True partners? Exploring family-school partnership in secondary education from a collaboration perspective

Abstract

Although the benefits of family-school partnership are clear, secondary schools struggle to successfully realise this partnership. Drawing on interview data from Dutch parents of secondary school students, this study aims to explore underlying structures of family-school partnership and opportunities for improvement. We defined family-school partnership as boundary crossing in collaboration between equal agents. Using a framework for analysing interdisciplinary collaboration, we explored what levels of co-work can be observed in parents’ accounts and what factors affect parents’ agency in family-school partnership. In total, 24 parents participated in 11 individual semi-structured interviews and 3 focus group interviews. Data were analysed using a template analysis. The analysis showed that, although coordination and collaboration can be observed in the partnership, the most common level of co-work is cooperation. Furthermore, the findings show that at each level of co-work, the agentive roles of parents are affected by equality of condition, including: access to resources, recognition of expertise, and acknowledgement of authority. The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the relationship between families and schools by breaking down the complex concept of family-school partnership into smaller, more tangible and more manageable components. Defining levels of co-work, different agentive roles and different levels of equality helps to deepen the theoretical understanding of the interrelated aspects of family-school partnership. In practice, defining components that are observable may lead to actionable insights.