Class, Culture and Agency: Researching parental voice

Abstract

This paper explores the differential possession and deployment of social, cultural and material resources by parents, and the effect of these processes on their willingness and ability to be involved with and intervene in their children's school life--what we have called 'parental voice'. The data presented here are drawn from a study of parents at two secondary schools, a subsample of data from a larger study involving six schools. We consider the social positioning and behaviour of three cohorts of parents, those demonstrating high, low and intermediate levels of intervention in the school. Our conclusions stress both the similarities and differences in parents' experience of voice. Certainly, parental access to and deployment of a number of social resources significantly affected how often, how easily and over what range of issues they approached the school. However, we also describe the overall character of parental voice in these two schools as individual, cautious and insecure.