Sociétés et Jeunesses en Difficulté (Aug 2019)
« C’est déjà les parents qu’il faudrait éduquer ! »
Abstract
In schools located in socially underprivileged areas, more than anywhere else, the necessity to educate parents constitutes a constant in the behind-the-scenes relationship with the teachers. The ethnographic observation of teacher-parent meetings (n =150) in this schools in the canton of Geneva give insight into the teachers’ vernacular practices aiming to educate parents. However, this practice is undertaken in implicit manner, supported by few resources and often reduced to trial and error. In this text, we will analyze how teachers take action, the tactics they use and the various positions they adopt in the guidance they give to parents. We will show the resulting effects on the interindividual communication in the meetings and on the parents’ reactions, which reflect their own expectations, the situation of their child in school, the resources available to them to deal with the child’s difficulties, as well as the often-diverse capabilities of the teachers to act with tact in a highly sensitive context.
