Shifting the belief of the “hard-to-reach parents” to “reachable parents”: Parent-teacher collaboration within schools in a post-colonial country

Interacting with Indigenous parents effectively can be a challenge for primary school teachers, regardless of their teaching experience. Unfortunately, within schools in post-colonial countries, teachers often perceive that this challenge exists because Indigenous parents are hard-to-reach or unresponsive to their children’s educational needs. With the intention of dismantling these destructive colonial views towards Indigenous groups, this phenomenological study explored how 22 Indigenous West Papuan parents perceived their roles in their children’s education and how these parents and 8 teachers discursively established their own versions of parent-teacher collaboration. Parents in this study believed that their role is critical for their children’s educational success. Two types of parent-teacher collaboration were identified: transactional and culturally responsive. Although both parents and teachers understood the importance of their collaboration, this did not necessarily result in effective collaboration. Some parents reported that their collaboration with teachers was hindered by teachers’ lack of understanding of the impact of discriminatory treatment, colonisation, and erosion of Indigenous culture on their communities and the implications of teachers’ attitudes towards pedagogical practices. Further implications for practice are also discussed.