Do Teachers Recognise Complaints from Parents, and If Not, Why Not?

Abstract

Previous research has shown that at least 10% of parents report significant levels of disillusionment with their child's school. The present paper addresses two questions arising from this earlier research. (1) Do teachers recognise complaints from parents? (2) Is there a possible relationship between teachers' perceptions of complaints from parents and (i) aspects of the classroom, (ii) teachers' general feelings of job satisfaction and processes at work and (iii) aspects of the school's professional climate? The information used in this paper was collected by two parallel questionnaires. One hundred and twenty-four teachers and 888 parents from 20 schools and 95 classes in nine municipalities participated in the present study. The response rate was 69% for the teachers and 44% for the parents. The overall picture was that teachers thought that fewer parents were disillusioned than was actually the case. Multiple regression analysis revealed that 42% of the variance in teachers' perceptions of parental disillusionment was explained by classroom variables or teacher pressure variables. The results in this paper suggest that attempts to understand problems in home–school relations should focus at least as much on aspects of classroom and/or school life as on the actual interactions between parents and teachers.

Keywords:

• parents' complaints
• teacher pressure
• school climate