Institutional Opportunities and Practices for the Participation of American Parents in the School System

Abstract

The article analyses the institutional possibilities and practices of parent participation in the school system of the United States of America. Education is an area where today the civic subjectivity of parents is most clearly manifested both in foreign countries and in Russia. Therefore, the author believes that the experience of American parents, that reflects a long and controversial process of implementing the principles of civil society in the field of educational relations, is of interest both in scientific and applied aspects. The methodological basis of the study is the concept of D. Epstein. The author studied the content of legal documents regulating the participation of American parents in the education of their schoolchildren; a secondary analysis of statistical information and sociological research data was carried out. The study showed: 1) the dependence of the institutional possibilities for the realisation by American parents of the needs and interests in the field of school education on the characteristics of the school education system of the region (state); 2) persistent social disparities in access to quality schooling among different sub-communities of American parents; 3) the impact of social inequality of American parents on the possibilities of protecting child-parental rights and interests in the field of school education; 4) difficulties in implementing the participatory model of interaction between the school and the American parent community; 5) the influence of economic and social resources of American parents (income, time, cultural and educational capital) on the nature of their involvement in the intra-school life of children; 6) a crisis of confidence of the American parent community in mass (national) parent public organisations and the functions they perform. It is concluded that, despite the differences in the institutional landscape of civic activity in the United States and Russia, both in general and in the field of school education, in both countries there are similar problems of interaction between parents and the school. In this regard, the author comes to the conclusion about the importance of taking into account some of the constructive practices that have developed in American society when developing the activities of the parents of Russian schoolchildren.