Negotiation in the School Context: The Meanings Ascribed by Teachers

Abstract

This chapter—part of a broader study on family–school relationships—addresses violence in schools by studying the parents and teachers of students in the 5th to 9th grades of a public elementary school in the state of Bahia, Brazil. We investigate how teachers understand their negotiations of family–school relationships, using the bidimensional model presented by Rahim and Bonoma and the historical-cultural approach. The study sought to examine how teachers understand negotiation in the school space—in particular, the family-school relationship. This chapter aimed to (1) identify the actors involved and the convergences or divergences in their feelings, beliefs, opinions, and practices; (2) identify and analyze the spaces and situations in which negotiations occur; and (3) identify and analyze family–school relationship conflict management styles related to the meanings the actors attribute to the negotiations. The study used two procedures: first, the school was observed in its daily activities and relationships; as the second step, semi-structured interviews were used with five teachers of students in the fifth to ninth years of elementary school. The analysis focused on units of meaning that related to negotiation and conflict management. The significance of how negotiation and conflict management take place in the family–school relationship, from interviews with teachers, indicates that this relationship is characterized by hierarchical domination and the actors’ positions of power. The family–school relationship is regarded as one in which the causes of conflicts tend to remain because the dominator’s interests prevail, and the interests of the dominated are not considered or even fully revealed. In this unequal relationship, the dominated give up through avoidance or accept less than what they truly need through accommodation or a tendency to commit.