Fare i compiti a casa. Uno studio etnografico di un'attività quotidiana svolta in famiglia

Abstract

This paper focuses on the analysis of the interaction between children and parents when they do homework together, with the aim of identifying the recurrent ways in which adults support children in this activity. This study, which is part of the ethnographic survey, proposes the analysis of the transcriptions of some video-recorded interactions between child and parent, which occurred during the course of the exercises. Interactions were analyzed with the approach of Discourse Analysis that allowed to identify some communicative processes through which parents and children have co-constructed meanings and actions useful for understanding and solving these exercises. From their way of interacting, adults seem to correspond to the idea of an “institutionally competent” parent: that is, an adult capable of aligning him/herself with the culture of the school, which understands its languages, and its demands.