Practices in home–school cooperation – a gendered story?

Abstract

Based on 30 interviews with teachers and parents conducted in a Swedish compulsory school, this article discusses the current growing body of research on home–school relations that stress the importance of parents’ engagement and involvement as a key factor that influences pupils’ academic performance. The focus is on gendered practices in home–school relationships. Thus, cooperation between home and school is paramount as questions of what type of community programs that promote family–community partnerships are explored. The study analyzes the construction of a cooperation practice that operates in two versions and affects performativity practices in both home and school, emphasizing a joint teacher–mother responsibility discourse as it draws on feminist poststructural theories and discourse analysis. The results indicate that both parents and teachers express attitudes that may raise questions whether they, despite the mission to counteract traditional gender patterns, in fact are dependent and rely on a cooperation practice in which mothers are made particularly responsible and thus contribute to asymmetric gender patterns.

Keywords:

• gender
• home and school relationships
• power relations
• discourse