'Bringing out the best in every child': the participation of middle-class parents in their children's school and education

Resumen

This paper analyses the participation of a group of middle-class families in their children’s
education from a qualitative perspective. Firstly, our analysis shows how middle-class families see
themselves as active participants in their children ́s education, incorporating the school’s
educational project as a key part of the family project. Middle-class parents use different spaces
and mobilise different forms of capital when meeting with teachers and negotiating with other
instances within the schools, particularly in those ones that are more heterogeneous in terms of
their social composition. Secondly, our results stress differences in the participation strategies
between private and state-funded schools. In the former, the families develop a more
individualised approach, consisting on direct encounters with teachers and other members of the
staff, especially in those cases where the schools lack collective spaces for participation. In the
latter, an opposite dynamic can be found. In state-funded schools, spaces like the parents
association are used by middle-class families with the aim of promoting their own educational
models. Finally, we suggest that middle-class families’ participation in schools is oriented towards
the creation of environments that guarantee the reinforcement of their own values, expectations
and dispositions. A common characteristic of these families is their attempt to materialise their
positional advantage by using their accumulated capitals, with the aim of ensuring that their
children will reproduce, or even improve, their own social position.