This symposium explores the expectations, structural constraints and realities about parental involvement in different European countries (Germany, Spain, United Kingdom). The discussion will be embedded in four different discourses about parental involvement.

(1)    Discourse about parental involvement and student assessment: OECD research report pointed out the high influence parental behavior, beliefs and educational practices have on the learning outcomes of pupils at all levels of education although the effects differ among the various countries (Borgonovi & Montt, 2012). Several meta-analyses also show the positive effects of parental involvement in school on the achievement and general well-being of pupils (Jeynes, 2011; Hill & Tyson, 2009).

(2)    Neoliberal discourse: Competent parents are seen as crucial and essential for the development of children to make them responsible for their own educational success or failure. Therefore parents have to be ‘trained’ in supporting their kids. Parental involvement then means getting them more involved in their kids’ education and making them ‘good’ parents (Ule et al., 2015).

(3)    Discourse about democratization and active citizenship: The democratization of all areas did not stop in front of schools. Being primarily responsible for their children and considered as experts of their children parents were given democratic rights to get involved in school-affairs (Eurydice, 1997).

(4)    Heterogeneity discourse: Parents are a heterogeneous group. On the one hand there are affluent and well-educated parents who are able to support their children in a way school expects from them, on the other hand there are parents with a poor socio-economic and migrant background who are not able to do so. These ‘hard to reach’-parents are seen as deficient by teachers and schools (Crozier, 2000). Lots of programs are carried out to get them more involved.

These four discourses existing in all European countries make evident that there are several tensions and challenges for parental involvement. On the one hand it seems quite necessary to get them more involved so that all children have good chances for success and further development to enhance their chances for a good life, on the other hand such an involvement can be seen in a more critically as way to discipline parents (Crozier, 2000) or as rhetoric to conceal economic and structural differences in society.

In this symposium the four papers will take different perspectives into account to discuss tensions and challenges deriving from the rhetoric to get parents more involved. Results from quantitative as well as qualitative research will be presented. The guiding questions for the papers are:

• Which expectations do teachers and schools have concerning parental involvement?
• In which ways do schools try to get parents more involved and which are the traps in doing so?
• In which roles are parents addressed by schools and teachers?

Borgonovi, F. & Montt, G. (2012). Parental Involvement in Selected PISA Countries and Economies. OECD Education Working Papers, No. 73, OECD Publishing. Hill, N.E., & Tyson, D.F. (2009). Parental Involvement in Middle School: A Meta-Analytic Assessment of the Strategies That Promote Achievement. Developmental Psychology, 45 (3), 740-763. Jeynes, W.H. (2011). Parental Involvement and academic success. New York, London: Routledge. Eurydice (1997). Elternmitwirkung in den Bildungssystemen der Europäischen Union. Brüssel. Crozier, G. (2000). Parents and Schools: partners or protagonists? Oakhill: Trentham Books. Ule, M., Živoder, A., & de Bois-Reymond, M. (2015). ‘Simply the best for my children’: patterns of parental involvement in education. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 28 (3), 329-348.