Exploring teaching professionals' constraints in implementation of parental involvement in school education

This article presents a qualitative study aiming at exploring how teachers’ attitudes are affected due to increased parental involvement in times of reform. By capturing the thoughts and perceptions of parents and teachers and conducting participant observations in two primary schools, it is found that there were implicit and explicit ideological demarcations among teachers.‘Altruism’ and ‘isolationism’ are two types of overt value-orientations encompassed in teachers’ perspectives towards parental involvement. Four positive value-forces, namely ‘welcome’, ‘devotion’, ‘joint effort’, and ‘renewal’ are identified from altruistic teachers’ responses to change whereas four negative value-forces, namely ‘fear’, ‘reticence’, ‘avoidance’ and ‘withdrawal’ emerge from those isolationistic teachers with orientations which often sustain educational conservatism. Copyright © 2015 The Authors.