Regulating life in residential care: the unassuming authority of the timetable

Abstract

Abstract This paper highlights the various roles and influences of a particular text form: the timetable pasted unassumingly on the wall of a residential home for children. It provides examples of literacy events that take place around the ubiquitous timetable and how through these events, the social dynamics of its residents and those around them are constructed and enforced. An important aspect of institutional life, the timetable “regulates the home's residents' daily patterns by structuring their time so that they move from one set of skills to another throughout the day”. In addition, it becomes the ‘invisible monitor’ in the absence of the home's supervisor, as though ‘empowered’ with authority to dictate the children's actions. In other words, the timetable proves to have dominant control over the daily practices of those living in residential care.