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Children and parents have become a focus of debates on ´new social risks´ in European welfare states. Policymaking elites have converged in defining such risks, and they have outlined new forms of parenting support to better safeguard children and activate their potential. Increasingly, parents are suspected of falling short of public expectations. Contributors to this special issue scrutinize this shift towards parenting as performance and analyse recent forms of parenting support.

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Prof. Dr. Tanja Betz is a Member of the LOEWE Research Centre for Individual Development and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk (IDeA) and Professor of Pedagogy with a focus on Childhood Research, Early Childhood and Primary Education, Goethe University Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Prof. em. Dr. Michael-Sebastian Honig is a Professor of Social Work and Member of the Research Group Early Childhood: Education and Care, University of Luxembourg. Prof. em. Dr. Ilona Ostner is a Professor of Political Sociology and Social Policy, University of Göttingen, Germany.

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