BRIEF HISTORY OF PARENT INVOLVEMENT
Category: parent involvement
The past 50 years have seen an increase in the attention given by successive governments to the school-parent relationship. This timeline, drawn from an analysis of over 40 reports, reviews and command papers by the UK government, reveals a gradual shift in emphasis over the period since the publication of The Plowden Report (1967).
The emphasis has gradually shifted, through successive governments and an evolving base of academic research. During that period, the emphasis on parents in government policy interventions has also increased substantially, more than doubling in intensity over the period. During the early 2000s, this reflected the government structural emphasis on “children, schools and families”, but the parental focus, as measured by mentions in policy documents, has remained intense throughout the past 20 years.
A common theme in the research published over the period is the oft-cited gap between “rhetoric” and “practice” when it comes to the school-parent relationship, whether in the form of engagement or involvement. We characterise this as the Parent-Engagement Gap. It has been agreed by academics, practitioners, school leaders and government that this has long been an area in need of improvement: the motivation is there but the conditions required to make this a priority have remained elusive.
The timeline reveals a fascinating evolution of the issue of the school-parent relationship over half a century, characterised by three trends:
- the push for greater parent involvement in school governance
- equipping parents with information about their children’s education
- encouragement and guidance for parents to hold schools accountable.