Organization of parents’ involvement in a social inequality perspective

Abstract

Parents’ socioeconomic background is of great importance in regards to how well children are allocating their schooling. One of the core missions of the school system is to contribute to equal education and equalization of social inequality. This is generally assumed to take place in the collaboration between school and home. From a neo institutional perspective, schools are seen as organizations affected by norms in their local environment. In this way, prevailing norms in the school neighborhood will be a significant factor in how they organize their activities. This study shows that schools are affected by their institutional environment when it comes to cooperation between school and home. There are major differences between a selected Norwegian and Finnish municipality, but also between schools located in resource-deprived areas and schools in more privileged areas. A general trend of customer orientation reinforces the differences in the management of cooperation, especially in the Norwegian context.