Enjoyment in education is frequently considered a contradiction in terms. The idea of finding pleasure whilst being educated is generally associated with early childhood socialisation, implicit in frameworks such as the Early Years Foundation Stage (DfE, 2012). Education in the adult education sector is often considered in terms of learning for employment purposes (Essex County Council, 2013). Therefore learning in childhood and adulthood are wholly differentiated (Miller and Davey, 2005). Yet little research exists in the area of enjoyment in schooling in the secondary sector. Butler (1997) suggests the level of regulation in compulsory education often renders students as exploited and subordinate, leading to adverse memories. The time of compulsory schooling as a positive or negative experience needs to be considered to see if it has any bearing on why people do not continue into higher education.
The daughters in this sample are suggesting that they had good schooling experiences, culminating in 19 out of 21 daughters going into higher education. It was noteworthy that 10 out of 18 mothers spoke of an unequivocal dislike of school, as enjoyment in school was not directly asked of all the mothers. The nature of using broadly unstructured interviews required questions to be differentiated from participant to participant (Cohen, Manion and Morrison, 2007). Only three mothers, Anne, Rose and Sue went to university straight from compulsory schooling. In particular, one mother, Debbie, had a difficult time in school due to her being bullied, which ultimately led to her truanting. Kane (2011) suggests that children who truant are exercising self-exclusion through limited agency, further affected by structural factors that increase barriers to participation. Although Debbie did not wish to elaborate on her unpleasant experiences in any depth during her interview, she was keen to share her positive experiences as a mature student and more particularly, her daughters’ educational success.
Ten of the mothers made direct references to a dislike of school or education, including:
‘I didn’t really like school, I can’t say that I enjoyed it’. [Tia, mother]
‘I left at 16 because I hated school’. [Fran, mother]
‘I can’t stand it. Teaching, everything like that, I wanted to walk away’. [Vicky, mother]
Despite their strong memories, both Tia and Fran did go on to achieve academically as mature students. Their learning pathways as two of the deferred congruent pairings are discussed in depth in Chapter Four. Tiana and Francesca, their daughters, attended grammar and independent schools respectively. Despite neither of the daughters commenting specifically on their school years in terms of enjoyment, access to such privileged schooling would be an important factor in their academic success, as both daughters went to university straight from A-levels. Vicky, however, never returned to
study, but insisted on her daughter being educated in an independent primary school and ultimately at university, to compensate for her lack of educational support, placing them as a divergent study dyad.
Three of the mothers had an apathetic attitude towards their school days. Helen and Kathy, spoke of ‘not being bothered to work’ at school, and Steph comments on a lack of interest to study:
‘Linda: Did you like school? Steph: No.
Linda: Why?
Steph: I just wasn’t interested in it’. [Steph, mother]
Helen and her daughter are a divergent study dyad. Kathy, Steph and their daughters did not attend university, the two congruent work pairings. Therefore none of these mothers went to university, either as teenagers or mature students, suggesting that their disinterest in schooling was an important factor in their overall lack of engagement with education. As discussed later in the chapter, the wider availability of jobs further reduced the need to go into higher education for employment prospects.
Only one mother-daughter dyad, Rose and Rosanne, spoke of their ‘love’ of education:
‘I went to several different primary schools, always loved school’. [Rose, mother]
‘Universities are being pushed into being a place where you train for a job rather than doing the subject because you love and are fascinated by it’. [Roseanne, daughter]
Notwithstanding the economic and social barriers discussed in Chapter Four and earlier in this chapter, university was historically the gateway to deeper study of a particular subject or subjects, although ultimately for occupational
gain (Power et al., 2003). Rosanne also recognises the neoliberal attitudes of institutions themselves as a ‘knowledge economy’, driven by funding policies and market forces (Holmwood, 2011: 6).
Rose and her daughters are congruent study pairings, all going into university straight from A-levels. Rose’s other daughter, Rosalind, did not mention learning for enjoyment, but did make a comment in relation to her mother’s choice of her primary school:
‘I’ve achieved in schools that aren’t high achieving, like no offence (laughs) to Mum and Dad, but they weren’t exactly maximizing (laughs) – the school around the corner, the primary school that happens to be pretty much the worst one in the area’. [Rosalind, daughter]
‘I kind of consciously made choices about their education that went with, I suppose, my politics and my philosophy of how society should be […] I was a governor at that school because I think that the only way we will get a really good state education for every child is if everybody connects 100% to the state system and to their catchment school’. [Rose, mother]
Like many of the parents in Reay, Crozier and James’ (2011) study, Rose’s school choice for her daughters was driven by her own political and social justice agenda, including her active participation in school governance. However, unlike many of the participants in Reay, Crozier and James’ study, Rose’s involvement has no hidden agenda, her values and choices are legitimate in relation to her chosen field of education (James, 2012). Sue (mother), however, made her choice of schooling in relation to her understanding of the ‘best’ school, wanting to match her middle class values to the school habitus (Ball, 2003):
‘[Husband] and I were very pro-active, we wouldn’t just send them to the closest school, we would look for the best school in the area and I think that would probably be the main difference in attitudes, where my
parents would have just sent us to the local school, which was not a good school’. [Sue, mother]
As a teacher, Sue holds strong values around teaching and academic outcome, demonstrated through two high achieving daughters who ultimately attended the school where Sue teaches. Sue’s choices relate to Sayer’s (2005) preference and commitment theory, that preference is a straightforward choice between two options, but commitment requires a deeper level of engagement and practice, affected by personal attachment (Reay et al., 2011). Both Rose and Sue have had significant input into their daughters’ educations, but their school choices involve very definite class-inflected practices. Other than memories surrounding feminist activism in Chapter Seven, no comments at all were made regarding political motivation as a driver for choices in schooling. Ball (2003) suggests that parents historically saw institutions as places of authority that were not to be challenged, so it could be argued that the parents placed their children in catchment schools, without recourse to other external factors.
Other than Rosanne, two other daughters made direct comments on their enjoyment of school or learning:
‘I went to a really good school and I was pleased I was able to go there’. [Deborah, daughter]
‘I did love learning, but I did feel isolated […] I was an academic person, but I did love learning’. [Maya, daughter]
Deborah, Maya and their mothers are deferred congruent dyads. The daughters’ recollections of study in a ‘good school’ or as ‘an academic person’ could be a reflection of the importance their mothers placed on education, particularly as both mothers returned to higher education as mature students. Alongside the increasing commonality of the necessity of a degree for work, women’s willingness to continue in education could reflect the
changing environment of schools and the wider co-education and availability of subjects for girls as discussed in Chapter Four.
Only one daughter, Samantha, spoke directly of not enjoying school. She explained this was due to her dyslexia, which remained un-recognised throughout her school career and subsequently caused a very difficult period in her life:
‘It was just, just a horrible few years of my life really where I didn’t really have any motivation and I didn’t think that school was important’. [Samantha, daughter]
Samantha did not carry the stigma of being labelled with a learning difficulty, but conversely a lack of formal diagnosis also meant she did not receive the education or support to which she was entitled. Labelling is contentious in the sphere of special educational needs, particularly in the way individuals are regarded by others (Rogers, 2007). For Samantha, this was problematic by virtue that her teachers did not identify her learning problems and this unsurprisingly reflected in her total lack of engagement with education. Despite her unsupported schooling, Samantha made a return to education with the help of her mother, as discussed in Chapter Six.
Enjoyment of a subject is often enhanced by the influence of a significant other. All of the daughters without exception named their mothers either as role models or central to their support network. This is perhaps not entirely unexpected, given the nature of this research and the need for both mother and daughter to participate in the research process. In three instances, teachers were cited as key people in their educational decisions or positive role models:
‘I think probably her RE teacher was partly responsible [for her choices], she encouraged her interest in philosophy’. [Rose, mother]
‘My favourite teacher was in RE, Miss W and she was like a really brilliant role model because she did the same subject, she did philosophy as well, what I went on to do and she really helped me’. [Roseanne, daughter]
‘I said ‘I want to leave and take a year out and then decide what I want to do’ and she said ‘if you need a personal statement just come back to me because I’ll still be here, I’m not planning to move’. So she didn’t put me under any pressure’. [Katherine, daughter]
‘I had a huge admiration, personal admiration for her, erm, which I kept for many, many years because I had seen her as a shining light […] she was a very excellent teacher and guider of young women’. [May, mother]
Grandparents were also included as a regular source of support and influence on educational opportunities. Grandparents are often common sources of practical support and can provide knowledge within a trusted, family network (Thomson et al., 2011).
‘I’d been telling my family and everyone that I want to be a pharmacist […] the person I felt most sorry for [when she changed courses] was my Granddad because he was a pharmacist and y’know, he was really chuffed when I wanted to do it […] he was really excited and asking me about what I was doing all the time’. [Rosalind, daughter]
‘Grandmothers on both sides influence me, but, whenever I’ve heard that they’ve not gone to university I’ve always thought that’s a shame, because they’ve got so much potential’. [Tiana, daughter]
‘I spent a lot of time with my Gran who I was very, very close to. […] She was a big influence on me and my life and she’d always say to me ‘Don’t talk with a Geordie accent’ […] Listening to my Gran and
following her advice and her telling me to do things, that was a big influence’. [Helen, mother]