ABSTRACT This article introduces a collection of papers comprising the special issue, Competing interests: Parents, Schools and Nation States. Drawing on the seven papers in the collection, and situating them in recent developments in the sociological field, the article discusses globally shifting relations between families, schools and the state across a range of nations in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (Australia, Germany, India, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA). The article proposes that the school is a crucial site for relations between family and state, and argues that a significant focus of the material and occupational investment of contemporary parents is the formal education of their children, re-shaping not only the relationship between parents and schools but also the nature of parenthood itself. In the contemporary context of global neoliberal education reform, parents are analysed both as local actors in schools and as subjects of national and international policy regimes.

中文翻译：

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家长、学校和二十一世纪的国家：比较视角

摘要 本文介绍了一系列论文，其中包括特刊“竞争利益：家长、学校和国家”。这篇文章借鉴了收藏中的七篇论文，并将它们置于社会学领域的最新发展中，讨论了 20 世纪末和 21 世纪初（澳大利亚）在一系列国家中家庭、学校和国家之间的全球变化关系、德国、印度、挪威、新加坡、瑞典、美国）。文章提出学校是家庭与国家关系的重要场所，并认为当代父母物质和职业投资的一个重要焦点是对孩子的正规教育，不仅重塑了父母与国家之间的关系。学校，但也是父母本身的性质。