Holt, Amanda (2010) Disciplining ‘problem parents’ in the youth court:between regulation and resistance. Social Policy and Society, 9 (1). pp. 89-99. ISSN 1475-3073
Abstract
This paper explores the ways in which parents, who have been the recipients of Parenting Orders, perform identity work through their accounts of their experiences in court. Discourse analysis is used to identify five key ‘strategies of resistance’ through which parents manage their parental identity and argues that such discursive practices highlight the fragility of such parents' claims to a positive parental identity in light of hegemonic gendered and classed conceptions of ‘responsible parenting’. The paper concludes by reflecting on what such practices might mean for parents who find themselves at once both regulated and resistant.