Parents as partners? A qualitative study on the state policy of parental involvement in school management in Hong Kong

Decentralization of power of school governance is one of the recent trends of educational development in the global society in which the notion that parents as stakeholders of children education and parents as school partners is gradually recognized in Hong Kong. Based on a qualitative study on home-school partnership in three primary schools during the consultation period of the Education Ordinance of Incorporated Management Committee, this paper tries to define the meaning of partners and argues that during the process of developing parent-school partnership, three models emerge. The first model is conceptualised as “parents as policy-followers”. The second is “parents as instruments of school initiatives” and “parents as pseudo partners” is the third model. It is concluded that the notion of “parents as real partners” is a utopian vision at the present situation of educational development in Hong Kong.