'Through the looking glass.' from comfort and conformity to challenge and collaboration: changing parent involvement in the catholic education of their children through the twentieth century.

Autor/Urheber	Millar, Nance Marie, Sociology & Anthropology, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences, UNSW
Titel	'Through the looking glass.' from comfort and conformity to challenge and collaboration: changing parent involvement in the catholic education of their children through the twentieth century.
Quelle	University of New South Wales. Sociology & Anthropology (2006) PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie
Schlagwörter	Catholic schools -- New South Wales; Catholic Church -- Education -- New South Wales; Education -- Parent participation -- New South Wales; Parent-teacher relationships -- New South Wales; Home and school -- New South Wales
Abstract	This sociological investigation examines the changing role of parents in the education oftheir children in Catholic schools in New South Wales over the twentieth century. CatholicChurch documents specifically state primary parental responsibility for their children'sreligious education. Catholic schools were established to inculcate faith, and assist parents'role. This thesis asks, to what extent that role has been realised?It unravels the processes that determined and defined the changing role of Catholic parentsduring this period, and identifies significant shifts in institutional thinking and practicesrelated to parents and resultant shifts in cultural and social perceptions. After half a centuryof conformity and comfort, a significant era followed as the Australian Church respondedto challenges, including financial crisis for Catholic schools, reform in the Australianeducation system, and the impact of the Second Vatican Council.Cohorts from three generations were selected. Interviews and focus groups elicitedmemories that were recorded and analysed, in terms of the integral questions; the role andinvolvement of parents in Catholic schools. Participants recalled their own childhood inCatholic schools and, where applicable, as parents educating their own children, or asreligious teachers. The analysis was theoretically informed by the work of Durkheim,Greeley, Coleman and Bourdieu. A review of Church documents and commentariesthrough the twentieth century, bearing on the education of children, showed the officialChurch position.Despite numerous rhetorical statements issued by Catholic authorities, emphasising the roleof parents as 'primary educators', the practical responses ranged from activeencouragement to dismissal. Teachers in Catholic schools and related bureaucracies were,seemingly, reluctant to initiate a more inclusive partnership role. Gradually, and in apiecemeal fashion, the Catholic Church and its schools have been responding to growingparental consciousness of their role and responsibilities.A significant shift was signalled by the New South Wales Bishops in establishing theCouncil of Catholic School Parents, to be supported by a full-time, salaried ExecutiveOfficer, in 2003. But any accommodation to new understandings of parent/teacher, orfamily/school relation is complex and not to be oversimplified as a simple sharing, orceding of authority.
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