Family-school relationships in new family configurations: the role of grandmother’s caregivers in their grandchildren’s schooling

Resumen

CARVALHO, Tatiane Kelly Pinto de; COUTRIM, Rosa Maria da Exaltação  y  MOREIRA, Núbia Regina. Family-school relationships in new family configurations: the role of grandmother’s caregivers in their grandchildren’s schooling. Educ. Rev. [online]. 2025, vol.41, e95714.  Epub 14-Abr-2025. ISSN 1984-0411.  https://doi.org/10.1590/1984-0411.95714.

Nowadays, we have witnessed countless families in which grandparents are called upon to be exclusive caregivers of their grandchildren, offering them, in addition to their affective, financial and emotional support, assistance in the schooling process. This study aimed to understand which were the main strategies and efforts of grandparents that influenced their grandchildren’s educational longevity until they joined university. The theoretical framework was based on discussions in the field of Sociology of Education and Intergenerational Relations, revealing the gap in research on the educational longevity of individuals from lower-income backgrounds raised by their grandparents. The research followed a qualitative approach and was mainly based on semi-structured interviews with four university students and their respective caregiver grandmothers, all belonging to these lower-income backgrounds. The results showed that, despite their low level of education, grandmothers were fundamental in maintaining domestic moral order and exerted a positive influence on the schooling process. They were involved in tasks such as time management, monitoring notebooks and report cards, attending school meetings and encouraging reading. We concluded that the grandmothers participating in the research were fundamental to the academic longevity of young university students, acting as a source of emotional and financial support and also creating a network of surveillance and care, which positively interfered in the schooling of their granddaughters.

Palabras clave : Educational Longevity; Relationship Between Grandparents and Grandchildren; Guardian Grandparents; Higher Education.

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