding of raising children, being a parent has a representational dimension: parents unavoidably represent the socio-cultural meanings that shape their lives and into which they introduce their children. Upbringing, then, is always a political event. That is: (1) in raising their children parents lead them towards a public or communal life; (2) in doing so, parents make choices when representing the world (take sides, give consent, utter dissent); and (3) parental representations of socio-cultural meanings can be contested by others, not least by their own children, which puts the nature of the collectivity or community at stake. Here, we address one aspect of how this picture of pedagogical representation with its political dimensions is being radically transformed by focusing on a relatively recent addition to the field of parenting advice: parenting apps.