Teacher-parent interaction in junior high schools in Israel : negotiation and consent

Abstract

This study examines patterns of negotiation between teachers and parents in junior high schools in Israel. These negotiations were examined on "parents' days" in three schools between four class teachers and 80 parents of students in their classes. Guided by interpretive approaches to the study of micro-social processes and their application in the models of Hargreaves (1972, 1991) and Strauss (1978, 1990), dealing with negotiations, strategies and working agreements, the study focused on observations of teacher-parent interactions and interviews with teachers and parents. It was found that teachers are guided on parents' day by both pedagogic and survival goals: they seek to advance the students in their studies and to care for their well-being through contact with the parents, but also to shift responsibility to the parents. The parents' goals on these days are to learn about their children's situation in the school, but also to win the teachers' support and sympathy for their children in order to help them advance. To achieve their goals each side uses resources to impress and convince the other side. The teachers emphasize their professional authority, their bureaucratic status and the knowledge they possess of the parents and their children. The parents use their status and rights as parents and the knowledge they possess of the school and the teachers. The findings also indicate that the teachers stress mainly the instructional aspect.

This approach perpetuates the hierarchy existing in the education system and does not help to narrow the gaps between students from different socio-economic backgrounds. This indicates a direction for further study and investigation of the question as to how the school can be made to contribute to greater equality, among other things through changing the teachers' educational perception. Perhaps the main purpose of parents' day lies in its ritual functions, which are designed to serve the school organization and constitute a restatement of the common goals of teachers and parents, while supporting the ideology of parent participation and confirming the statuses and roles of teachers and parents.