Relationships among schools, families and education policies: a complex network of relationships in a field of disputes in the constitution of ideas and discourses

Abstract

School-family relationships are born with the schooling of children and with the contact between these two institutions. However, ideas and discourses about how schools and families should relate are defined based on different knowledge and strategies throughout history, complex interactions and the interests of actors in schools, families, society and the State. Thus, this paper aims to analyze the relationships among schools, families, education policies and the constitution of discourses based on a bibliographical research. Foucault and Ball help to understand that ideas, discourses, strategies for schools and families to relate are not the result of chance, but of complex interactions that are established in this network and carry identities, interests, coalitions, tensions, conflicts, resistances, adaptations and are expressed in the texts of education policies.