Parenting Programmes: What the Parents Say: A Case Study in Mixed Methods Social Science Research

This book presents original research examining parents’ perspectives on the structure, content and delivery of parenting programmes. It explores how parents have personally been impacted by attending such a programme and finally whether or not this might be affecting their child.

Utilising an innovative mixed methods research approach, based around a critical realist philosophy, the author follows 136 families through one of three parenting programmes and beyond. In doing so, she provides important new insights regarding the efficacy of the parenting programmes, demonstrating a real-world application of the transplant model of parent-professional practice in action.

This book provides a valuable new resource for students and scholars working in the psychology of education, education, childhood studies, and across the social sciences more broadly. It will also be of interest to policymakers and professionals involved in the development andimplementation of parenting programmes.

Katy Smart is Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, UK. Prior to this she was Senior Teaching Associate in the School of Education at the University of Bristol, UK, where she undertook the PhD which forms the basis of this book. For the last seven years she has also been Editor of the British Psychological Society Education Section’s journal, Psychology of Education Review.