Abstract
Increased focus on parents’ responsibility for their children’s education, and demands for more parental involvement in schools, have changed the role of parents in schools. This chapter explores the role of parents and norms of parenthood in relations between family and school. While the role of parents in their children’s school is often studied from professionals’ or parents’ perspectives, this study focuses on constructions of good parenthood from children’s perspectives. What do children expect of their parents’ involvement with their school life? Based on ethnographic research in a Danish context, the study demonstrates that what defines a good school parent from children’s perspectives involves support on demand and adult ambassadorship. It also shows that children’s views of the good parent contradict teachers’ versions of good parenthood, and that balancing diverse ideals of parenthood is a central aspect of contemporary parenthood.
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Notes
- 1.
When I first met the children they were 12 years old, but when the fieldwork ended almost two years later most of them had turned 14.
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Dannesboe, K.I. (2016). Ambiguous Involvement: Children’s Construction of Good Parenthood. In: Sparrman, A., Westerling, A., Lind, J., Dannesboe, K. (eds) Doing Good Parenthood. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46774-0_6
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