Where are the children in home–school relations? Notes towards a research agenda

In this article we unpack the assumptions behind the dominant British research, policy and practice home‐school relations consensus that holds parents' involvement and participation in their children's education to be unquestionably necessary and beneficial. It presupposes a one‐way relationship between parents and children in which children are implicitly placed as dependent and inert recipients of the decisions and activities of parents and teachers. It does not take account of the impacts of the gender of children and their parents, ethnicity, age or family form. We draw on evidence from a diverse range of sources to show that children do have individual and collective interests and priorities in the process of home‐school relations, and that gender is particularly important in this. We argue for research on home‐school relations that takes an essentially child‐centred approach, treating children as competent informants on diverse aspects of parental involvement in their education.