Neoliberal logics and new roles of parents in public schools: reflexions based on some investigations

Abstract

In different parts of the world the reforms that are labeled as neoliberal have stimulated a redefinition of the parents' roles in the field of public education. Within this context, among the different steps adopted, we should like to highlight the publication of school rankings according to students' grades in national exams, which are designated as ranking of schools and parents' free choice of school. In theory, this redefinition of the role of parents, as consumers, raises new challenges and opportunities, but, simultaneously, it might result in a new form of reproduction of social and cultural inequalities that are present across the public school, as several authors have alerted (Ball, 1995). With this situation in mind, we seek, in this communication, to realize a review of works that look into empirical investigation on the new power that is bestowed on parents. Specifically, we reflect upon the issue of whether the results obtained point to a strengthening of the inequalities between parents of different social and cultural groups in their exercise of the new power that is attributed to them in their participation in the public school. To realize this work, we seek to develop an analysis of the content of several investigations carried out in different contexts, in order to identify the following categories: scope of the investigation, groups of parents involved in the investigation, techniques of information gathering, synthesis of the comparison between the results of these works, to obtain a global overview of the (in)ability of certain groups of parents to exercise their new power.