The Materialisation of School in Families' Everyday Lives

This article explores how school is materialised within Danish families and the significance for both children and parents. Based on ethnographic research and inspired by materiality studies and by family and childhood studies, the analysis describes how school-related objects, such as schoolbags, actualise school within the family and create intensive ‘school parenting’. The article also illustrates how the materialisation of school both entangles with family routines, becoming part of being a family and feeds into processes of demarcation and ways of reducing the importance of school in family routines.