Educational or Child-Rearing Partnerships: What Kind of Cooperation Is Needed at All-Day Secondary Schools?

Abstract

Family and school belong to the main socializing instances of our society. However, their relationship is characterized by tension, and partnership in particular is not a matter of course. There are historical as well as structural reasons for this. They refer to the development and establishment of the school system since the eighteenth century and to the professionalization of teaching. In this context, the role of parents as educators was questioned increasingly (Oevermann 2006, p. 78; Tyrell and Vanderstraeten 2007, p. 165). Today, there are even reports of a growing dominance of the school over the family that is taken to be an effect of the different social logics in the two systems (Helsper et al. 2009, p. 36).