All talk and no action: transforming the rhetoric of parent–professional partnership into practice

Abstract

There is agreement in political and academic circles that partnership working between parents and professionals is critical to optimising educational provision for children who have special needs. Yet this method of optimisation often appears to be an elusive feature of current practice. In order to begin to explore this chasm between the largely hypothetical parent–professional partnerships set out centrally in British government policy and the widespread reality of parental dissatisfaction, this article identifies the key drivers and inhibitors to partnership working, as revealed within the empirical and theoretical literature. Much of the literature referred to here has its roots in organisational theory, economics, management and political studies – the aim being to learn from rigorous research undertaken in other sectors regarding partnership working, in order to begin to construct a more effective model of parent–professional partnership within special education.