Jean-Louis Auduc (2016). Famille-école : construire une confiance réciproque. Collection Éclairer. Canopé édition. ISBN 978-2-240-04358-0. référence 755A4660 (date de parution : 01/11/2016).
Jean-Louis Auduc is an associate professor in history, specializes in education sciences. He is interested in the education at school and the problems caused by the school institution.
The question of the family and school relationship is central to the field of school education. A link, that is to say a good relationship, is essential particularly as it is constant and efficient. It has a significant impact on school climate on a collective scale, and the school success of the child on an individual scale.
However, this link is difficult to build because families keep themselves in check because of the image of the French school system. Moreover, societals problems, such as unemployement, bring a negative image of the school, which is partly considered responsible for the non-integration of some young people into the job market and the social life.
As a privileged place for Education to citizenship, the present-day school has a much wider role than « instruction alone », like the development of culture and psychosocial skills. It is a place of academic achievement but also of autonomy and fulfillment. This role is misunderstood, or poorly understood by families, especially those from disadvantage socio-economic backgrounds.
The challenge is to enable families to understand what schools have today and to open school to families.
The family has long been kept away from school. In the course of societal and social developments, its legitimacy has been acknowledge, but it is still difficult to be put into action.
This is due to several things. On the parent’s side, their school’s experience influences the representations they have of the school. A school experience past negative or humiliating does not facilitate the alliance with their child’s current school. However, it is necesssary to take into account the fact that some parents are « indifferent » to their child’s schooling whom they consider to be the responsibility of the school. Still others systematically challenge the advice and practice of teachers (Feyfant, 2015).
On the school’s side, representations toward families are sometimes borrowed from negative criticism, particularly stigmatizing parents of low socio-professional category and/or culture remote from school culture. They are not considered as appropriate for their child’s schooling because they don’t have the good way to make their child’s school success. The educational difficulties of the child are predominantly attributes to the parents without any questioning on the teacher’s side. There is a strong resistance to change for some teacher and wider the institution.
The highly competitive aspect of the school can also give a discriminating image of their child, even a sense of humiliation. This is lead to a distance between « the holders of knowledge » who « judge » and the others, pupils and parents. The horizontal position must be thought, because both parents and teachers are the « holders of knowledge » on their own fields.
Moreover, the school come into contact with the families almost exclusively when the schooling of the child goes bad. However, an efficient relationship can only be achieved if an alliance is based on a positive exchange. The relationship between school and family is therefore subject to incomprehension and misunderstanding.
It is necessary that an explicit dialogue be established, especially as school expectations are implicit, that is to say not clear. Teachers want children to have a way to respond to answers, to express with a rather unusual manner. The child whose cultural and/or family functioning is different from the school’s, that is to say the way to think about things, to solve problems, is not prepared for school’s expectations, and have more difficult to answer than child with a culture close to school culture.
A clear dialogue helps to overcome this difficulty. This would give parents a sense of legitimacy in investing in their child’s education. Dialogue also makes it possible to overcome a major difficulty, the mutual fear between parents and teachers.
On the one hand, parents are afraid of being judged on their ability or not to care for their children, to be discredited in their parenting role. Indeed, this fear is legitimated by the fact that some teachers say that parents are not able to take care of their child’s schooling and criticize their way of life (Feyfant, 2015).
Teachers, on the other hand, are afraid of not knowing or not being able to respond to parent’s questions, being taken in front of colleagues, being questioned as teachers, or not being seen as a « real » professional. However, these teachers are sometimes those who expect parents to have an « educational standard » that corresponds to that of the school (Feyfant, 2015), whereas this should not be taken into account. Each family is free of its educational choice.
These mutual fears lead to a mistrust of the other and a posture of defense in front of the latter one. A communication is essential to put in place in order to overcome this problem. This is cruciel to a good functioning within the community of the adults that surround the child.
A clear, explicit and positive relationship between families and school makes it possible to give a better image of the school institution, its role and function.
This alliance, knows as « coeducation » is a very important bulwark against many phenomena that have potentially damaging consequences on the schooling and development of the child, such as dropping out of school, absenteeism, and beyond that, academic, professional and personal success. This is particularly evident for boys who are very significantly affected by these phenomena.
A work is necessary to make the functioning of the school comprehensible to all, and to the finality which follows it, that is to say, studies and training (pathway, specialties, perspectives and possible developments). This make it possible to give a meaning to the schooling and to make plan for the future, even if this one may evolve afterwards. This continuity gives an objective to the child, to the parents, to school, and give a concrete and active use to guidance rather than a sanction suffered or feared ordeal.
A partnership with external organizations is also useful for informing, exchanging, building a plan, to go through its school and life course. Therefore, the actors of the school must open themselves to the associations and the various structures which can offer additional information and possible answers in case of questions and/or difficulties.
School and its actors must be consistent with the objectives and the reality of what is done on the ground, in order to make sense for the child and the parents, and to give a positive and utilitarian value from a perpectives life plan. For this, it is essential that there be an internal collaboration between the different professionnal of the teams forming the educational community (teachers, educational, medical, social and management teams,).
This presupposes knowledge, recognition and respect of the function of the other professionnal, and the establishment of efficient exchanges that lead to an educational consensus, centered on the pupil’s school career. The child must be informed and supported in its journey and in the process of information and training. The goal is to avoid the feeling of loneliness experienced in the school career. A clear, explicit and supportive framework allows child to build his course autonomously.
But this problem underlies a far wider question : French society and its institutions, of which school is a part, has a strong elitist and segregationist tradition (Baluteau, 2000). This goes against the « school for all » and the notion of « equality of opportunity » advocated by the government and National Education. This initial inequity (Meuret, 2007) is largely at the origin and agraves the relationship between school and families. The symbolic domination of school institution, and wider society, on family is still present.
Basically, is it up the school to change its look at the family or is it up the society to change its look at the family? Wider, does the government will change its look at the school and at the family?
Bibliographie :
Baudelot, C. & Establet, R.(2009). L’élitisme républicain. L’école française à l’épreuve des comparaisons internationales. La République des idées. Edition Seuil.
Feyfant, A.(2015). Co-éducation : quelle place pour les parents ? N°98, janvier. Institut Français de l’Education.
Périer, P. (2007). Des élèves en difficultés aux parents en difficultés : le partenariat école/familles en question. Dans « Tisser des liens pour apprendre ». Edition RETZ.
