Schools and their community: tensions and tradeoffs

In this Chapter I will explore whether parents feel they influence schools' community participation. This topic has been 'hot' in most developed nations throughout the 1990s (overlapping political as well as geographical borders) and also has been a key ingredient in reforms in the new countries of Central Europe. As such, educational policy – intended or in practise – provides a context where the politics of education emerges with the tensions that arise, tradeoffs made, and at its most transparent. This chapter reports research from Sydney, Australia, with nearly 100 teachers and 700 families in a neighbourhood community (Crump and Eltris 1995a, 1995b). This research is part of a broader work with the Institute for Responsive Education and the League of Schools Reaching Out based at Boston University. The chapter thus reports on the intent and practise of recent policy initiatives designed to reform the connections between school and home into a stronger sense of partnership (See Frutcher et al. 1993)