Föräldrasamverkan – en fråga om förtroende och erkännande i ljuset av några principer för relationen mellan föräldrar och skola

Abstract

Concurrently with the liberal market reform winds that in recent decades have blown over and changed
the Swedish educational landscape, the relationship between parents and the school has changed.
Parents have a heightened right space to decide over their own children’s education, a broader mandate
to influence the school and therefore, parents have ”withdrawn” in the school and come closer to the
professionals. Four models for the relationship between parents and schools are described to distinguish some main implications of this increasingly complex relationship. Theoretically the work is grounded in the sociology of knowledge (Durkheim 1922/1956, Mannheim 1928/1968) and the models can be
seen as idealtypes in the sense of Weber (Weber 1947). The purpose of the article is to use the separation model and the partnership model as a frame of reference to analyze how some teachers create
trusting relationship with parents. It appeared in the conversation focused interviews of a total of 16 F9 teachers. The teachers used the trust-building strategies involving an «open communication» and
conscious boundaries with the child / learner at the center of teacher-parent relationship. The article
concludes with a discussion where trust and confidence are related to the concept of recognition.