Sterponi2009

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Sterponi2009
BibType ARTICLE
Key Sterponi2009
Author(s) Laura Sterponi
Title Accountability in family discourse: socialization into norms and standards and negotiation of responsibility in Italian dinner conversations
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, account episodes, discourse analysis, Italian family discourse, moral socialization, responsibility
Publisher
Year 2009
Language English
City
Month
Journal Childhood
Volume 16
Number 4
Pages 441–459
URL Link
DOI 10.1177/0907568209343269
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

This article explores morality as situated activity and approaches the discursive practice of accountability in Italian family dinner conversations as an avenue for understanding the construction of moral behaviour in everyday interpersonal interaction. The article focuses in particular on vicarious accounts, namely accounts, or explanations, provided by parents for a child’s misbehaviour. It examines the multiple socializing functions that vicarious accounts accomplish and the different dimensions of responsibility that they mobilize. While scaffolding children’s participation in episodes of accountability, vicarious accounts set up constraints on children’s autonomy of action, neutralizing more subversive and blameworthy interpretations of their problematic conduct. In this sense, vicarious accounts are qualified concessions and are face-saving acts both for the child whose action was signalled as improper and for the parent who initially requested the account.

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