Suchergebnisse

While the value of the school-family partnership is universally accepted, it is not always easy to promote effective parent-teacher partnership. A central question that emerges is how schools can ensure that they develop their home-school relationship in a way that acknowledges the needs and perspectives of children, parents and teachers and enhances parents' participation in school activities. Our main assumption is that we can better understand school-family relations, by examining the beliefs held by both teachers and parents about their relationship. This study addressed Greek parents' perceptions of teachers, as well as their own role and responsibilities, parental involvement activities and areas of cooperation with teachers. Analysis of 581 questionnaires to parents revealed that parents perceived distinctly separate roles between teachers and parents. Teachers were perceived as "experts" in academic domains, while parents were perceived as "guardians" of children's social and emotional growth. Both teachers and parents' role was to keep each other informed about children's achievement in school and home setting respectively. Results of the study are discussed in terms of implications for initiatives to develop school-family relations in teacher training programmes.

A common theme among a number of the books reviewed in this issue is that of care and relationships as part of preparing future professionals, whether in the area of primary education, health and social care or youth work. Cefai & Cavioni's book is concerned with Social and Emotional Education (SEE) in primary schools, adopting a layered focus through a multi-component, multiintervention, multi-population and multi-year approach that is largely psychological in focus. Brotherton & Parker's book on education in health and social care takes a more sociological, social policy and political focus, while also seeking to address the needs of practitioners. Similarly Sapin's book, engaging with relationships as part of developing creativity and reflection in youth work settings, offers perspectives that are relevant across disciplines and professional domains. Gray & Webb's ambit of concern is with social work; they draw on a diverse and eclectic range of thinkers, mainly through a sociological and political theories lens. The commonality of themes, concerns and approaches, while obviously offering distinctive angles of specific concern as well, raise the issue as to how much current and future university courses across education, health and social care, social work and youth work could increasingly offer some similar joint modules as part of a broader multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approach – some disciplinary boundaries may need expansion to benefit from such crossfertilisation of ideas and approaches. It is increasingly evident in the education, health, social care, social work and youth work domains that no domain is an island. ; N/A