Increasing parental participation at school level: a ‘citizen to serve’ or a ‘customer to steer’?

Ingrid Helgøy,Anne Homme

doi:10.1080/20020317.2017.1343625

Ingrid Helgøy, Anne Homme

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/20020317.2017.1343625

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Abstract

ABSTRACTCollaboration between schools and parents has become increasingly prominent on the political agenda in Norway. Schools are obliged to promote parent–school cooperation in accordance with parents’ rights as stakeholders in education. This article explores the governing strategies of seven primary or lower-secondary schools that have taken initiatives to improve parent–school collaboration. The main intention is to explore how New Public Management (NPM) measures (such as market values, decentralization, competition, and output control) and New Public Service (NPS) tools (including coalition building and citizens’ involvement) are reproduced at the local level when parent–school collaboration is put on the agenda. The analysis shows that street-level discretion at school level implies considerable uncertainty around the achievement of policy objectives. Different opinions on parents as a target group seem prominent in explaining how frontline workers act and strategize. Two distinct collaboration strategies are identified: serving and steering. The serving strategy is based on a linear partnership by making use of local knowledge in order to reach parents and enable their participation. The steering strategy is characterized by non-linear relationships with parents and certain steering mechanisms by routinizing collaboration activities, modifying goals for parent–school collaboration and rationing school services to parents.

Highlights

During the past few decades, the collaboration between schools and parents has become increasingly prominent on the political agenda in Norway
The main intention is to explore how New Public Management (NPM) measures and New Public Service (NPS) tools are reproduced at the local level when parent–school collaboration is put on the agenda
We explore whether the governing principles of NPM and NPS are reproduced at the policy frontline by asking how, and to what extent, the principles affect the schools’ strategies, and what the impact is on parent–school collaboration

Summary

Introduction

During the past few decades, the collaboration between schools and parents has become increasingly prominent on the political agenda in Norway. By analysing how the different steering principles impact the content and practices of local parent–school cooperation, we explore how the parents are involved and taken into account. Some researchers have referred to a change in governing models from steering to serving, characterizing the different relations to, and involvement of, the target groups of the policy (Christensen & Lægreid, 2011). While managers are being held accountable, they are granted more power to choose the direction on how to achieve organizational goals In response to this intensified steering regime, NPS represents a new public administration model grounded in the argument that the government belongs to citizens (Denhardt & Denhardt, 2015). NPS bureaucrats, as they implement public policy, are expected to focus on their responsibility

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