1. ISCAR 2014 Parenting practices in context: An analytic framework
Anita Sundnes, Assistant professor
Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences
30.October 2014

2. Contextualizing infant care: analytical challenge.
Preliminary results from a qualitative study on toilet training.
Explore how parental practices are situated in an everyday life context.
Toilet training: the scientific concept dominating in the field is the child’s readiness
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3. In the Beng people of West Africa, mothers perform enemas on their infants from after a few days after birth. Enema: the injection of liquid through the anus to motivate evacuation.
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4. An analysis of cleanliness development vs. toilet training
The concept of readiness is a limited tool to promote an understanding of how parents’ practices are conditioned by social context.
An analysis of cleanliness development vs. toilet training
Choice of concept: To absorb the parents’ practices related to the child’s urin and stool, that comes before the toilet use.
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5. Data
A longitudinal qualitative study of the everyday lives of children age 0-3, initiated and led by Professor Agnes Andenæs.
58 families participated
Interviewed 3 times during the age 0-3
9 leaders of the day care unit the child attended
The life-mode interview approach (Haavind 1987, Andenaes 2014)
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6. The parents are in no hurry to regulate the child’s defecation
In the first year, all the parents used diapers on their infant.
In the second year, most used diapers
In the third interview, half the children had started using the toilet
Conditions:
Time available, diapers, well-eqipped bathrooms.
Access to other adults to share the cleanliness work with
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7. To sum up, an appropriate analytical approach may include
Naming the phenomena in a way that may include parent’s practices and cultural variation.
Directing the attention towards caretaking practices as events in the everyday life of the child.
Investigating the parent’s negotiation of what kind of events should be included in the everyday life of the child: Negotiations between the here and now and the future for the child and other people involved.
Investigating the parent’s “radius of consideration”: Who must the parents take into account in the negotiation, and on what grounds?