Topic:
Parental Expectations and Teacher-Parent Collaboration: Navigating Trust and School-Community Relationships in Chinese Secondary Schools

Research Question:
How do parental expectations shape teacher-parent relationships in Chinese middle schools, and what strategies can help build more collaborative and trust-based school-community relationships to support student success?

Research Objective:
This research aims to investigate how parental expectations influence teachers’ professional responsibilities, stress levels, and teaching practices within the broader context of school-community dynamics in Chinese middle schools. The study also seeks to identify strategies that can help schools develop more collaborative partnerships with parents, promoting trust, effective communication, and better educational outcomes.

Theoretical Framework:
This research is guided by Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), which provides a comprehensive lens to analyze the interaction between teachers and parents as part of a broader, dynamic educational activity system. The CHAT framework emphasizes how subjects (teachers), working toward a shared object (student success), interact with tools/ mediating artifacts (communication tools, school policies, social media, and informal socio-cultural norms) within a complex community (teachers, parents, students, school administration, and societal influences). The framework further highlights how rules (societal expectations and norms) and division of labor (roles assigned to teachers and parents) shape the outcomes of teacher-parent collaborations, either developing trust and effective partnerships or leading to mistrust and conflict.

The CHAT elements mapped to this study are:

• Subject: Teachers managing relationships with parents, often under pressure to meet parental expectations on academic goals.
• Object: Achieving student success, which is often narrowly defined as high test scores by parents and administrators.
• Mediating Artifacts: Tools such as exam score reports, social media communications, parent-teacher meetings, and textbooks that influence how teachers and parents interact.
• Community: Comprising teachers, parents, students, school leaders, and external societal factors that collectively shape educational expectations.
• Rules: Societal norms in China that emphasize academic success, and the expectation that teachers will take on extra responsibilities beyond their core teaching roles.
• Division of Labor: The imbalance between teachers’ professional obligations and parental involvement, where teachers are often expected to act as “parent agents” and bear responsibility for both academic and behavioral outcomes.
• Outcome: The quality of teacher-parent collaboration, which can either foster positive school-community relationships or lead to mistrust, teacher stress, and negative impact on students.

The study also draws on Epstein’s model of school-family-community partnerships to explore practical avenues for improving teacher-parent collaboration. While CHAT offers a broad systemic view of the challenges, Epstein’s model provides actionable frameworks for enhancing communication, shared responsibility, and trust within school communities. By combining these two frameworks, the research connected theoretical analysis with practical strategies for improving collaboration.

International Dimension:

• This research has significant international relevance, particularly in contexts where parental involvement is increasing, often driven by competitive academic environments and high-stakes assessments. The findings contribute to the broader international dialogue on school-community relationships by addressing key issues that are common across exam-oriented education systems, such as in China, Japan, South Korea, and even some European countries. Many educational systems face similar tensions between teachers and parents, particularly in regions where standardized exams are a major determinant of student success.

Methods This study is part of a larger qualitative study. Its qualitative research design explores how parental expectations influence teacher-parent relationships and their impact on school-community collaboration in Chinese middle schools. Through semi-structured interviews, it explored in depth the elements that could challenge the parent-teacher relationship from the teacher’s perspective, which provides details on complex interpersonal dynamics. The study is situated in a city in northeastern China, where the high-stakes nature of exams and traditional expectations of teacher dedication create unique challenges for school-community relationships. Participants include four middle school teachers with varying years of teaching experience. A total of 13 interviews were conducted with the four participating teachers, with interview sessions ranging from 40 minutes to 2 hours. Key topics included teachers’ perceptions of parental expectations, sources of pressure, experiences of collaboration or conflict with parents, and strategies they employed to manage these interactions. The study used thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to identify recurring themes and patterns in the interview transcripts and observation notes. Thematic coding was guided by the key elements of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), ensuring that themes were analyzed within the broader systemic context. Ethics and Trustworthiness The study adheres to the ethical guidelines of the British Educational Research Association (BERA, 2018), emphasizing participant consent, anonymity, and the right to withdraw at any stage. Ethical approval was granted by the University of Glasgow’s Ethics Committee, and participant confidentiality was safeguarded using pseudonymity and secure data handling. This study ensures scientific trustworthiness through strategies enhancing validity and reliability, such as triangulating data from interviews and classroom observations and inviting participants to verify and comment on transcripts for accuracy. Semi-structured interviews are carefully designed to maintain accuracy and followed by guidelines to avoid leading questions and ensure participants can express themselves freely.

This study concludes that parental expectations play an essential role in shaping teacher-parent relationships, often creating tensions that negatively affect teaching practices and school-community relationships. Teachers face significant pressure to meet parents’ expectations for high academic performance, particularly in exam-driven systems like those in Chinese secondary schools. Misaligned expectations, driven by parental trust in external academic sources and misunderstandings about the scope of teachers’ responsibilities, lead to tense relationships and increased teacher pressure. A key expected outcome of the study is that trust-building and collaborative efforts between teachers and parents are crucial for fostering productive school-community partnerships. Teachers who implement structured communication, set clear boundaries, and educate parents on realistic expectations report reduced stress and better cooperation. Contrariwise, when parents misunderstand the challenges teachers face or view them primarily as service providers, it negatively impacts students’ academic progress and general development. Findings indicate that the imbalance in the division of labor—with teachers often taking on excessive responsibilities beyond teaching, including acting as parent agents—contributes to burnout and reduced teaching quality. The CHAT framework reveals how systemic factors, such as rules (societal norms) and mediating artifacts (e.g., exam score reports and social media interactions), extend these dynamics. The research emphasizes the need for school-level interventions to redefine and balance roles, including teacher-parent workshops and formal agreements on shared responsibilities. Additionally, policy-level reforms promoting clear role definitions and inclusive communication guidelines are expected to improve school-community relationships. These findings contribute to international discussions on school-community collaboration, particularly in systems facing similar challenges due to high-stakes assessments and shifting family dynamics.

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