Navigating School Interactions: Parents of Students with Intellectual Disabilities Speak Out

Abstract

Our attraction to the verbiage of partnership casts a misleading conjecture that schools and parents are a collaborative unit with a single purpose. For too many parents, especially for those whose children present “problems” for schools, the relationship can be fraught with disillusionment and frustration. The purpose of this work is to highlight and contextualize the complex experiences of parents of children with intellectual disabilities as they navigate their child’s schooling. Through the presentation of research findings and project data, we explore the nature of the school parent relationships within the context of inclusive practice in schools. Presented using data collected from 33 parent interviews, this work presents a summary of the struggles and successes of parent engagement within a system that vacillates between innovation and stagnation, between hypocrisy and integrity and between one version of school and another.