ABSTRACT

The policy and educational ideal of parent-school engagement rests on assumptions about effective communication with parents about children’s educational progress and well-being. Yet communication between school and home varies, and can be a source of parental satisfaction and frustration. Here we consider perspectives of Australian parents whose encounters with schools – both satisfactory and unsatisfactory – are shaped by the everyday communicative practices and conflict management strategies of teachers and principals. Our findings show that a wide range of parents of children in Australian schools report similar experiences, concerns and frustrations. Informed by cultural and post-structural theory, we consider how approaches to communication and conflict are implicated in disciplining the family and keeping parents ‘in their place’ outside schooling’s structures of power. Participants in our research reveal the intensity of affective investments in education as a ‘high stakes’ endeavour. We argue that the rationality of education policy that is being embedded in the everyday social configurations of schools and their interaction with parents is predicated on the neoliberal project of producing the autonomous, self-governing individual. The communication practices used in disciplining the family by conscripting parents into this project, we suggest, is a significant contributor to un/satisfactory parent-school encounters.

摘要

家长学校参与的政策和教育理念建立在与家长就孩子的教育进步和福祉进行有效沟通的假设之上。然而，学校和家庭之间的沟通各不相同，可以成为家长满意度和挫折。在这里，我们考虑了澳大利亚父母的观点，他们与学校的相遇——无论是令人满意的还是不令人满意的——都受到教师和校长的日常交流实践和冲突管理策略的影响。我们的调查结果表明，澳大利亚学校的许多孩子家长都报告了类似的经历、担忧和挫折。在文化和后结构理论的指导下，我们考虑了沟通和冲突的方法如何牵涉到管教家庭和让父母在学校教育的权力结构之外保持“他们的位置”。我们研究的参与者揭示了对教育的情感投资的强度是一项“高风险”的努力。我们认为，植根于学校日常社会结构及其与家长互动的教育政策的合理性，是建立在新自由主义项目的基础上的，即产生自主、自治的个人。我们建议，通过征募父母参与该项目来管教家庭的沟通实践是导致不/令人满意的家长学校相遇的重要因素。