I think in practice that students would watch less television if they and their parents had more time for other sorts of activities and interests. I also find it curious that we worry so much about television watching and so little about the ways that the television all of us watch has become so completely commercialized. Nor do we pay as much attention as we should to the ways commercial television has entered many American classrooms. Some European nations have non-commercial television that does contribute significantly to the educational and cultural development of citizens of all ages. I believe we need to place the homework debate in a larger context than it usually receives.
Homework is by definition work a young student does at home.
Nearly one-fifth of American children grow up in poverty. One minimal prerequisite for doing homework is having a quiet and secure space where the worker can concentrate. Poverty in practice means that most poor children lack even that rudimentary asset. Our ethnographic studies showed that many children from poor backgrounds want to do their homework but simply cannot. Then they go to school and are often condemned for failure to complete assignments that other children in the class completed.