Browsing by Author "Oikarinen, Kati"

The aim of this study was to examine the interaction between parent and child and the use of power. The use of power was examined during families' everyday meal times and through the conversations taking place at the dinner table. The viewpoint was the parent's use of linguistic power and its different forms by means of they tried to influence on the eating behavior of the child. The secondary research question concerned the family dinner talk and what the parent and child discussed together. This study hopes to highlight the diversity and richness of mealtime conversations and open a different viewpoint to the fields of educational and home economics science and the studies of family and everyday life. The approach and research method chosen was discourse analysis, which enabled closely examining how the two parties interact. The research material consisted of the mealtime conversations of three families. Each was a nuclear family consisting of a father, a mother and a child of around three years. Two of the families also had an infant sibling. The research material was obtained by recording mealtime conversations during the three days. The recordings occurred primarily at home, in natural family circumstances, with the researcher absent. The research material included 45 mealtime situations and the recordings amount of 9h25min, which were transcribed for analysis. The recordings were accompanied by dinner journals containing specific information about time of day, place and people present. Substantial amount of diverse dinner talk took place between parent and child. Talk concerning eating was most common, but there was also talk of other activities, the day-to-day life of the family, their surroundings and past and future events. The use of power appeared in all families in a variety of ways. The most common form of power by the parent was persuasion, but also rewarding, invoking authority, praise, threatening and gratification all manifested themselves while parents tried to influence on the eating behavior of the child.