Government policy aims to eliminate child poverty by 2020. Much effort is directed towards improving children's life chances with a new focus on how parents raise their children as well as on family income. Consequently, social policies have become more prescriptive in detailing what it means to be a 'good' parent - and 'good' is identified with arguably middle-class values and behaviours. This can be seen as a shift from the welfare state towards the therapeutic state, using a battery of childrearing advice and parenting programmes, which are sometimes compulsory.

This research seminar discussed whether we can afford to ignore the voices and choices of the parents that parenting policies are seeking to help or overlook the local socio-cultural environments in which those policies are being implemented.