Digital Commons Network^™

Partnership Between Myth And Reality : Structural Asymmetries In Parent-Teacher Relationships, Marisa Bel Holtz

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Despite a historically unprecedented increase in advocacy for parental involvement in education in recent decades, parents continue to express dissatisfaction with their communication with teachers, while teachers continue to identify their interactions with parents as a source of tension and stress. While the practitioner literature recommends parent-teacher collaboration as an attainable goal, the theoretical literature suggests that, given the structural asymmetries of parent-teacher relationships, open communication may be impossible. Via unstructured interviews with parents and teachers of suburban secondary students, this study explored the structural limitations on authentic parent-teacher communication. A two-layered analytic approach combined thematic analysis and narrative discourse …