In all-day schools formal and non-formal learning can be linked better due to their proximity in time, space and multiprofessional cooperation. To add extracurricular activities and extra care time to the daily learning schedule and teaching enriches a child’s day and allows an integrated educational development for children (Holtappels, 2011). However, in all-day schools cooperation doesn’t gain relevance simply because of proximity in space and time but because it is a declared goal to build strong partnerships between educators, parents and teachers. A growing body of research evidence demonstrates that family has a major impact on children’s learning and achievement (Barnard, 2004; Neuenschwander 2009, Hattie 2009), multiprofessional cooperation as well as school-family partnership are important to promote higher rates of attendance, school completion, and facilitate social and cognitive and emotional functioning (Christenson & Havsy, 2004). Successful school-family partnership is based on a strong cooperation between school and family, including good communication and participation to varying degrees that support the notion of a shared pedagogical responsibility in order to create a trusting relationship between families and school (Albright, Weissberg, & Dusenbury, 2011). Such responsibility is created and anchored through both formal and informal social structures in the system (Abbott, 1988). Areas of responsibility are created and anchored through both formal and informal social structures in the system. Claims for area of responsibility can be made on formal or legal level, on the related area of public opinion and on the workplace level (Abbott 1988). In all day schools, teachers, social workers and parents share their responsibility for the social, emotional and academic learning of the child on these three levels. The question to be answered is how educational responsibility in all-day schools is defined and allocated between teachers, educators and family. 

Swiss schools in the city of Zurich currently undergo an educational reform process that changes schools with a traditional schedule into all-day schools, which means that children, teachers and educators will pass more time at school and less at home.The aim of the study is to analyze the cooperation between parents and school personnel, here, parents, educators and teachers by letting them explain how they understand and complete their pedagogical tasks. The main concern is how people define situations in which they participate and how such definitions are negotiated in interaction with others. Meaning is formed in the context of social interactions and is derived from these interactions by the actors; the use of these meanings occurs through a process of interpretation (Atkinson and Housley 2003; Blumer 1969).

In the presented study, 120 interviews from the first four new all-day schools in urban areas being set up will be analyzed and compared at two points in time (cross-case study) to obtain evidence about the process of negotiating educational responsibilities, to draw patterns of professional identity and to define the partnership between school and family and further actors such as the community. The relevant stakeholders were interviewed about their understanding of professional knowledge, judgement and ability to act. The interviews including narrative descriptions (Schütze 1983) are analyzed using the coding method from grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).

Preliminary results from the study explain possibilities and obstacles for an educational partnership cooperation. Hindering factors are remaining traditional meanings on various levels. Due to the proximity in space and time diffuse attribution of responsibilities as well as attempts of new professional outlines occur. Factors that encourage cooperation are knowledge about each other’s practices and the importance of a mutual understanding about the professional tasks and duties of the other profession.

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