The governing parent-citizen: dividing and valorising parent labour through school governance

• Published in: Journal of education policy Vol. 37; no. 5; pp. 744 - 761
• Main Authors: Gerrard, Jessica, Savage, Glenn C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 03.09.2022
• Subjects: Administrative Organization; Boards of Education; education policy; Educational Change; Educational Legislation; Educational Policy; Elementary Secondary Education; Foreign Countries; Geographic Regions; Governance; Independent Public Schools (IPS); Institutional Autonomy; Intervention; parent engagement; Parent Participation; Parent Role; Parent school relationship; Parents; Policy Analysis; Policy implementation; policy reform; Primary secondary education; Public Schools; School Administration; school autonomy; School based management; School Community Relationship; school governance; Australia; Western Australia
• ISSN: 0268-0939; 1464-5106
• DOI: 10.1080/02680939.2021.1877357

Internationally, major policy reforms seek to deepen parent and community engagement in schools. Whilst pervasive in policy documents, however, discourses surrounding 'parent engagement' are often elastic and imprecise, ultimately gaining meaning through the technologies of governance that shape policy enactments in schools. In this paper, we argue that contemporary schooling reforms are constructing a new 'governing parent-citizen' through which the parental labour of social reproduction is being extended, valorised and rearticulated. We examine how one major reform movement in Australia is articulating new roles for parents and community members in schools: the Independent Public Schools (IPS) initiative in Western Australia. Our analysis demonstrates the intensive policy intervention required to produce this new form of parental labour and the subsequent divisions of labour it is producing.