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Parents as partners?

This research explores the question: are parents partners? Far from being an evaluative study of the degree to which partnership is realised in practice, it is the very concept of partnership which has become the problematic I have examined. The focus of this study is a view of partnership which emerged in the mid nineteen eighties - the participatory model. This view of partnership is based on the principles of equality and reciprocity between parents and teachers. I contrast this rhetoric with how the reality of parental involvement is experienced. This is based on ethnographic research of parental participation in two schools. I have looked at the process, perspectives, adaptations and strategies which develop in day-to-day contact between parents, teaching staff and children. This is an aspect of parental involvement which has received little attention in previous academic research. My research highlights the assumptions which underlie both the principles of participatory partnership and existing accounts of the reality of parental involvement. Furthermore, I reveal the hidden reality of women and children as forgotten partners.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:293781
Date January 1990
CreatorsWallis, Lorraine Ellen
PublisherUniversity of Warwick
Source SetsEthos UK
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Sourcehttp://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/108073/

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