Parental governmentality: involving ‘immigrant parents’ in Swedish schools

Abstract

In Sweden, calls for partnership between state institutions and local communities punctuate discussions of a number of areas of public policy. In this article, the discourse of partnership is analyzed in recent developments in Swedish educational policy, and particularly the involvement of ‘immigrant parents’ as partners collaborating with the school. In the article it is argued that, in partnerships between the school and ‘immigrant parents’, the ‘rules of the game’ are most often dictated by one of the partners (i.e. the Swedish school). Here, ‘immigrant parents’ are by various techniques being ‘measured’ and exhorted to adapt to an imagined ‘Swedish normality’, in order to become a ‘responsible’ parent and equal partner.

Keywords:

• parent involvement
• governmentality
• partnership
• racialization