Global Trends - Family Structure has Changed.

I really enjoyed the Webinar last week and found all the trends interesting and might I add, perplexing.

The global trend I decided to blog around was ‘The Family Structure Has Changed’.

I used two main resources for this – the OECD Report 2016 and the The Future of Families to 2030 report.

Since the 1960’s families within the OECD have undergone enormous changes. According to this report the extended family concept has, all but, disappeared with the ‘traditional family’ less widespread.

So how does this change affect us as educators?

We have had for the past few years a generation known as ‘Latch key kids’, those students who go home to empty houses because their family members are working to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. Many of these families don’t live in the same areas as other family members so there is no support. This lends an opportunity for students to find themselves getting into situations they are unprepared for and unable to control.

As educators, (irrespective of the age we teach) must make students aware of difference between good and bad choices and the fact that they both have consequences. The key competencies of Thinking and Managing self are important, not only in an educational setting, but also in everyday life. Children need to take on more responsibility than they did 15 or so years ago – by contributing to income by way of after school jobs, taking on more responsibility in the home doing chores….

Poverty / risk of poverty is much higher in single parent homes and as a result, students in those homes are also at higher risk of falling into the poverty trap.

(I remember teaching in an area up north, which had huge poverty rates and I was told by my principal not to send homework as the families didn’t have the table to do it on, let alone the resources to complete it with. The impact on my teaching was to use mine and the students time in a creative manner, to ensure all learning needed, was completed during school hours).

Another by product of the poverty circle was that many students had limited life experiences so, again I took it on board to provide lots of them from both within and outside the classroom. The costs were covered by applying for grants from businesses.

My worry from many observations, and I have heard it uttered by others, is with the rise of single parent families (and this is NOT a criticism) many students aren’t learning relationship dynamics even simple things like – sharing resources, waiting, listening to others opinions, the ability to compromise, so again we need to make sure we teach these skills as part of a wider curriculum. The key competency of Relating to Others is now of paramount importance.

The flip side of this, is of course, the technological advances in communication. Social media, face time, Skype and Instagram all allow for immediate and constant connections with friends and whanau but again the consequences of use both verbal and image need to be taught to our students.

The 2016 OECD report, did note that within the past twenty years the shift in the risk of poverty has moved towards families with children.

In the Future of Families report it states that by the year 2025, single parent families in New Zealand will rise by forty percent and along with that increase, the increased risk of poverty.

In my opinion, these facts, figures and concerns need to be taken into account both within and by our curriculum and its delivery.

I know that some days the last thing I feel I do in a day is teach…..a lot of it seems to be spent listening and supporting students with their worries around matters outside of school.

Your thoughts……

References:

OECD (2011) The Future of Families to 2030 
A Synthesis Report.

OECD (2016) Family Data Base.