CYP Now - Resources: Review - A rounded view of parental inclusion

Could there be a more timely subject for a book? Parent power is the big new idea of Ruth Kelly, the Secretary of State for Education, although it is not altogether clear what that means in practice. There is little doubt, however, that encouraging parental involvement in schools is central to Government education policy.

The book consists of a number of chapters that arose originally from an Economic and Social Research Council-funded series of seminars, involving academics, practitioners and parents. Getting parents to participate in schools is an extremely complex business, and the contributors seek to understand how these relationships might work in practice.

The book also sounds a cautionary note about assumptions on how to build parent participation: it may not be a uniformly positive experience.

Parents are not a homogeneous group: a model of participation that fails to take the different experiences of working class or minority ethnic parents into account is not only likely to fail, but is likely to worsen relations between those parents and their children's schools.

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