Understanding the discourses of partnership : an examination of one school's attempts at parent involvement

Drawn from data collected as part of a large-scale ethnography exploring home-school literacy issues, this article investigates the ideology of power inherent in many teacher discourses. Although partnership rhetoric is common in most primary schools today, our data indicate a belief amongst teachers that parents still contribute little more to their children's education than help in the classroom and with homework. Calls by government bodies to bring parents into the decision making process have often resulted in tokenistic gestures. It is apparent that some teachers are unable to recognise the vital role of parents in education and are unwilling to relinquish control in what are perceived as school matters. In this paper we discuss the findings of an examination of `teacher talk' in school-based dialogue.