School and family are brought together by a common goal: bringing up and educating new generations. This is a systemic process, in which countless factors play a part (from the wider social context and the regulatory framework to the personality of the child in question, and the culture present in the school and in the family itself). These various factors generate an interplay of reciprocal effects whose results cannot be predicted with any certainty. Furthermore, the borders between the areas of respective educative competence – of the school and of the family – have not been established definitively; at the edges, the spaces in which parents and teachers carry out their responsibilities and duties are irregular and uncertain in form, and are enmeshed with wider-reaching, social-cultural dynamics. The relationship between the behaviour of individuals (parents towards teachers), social orientation (neo-liberalism) and institutional frameworks (school markets) seems, in particular, to translate into scarce parental participation, a lack of adequate forms of home-school communication, and a need for investment in training parents and teachers (Dusi, 2014).
In the wake of the socio-cultural and economic changes that have swept the continent of Europe, the school-family relationship seems to have undergone a radical transformation, becoming more complex in the process. Studies carried out across a number of European countries have all identified an array of competing factors that determine school-family relations (Andonov, 2007; Auduc, 2007; Crozier, 1999, 2005; Ravn, 2005; Rabusicová, 2009; Smit & Driessen, 2009; Kryger & Ravn, 2009; Lahaye, Pourtois & Desmet, 2009; González-Falcón & Romero-Muñoz, 2010; Perregaux et al, 2011; Inglis, 2012). There are as many diverse realities as there are individual schools.
Myriad factors are at play but we might mention, to give an overall impression:
- the structural difference between the two institutions, school and family;
- the blurred borders between the tasks and responsibilities of each of these educative agents;
- the complexity of the educative role, and the unpredictable nature of the outcome of the educative act;
- the influence of the local context;
- the ‘individual’ factor (the personality and world view of the individuals involved).
In short, despite the fact that many studies have demonstrated that a good relationship between school and family can lead to a better programme of education for the child, the issue of parent-teacher relationships in Europe (and elsewhere), from Spain to Sweden, from Ireland to Greece, and from Italy to the Netherlands, still needs to be resolved.
In an attempt to understand the reasons for the complexity described above, this paper seeks to assess the validity of a hypothesis that emerges from our analysis of the international studies conducted in this area (i.e. Epstein, 2010, 2012; Deslandes, 2009; etc.). This hypothesis states that the school-family relationship is inherently difficult due to the complex nature of the educative role, whatever the socio-cultural and regulatory framework may be (Dusi, 2013). Therefore, the principal objective of this study is to provide a broader vision of the school-family relationship by taking the wider European perspective into account, and to determine whether there are recurring elements that characterise this encounter, namely, whether it is reasonable to speak of the essence of this relationship in terms of something that exists beyond cultural, institutional and legislative differences.
Method
This literature review has examined academic papers on various school systems in Europe with the aim of assessing the research hypothesis: Is the relationship between the two principal educative institutions – the school and the family – inherently complex and subtle?Over the years, many studies have investigated the school-family relationship, both at a national and an international level. Despite the fact that a number of studies conducted outside of the European Union are useful in understanding the subject (i.e. Dauber & Epstein, 1989; Haynes, Gebreyesus & Comer, 1993; OCDE, 1997; Deslandes, 2009; Epstein, Hoover-Dempsey & Sandler, 1997; Gestwicki, 2007; Epstein et al., 2009; Hornby, 2011; etc.), for the purposes of this paper, they are only considered as a theoretical background and not taken directly into account. As such, this literature review focuses on the European continent, and on research conducted in the field within this geographical area. The level of schooling that forms the object of research is primary education, because it presents many similarities across the different school systems.Literature available in English, French, Spanish and Italian was gathered using ERIC (Education Resources Information Center) and the IJPE, the journal of the European Network About Parents in Education (ERNAPE). The main search terms include ‘school-family relationship’, ‘school-family partnership’, ‘parental involvement’, and so on.The studies were selected according to the following criteria:i.the paper focuses on the school-family relationship in one or more European countries (some European countries are represented more than others);ii.the paper focuses on primary school education (a level of schooling that presents many similarities across different European countries);iii.the paper was published after 2000 (even if many foundational papers were written earlier, i.e.: Munn, 1993; Fernández-Enguita, 1993; Booth & Dunn, 1996; Bastiani & Wolfendale, 1996; Wolfendale & Topping 1996; Vincent, 1997; INTO, 1997; Gayet, 1999).Both studies using a qualitative methodology and those with a quantitative approach (Oakley, 2004) have been included. To better understand the complex and pluralistic social contexts in question (the interpretative paradigms at play; their influence on national law and on individuals’ ways of thinking; etc.), it is necessary to include a variety of perspectives and approaches. We analysed 49 papers.
Expected Outcomes
This literature analysis covers a limited number of papers, each dealing with the topic of the school-family relationship in a particular country in Europe. To consider the coming together of parents and teachers is to face a complex, multipart reality encompassing three different social levels (macro, meso, and micro), each one of which influences the others (Dusi, 2010). The cultural, social and economic orientations of complex societies (individualism, migration, neo-liberalism, etc.) form a recurring theme throughout Europe, just as we see similar difficulties in school-family relationships in different countries (Ravn, 2005, 2011). One of the most prominent factors marking the school-family relationship across Europe is a correlation between individual behaviour (parents), organisational and legislative choices exercised by institutions (at the level of government and school systems) and the neo-liberal orientation of the school marketplace.Even at the meso and micro levels, this analysis identifies a number of common elements that characterise the school-family relationship across Europe, beyond those inherent to specific nations.These include:•the perception, on the part of schools, of an increased tendency among parents to delegate their own duties in educating their children to the school institution (Castro & García, 2013; Pati, 2011)•the discovery that migrant parents tend to have less involvement with their children’s school (Tett, 2004, Denessen, Bakker, & Gierveld, 2007; Berndt, 2008).•worsening relations between parents and schools (Gerrits, 2011; Dusi, 2014; IFOP, 2014; Auduc, 2015).•factors that make school-family relations more difficult (time, implicit curriculum, inadequate methods of communication) (Mac Naughton & Hughes, 2008; Urban, 2009; Teixidó, 1999; Terrón & Díez, 2006; Griebel & Niesell, 2011; Cantón & García, 2012; Garreta Bochaca, 2015).The findings indicate that parent-teacher relationships are intrinsically complex encounters, regardless of the different social-cultural and legislative contexts in which they take place.
References
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