Parent–teacher meetings as a unit of analysis for parent–teacher interactions

Abstract

The attempt to establish the decisive factors in psychological research, from an idiographic perspective, firstly involves examining the meanings entailed in this epistemological paradigm. Specifically, our work sets out to assess the possibilities of using this perspective with reference to parent–teacher relationships, as expressed through parent–teacher meetings. Said meetings present their own specific features which distinguish them from all the other kinds of meetings examined in literature (clinical, orientational, educational). Since many studies on this subject (parent–teacher communications; parent–teacher meetings, parent–teacher relationships) have focused mostly on the conversational aspects, it seemed time for a deeper theoretical and methodological examination of the specific characteristics of this instrument. Parent–teacher meetings have some particular features that make them a possible subject of idiographic analysis: firstly, it is a phenomenon that occurs at the dynamic meeting point between the life experiences of different individuals, brought together by their shared focus on the same matter of interest. Here we intend to describe, from a theoretical point of view, parent–teacher meetings as a relevant object of study and a possible context for future interventions.