Navigating the Organizational Boundary: Novice Teachers’ Perceptions of Parent–Teacher Relations in Complex Educational Systems

Educational systems increasingly function as complex social environments in which schools, families, and communities interact across institutional boundaries. Within these interconnected systems, teachers frequently operate at the boundary between schools and parents, negotiating expectations regarding trust, authority, and parental participation. Although parental involvement has been widely studied, relatively little attention has been given to how teachers themselves perceive and navigate these relationships within everyday school practice. This study examines novice teachers’ perceptions of parent–teacher relations through a multi-level systemic perspective. Based on a quantitative survey of approximately 200 novice ultra-Orthodox teachers, the research explores teachers’ perceptions of parental trust and active parental involvement across three interconnected levels: micro-level teacher–parent interactions, meso-level school organizational contexts, and macro-level systemic transformations in educational governance. The findings reveal that teachers’ perceptions of parental trust and involvement are shaped by both organizational conditions and broader systemic changes in school–family relations. Conceptualizing teacher–parent relations through a multi-level lens, the study contributes an empirical application of this perspective to the examination of parent–teacher relations. It demonstrates how teachers interpret and navigate these relationships across different levels of the educational system within a distinct socio-cultural context. Focusing on teachers’ perceptions, the study further extends existing conceptualizations of teachers as boundary actors.