The last forty years in the UK (and elsewhere too) has seen several attempts at the redefinition or reconstruction of the roles of parents and schools in the education and, more widely, the up-bringing of children. Such attempts, it will be argued, have been driven by a variety of forces, which will subsequently be discussed. Not all of these forces drive educational or social policy in the same direction -- and indeed the last forty years have seen shifts and changes in the construction of the relationship between parents and schools as well as tensions between different imperatives bearing upon this relationship. There is an approximate chronology to these changes, which will be described subsequently. Next an analysis will be offered of some of the different ways in which this relationship has been constructed, ordering these under the following headings: • parents and puzzled by-standers: education run amok?; • parents as support; 'saving our schools'?; • parents as co-educators: the discourse of 'partnership'; • parents in control; • parents as customers: 'education in the marketplace'; • parents as pupils: the infantalisation of parents or a failure of parental capacity in challenging times? Thus far the focus consists largely of an historical and analytic treatment of the currents in the evolution of social and educational policy in this period. The final part, will however, discuss in more philosophical terms the considerations (rooted in ethics and political philosophy) which might lead us to prefer one of these constructions of the parent school relationship to another. More particularly attention will be given to the distinction between paternalistic and non-paternalistic conceptions of parents' rights and on the role and responsibilities of the state in the assurance or the active conduct of the 'successful' up-bringing of children.