Do teachers view parents as partners in the education of their child? Interviews with teachers suggest they don't
Many parents are more involved than ever in their children's education at school. They are in contact with the teachers on a regular basis, discuss their teaching style and generally advocate for their child. Ostensibly, the ideal relationship would be a partnership between teacher and parent with the child in the center. However, a new study from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev shows that teachers often view parents as a problem, often more problematic than their children, to be managed rather than as partners.
Tamar Schejter-Cohen, Prof. Idit Fast and Prof. Dorit Tubin of the School of Education interviewed 16 elementary school teachers in two schools in Beer-Sheva to assess how they view parents. What arose from the interviews was a recurring theme of managing the obstruction that is parents' input rather than a partnership for the benefit of the child.
Currently, teachers often need to figure out how to handle parents on their own through trial and error. Therefore, the researchers recommended increased professional training for teachers to diagnose, treat and infer various modes of parenting to add to their professional toolbox.
Their findings were published last month in .
The researchers found that teachers identify three parenting styles: cooperative, uninvolved, and interfering.
Cooperative parents are appreciative of the teacher's efforts and volunteer information. Teachers then reciprocate willingly with updates.
Uninvolved parents were the largest category. They show up for the mandatory school meetings but are otherwise unresponsive to teachers' calls and messages. Teachers will often send messages to remind them they need their cooperation at home to do their job at school.
Finally, the research showed that teachers have developed entire systems to deal with interfering parents. Interfering parents come in many varieties: deniers, over-protective, worried, anxious, aggressive, unpredictable, demanding, nagging, childish, blamers, complainers, boundless and hostile.
The researchers found that teachers had developed their own systems to "handle" these parents, often moving back and forth between strictness and empathy. They "diagnosed" the parental type and then "treated" them accordingly. Afterwards, they "inferred" whether their diagnosis and treatment needed to be revised.
Schejter-Cohen, Prof. Fast and Prof. Tubin noted that process was a professional skill the teachers had to invent on their own. Therefore, they recommended adding courses that would teach teachers how to diagnose, treat and infer parental styles.
They contended that doing so would have a few benefits. It would increase the teachers' professionalism. It would also increase school legitimacy in the community. Since parents are increasingly involved in school, if they had good relationships with teachers they would think better of the school.
"By giving the teachers the proper professional tools, they can really turn parents into partners," the researchers concluded.
More information: Tamar Schejter-Cohen et al, Diagnosing and treating parents: a new perspective on teacher-parent relationships, Teachers and Teaching (2024).
Provided by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
