Chapter 2: Metaphor as Insight into Parents’Conceptualizations of their Role in School Improvement
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Published:2011
Bonnie L. Stelmach, 2011. "Metaphor as Insight into Parents’Conceptualizations of their Role in School Improvement", Including Families and Communities in Urban Education, Catherine M. Hands, Lea Hubbard
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In The Sociology of Teaching (1932), WillardWaller surmised:
From the ideal point of view, parents and teachers share much in common in that both, supposedly, wish things to occur for the best interests of the child; but in fact . . . parents and teachers are natural enemies, predestined each for the discomfiture of the other. (p. 68)
Waller’s assessment of the relationship between teachers and parents might seem overly glum for contemporary times because the notion of “partnership” has been popularized as the new optimistic prophesy for parent-teacher relations. Through this apparent volte-face, parents and teachers have been recast as “natural collaborators.” To this effect, educational policies such as the United States of America’s much discussed No Child Left Behind Act (2001) include as a parameter the participation of parents in curriculum-related planning. This expectation is echoed across other continents (see Boylan, 2005; Department for Education and Skills, 2005; Dom & Verhoeven, 2006; Ho, 2006; Hong Kong Education Department, 2000; New Zealand Ministry of Education, 2005). In Canada, all provinces and territories have mandated parent involvement through school councils as recently as 2005 (Saskatchewan Learning, 1 2005; Young & Levin, 2002).
