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Family-School Interactions: The Cultural Image of Mothers and Teachers Author(s): Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Source: Signs, Vol.
3, No. 2 (Winter, 1977), pp. 395-408 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3173291 . Accessed: 23/07/2013 13:13
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VIEWPOINT
Family-School Interactions: The Cultural Image of Mothers and Teachers

Sara Lawrence Lightfoot
One mightexpect parents and teachersto be friends.Afterall, theyare both vitally concerned withchildren.Yet both social science and experience recognize conflicts between familiesand schools, which, in an industrialized society,are amplified when minoritiesand the poor are involved. This paper will explore some origins of such tensions and argue that we must learn to distinguishbetween positiveand negative formsof dissonance. In addition,itwilllook at the special role of women as central figuresin the socializationprocess.1
The Parent-Teacher Conflict

To a degree, the roles of parentsand teachersare obviouslydefined
Portionsof thisessay willappear in a book about families and schools bySara Lawrence in Fall 1978 (New York: Basic Books). Lightfoot,forthcoming 1. In this paper I will focus on parents and teachers of elementaryschool children. dimensionsbetween familiesand schools remain conAlthough many of the interactional stant across grade levels, different issues emerge as children grow older, become more independent of their families,more identifiedwith the values and perspectivesof their peers, and feelless need forparentalprotection, guidance, and support. Because almostall elementaryschool teachers are women, I will use the femininepronoun throughout.For other analysesrelated to the issues raised in thisarticle,see Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, "The Teacher: Overcomingthe Power of Cultural Images," HarvardGraduate SchoolofEducation
in Culture and Society 1977, vol. 3, no. 2] [Signs:Journal of Women ? 1977 by The University of Chicago. All rightsreserved.
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Mothers and Teachers
In her finebook, Small TownTeacher, Gertrude McPherson differently. contraststhe primary and of children against the relationship parents of and Parents haveparticularisteachers children. secondary relationship ticexpectationsfortheirchildrenwhileteachershave universalistic expectations.2In other words,when parentsask the teacher to be "fair"with theirchild or to give her/him a "chance," theyare usuallyaskingthatthe teacher give special attention(i.e., consider the individualqualities,the to their child. When developmental and motivationalcharacteristics) teachers talk about being "fair" to everyone, they mean giving equal amounts of attention, judging everyoneby the same objectivestandards, using explicit and public criteria for making judgments. Even those teacherswho believe in the individualistic approach to teachingand try to diagnose the special cognitiveand social needs of theirchildrenseem to have universalistic standardsand generalized goals towardwhichthey are conscious of working.Clearly,the universalistic encourrelationship stable is of a and teachers more rational,predictable, supportive aged by social systemwithvisibleand explicitcriteriafor achievementand failure. Nor does the teacher-childrelationshipsufferthe chaotic fluctuathat are found in the intion of emotions,indulgence, and impulsivity timateassociation of parents and children. It may become a protective kind of interactionthat makes it psychologically possible for teachers and childrento decathecteach other at the end of the year. Even those teachers who speak of "loving" their children do not really mean the but a verymealove of motherand fathers, boundless, all-encompassing love that allows for withdrawal.Indeed, Anna sured and time-limited Freud explicitly proposes thatthe teacher'srole be farmore emotionally and circumscribed objective.She talksabout the need for mothersand teachers to performdistinctly separate roles. "The teacher'srole is not thatof a mother-substitute. If, as teachers,we play the part of mother, we get from the child the reactions which are appropriate to the mother-child relationship-the demand for exclusive attentionand affection,the wish to get rid of all the other children in the classroom."3 Moreover, teachers should avoid rivalrywith mothers,"who are the
on Women," in Bulletin19, no. 3 (1975): 14-18, and "Sociologyof Education: Perspectives on Social Lifeand Social Science,ed. M. Millman and R. Voice:Feminist Another Perspectives Kanter (Garden City,N.Y.: Anchor Books, 1975), pp. 106-43. 2. Gertrude McPherson,Small TownTeacher(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), p. 121. For related comment,see Talcott Parsons, "The School Class as a Review29, no. 4 (1959): 297-318; and RobertDreeben, HarvardEducational Social System," On WhatIs Learnedin School(Reading, Mass.: Addison-WesleyPublishingCo., 1968). Review22, no. 4 (1952): 3. Anna Freud, "The Role of Teacher," HarvardEducational between "child care" and "child education" in 229-34, esp. 231. See, too, her distinction and Parents(New York: Emerson Books, 1935). Teachers Psychoanalysisfor
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ownersof the child." Similarly, the teachermustnot shift into legitimate the therapistrole and become dangerously sensitiveand responsive to the emotional involvementsof the child. In effect,Freud asks that teachersbecome neutralized,objectivehuman beingswho avoid creating strongemotional and sexual bonds withchildren; thatthe teacher-child and instinctivewishes. relationship be removed from drive-activity Interestingly enough, she assumes that the teacher of young children will be a woman, but she feels that the teacher's role must be limitedin such a way that she is less seductive,less entrapping to the expressive instincts of young children. Perhaps she must be thoughtof as less nurless turant, loving,and even less "womanly." Though the roles differ,parents and teachers continue to share forthe socializationof children.Much manyof the same responsibilities of the difficulty between them comes from the fact that their exact spheres of influenceare not clearlydelineated. Parentsoftenattemptto extend the years of parental protectiveness and control. This seems to reflecta possessive view of children as property-a commodity to be owned by nuclear families, a competitive resource thatwillgive potential statusto their hardworkingparents. In that sense, children are viewed as the projectionof their parents. When parents defend theirchildren and argue forcontinuous and ultimatecontrolover theirlives,theyare also (perhaps primarily)concerned with protectingtheirown statusin societyand assuming some measure of controlover theirchild's future. Ambivalencethen surrounds the child's school life as teachersand parents argue (often too silentlyand resentfully) about who should be in control within it. For instance, who should dictate the child's school attendance?Do parentshave the rightto keep childrenout of school for reasons other than illness?Althoughparentsand teachersoftenseem to disagree about who has the rightto governa certainarea of a child's life, teachers are usually forced to accept the parents' definition. The sphere of influencein whichthe teacherfeelsthather authority is ultimateand uncompromisingseems to be insidethe classroom. Parents are oftennot welcome there,and iftheirpresence is permitted, they are usuallyasked to observe ratherthan to participate.Yet, teachersare not always merelyconcerned about territoriality. In a studythat Lightfoot and Carew did, teachers were given in-depth interviewsthat included questionsabout theirperceptionsof the legitimate role of parents in and around the school setting.4 Since the childrenwere ages three to six years, one might have anticipated more collaboration between teachers and parents in such early stages of development than in later elementary school years. The teachers were unusually reflective, and conscious of theirevolving relationshipswithchildren thoughtful,
4. Sara Lawrence Lightfootand Jean V. Carew, Individuation and Discrimination in the Classroom (Washington,D.C.: Officeof Child Development, 1974), research supported by funds fromChild Development Associates,Inc.
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and Teachers Mothers
and parents. The school encouraged, in fact depended on, parental class trips,and other extraclassroomafparticipationin fund-raising, fairs. The teachers' primaryreasons for parental exclusion from the an enduring classroomwere embedded in theirideas about establishing withthe childrenthatwould not be modified and nurturant relationship or entangled with the burdens and problems of home life. In some sense, they saw themselvesas child advocates, protectorsof the child's new domain, and theystressedthe developmentaland emotional need for a clear and early separation between familialpatternsand the demands made upon children in school. Despite the negative quality of the relationship, parents and teachersare forcedto have some minimallevelof interaction concerning their children. Most schools organize parent-teacherassociations and invite parents to highly contrived and public open-house meetings. occasions which protecteveryone These are usually vacuous, ritualistic but symbolically reand confrontations, from meaningfulinteractions affirmthe idealized parent-schoolrelationship.5Individualized interactions between parents and teachers are rare and specially or anger on frustration, requested-usually arisingout of dissatisfaction, the part of parents and/orteachers. Teachers rarelycall in praise of a child. Parents, on the other hand, rarelycall a teacher to praise her. Although the negativismsbetween teachers and parents are part of a the phenomenon that cuts across lines of class, race, and ethnicity, teacher's perceptionsof parentsand the qualityof the relationshipvary enormously among differentparent groups. In Small Town Teacher, withthe average people in McPherson reportsthatthe teacheridentified to the upper-middleclass, in relation and vulnerable town,felt powerless and considered only the lower class as really inferior. Sometimes allianceswithidentifiable teacherstriedto formtemporary subgroupsof Poor as who were parents were being cooperative. perceived parents sometimes taken into the teacher's confidence when they adopted an obsequious and humble manner. The teachers were viewed as the and teachersappreciated gatekeepersfortheirchildren'ssocial mobility, Middle-class the parents'nonthreatening parentsoftenbeappreciation. came potential allies for teachers because of their shared convictions about the value of achievementand hard work.6But, forthe most part, or depend upon coalitionswithparents, teachersfelttheycould nottrust and theyfeared thatreal collaborationmightlead to an awkwardconfusion of roles. withblack teachersin a public ghettoschool,I In myown interviews of poor black found varyingperceptionsof the abilitiesand strengths as of the from lazy, image parents shiftless, stereotypic parents-ranging
in 5. Richard Warren, "The Classroom as a Sanctuaryfor Teachers: Discontinuities 75 (February-June1973): 288. Social Control,"American Anthropologist 6. McPherson, pp. 139-40.
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uncaring,and withoutambitionfortheirchildrento understandingand empathetic views of parents as committed and caring but unable to The latof the school system.7 negotiatethe complexitiesand hostilities ter group of teachers viewed poor black parents as potential collaborators in an educational, cultural, and social enterprise. The teacher'sperceptionsof parentsseemed to be related to her own viewof of an unjust and racistsociety(ratherthan responsible parentsas victims creatorsof theirown helpless condition) and the teacher'sidentification of her own place on the social ladder, her own sense of power and influencein the occupational and social world. One teachersaid, "I lived in a real big ghetto,in a housing project. I was not really hungryor but I know what it is to be a welfarerecipient... and see my anything, mother sneak out to work. ... I think I can identify quite easily with who lower-class. who is the are are trying. working people People Myfamily class" (emphasis mine). For her, teachingwas far-reaching and inclusive of parents: "No matter and involvedthe activeand criticalparticipation whatyou do as teachers,or what is done as a community, or whatis done as a school system, theparentis the teacher first [emphasis mine]. Unless black parentscome together, there'snot going to be much hope fortheir children,they'vegot to be concerned." In divergentsettings, teachers may give different reasons for trustin of but some ing subgroup compatibleparents, general theytend to see the parent mass as a threateningmonolithic force. They may form in fear(and disdain) of parentsand look strongbonds among themselves for institutional support to protect their interests.In the small town school that McPherson describes, the teacher felt particularly anxious and threatenedby the upper-middle and upper classes because she exbuffersbetween her and the parents. The perienced no institutional principalowed hisjob and his allegiance to those high in the community and he worked hard to respond to theirdemands even power structure, if that meant being irresponsibleand demeaning to his teachers. Yet, Howard Becker describes a different relationshipamong teachers,adand the He ministrators, community.8 claims thatin the big cityschools of Chicago, teachers and administrators banded together for mutual intrusion. Teachers made an implicit protection against parental bargain withtheirsuperiorsthattheywould support the organizationas long as the organization served to protectthem from parents and critics.The
7. Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, "Politicsand Reasoning: Through the Eyes of Teachers and Children,"HarvardEducationalReview29, no. 4 (1973): 197-244. 8. Howard Becker, "Social Class Variationin Teacher-Pupil Relationships,"Journal of Educational 25 (1952): 451-65. For anotherexplorationof the originsand characSociology of teacher authority, teristics see M. Fullan and W. Spady, "The Authority Systemof the School and Innovativeness:Their Reciprocal Relationships"(paper presentedat the meetings of the Canadian Sociology and AnthropologyAssociation,St.John's,Newfoundland, June 1971).
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mutual protectionof individual teachers and the structureof the total school insulated both fromforcesof change. Although various social analystsand educators have talked about the teacher's relationshipto parents and the surroundingcommunity, people have not studiedor cared to documentthe parents'role fromthe parents' point of view. In Small Town Teacher McPherson reminds readers that, although she is writingabout parental concerns, she is withparents. talkingabout the teachers'perceptionsof theirinteractions One rarelyhears the story of parentswho are in the processof trying to communicate their concerns and cope with the complexities of the school system."Parents ... remain nameless and powerless-always described fromthe position of the middle-classinstitution, never in relation to theirown culturalstyleor social idiom."9Teachers and principals have developed strong negative images of parents whichjustifytheir exclusion from the schooling process withoutactually knowing them. For instance,one of the predominant mythsabout black parents and schools is thatthey(1) do not care poor parentswho surround innercity about the education of theirchildren,(2) are passive and unresponsive to attempts to get theminvolved,and (3) by teachersand administrators are ignorant and naive about the cognitiveand social needs of their children. When the parents of black children,however,are questioned about theirattitudestowardschoolingand theirambitionsfortheirchildren, education is not only valued, but formalizedschoolingis seen as the panacea. In his study of black communitiesin Washington,D.C., Hylan Lewis points out that "the added value placed on education of black childrenas a means of escaping low and achievinghigh statusis a cultural theme."10As a matterof fact,he suggests that the myth-like conflict between the lofty aspirationsof black parents fortheirchildren and the limited,realisticsocial and economic opportunitiesavailable to them is precisely the pattern which invites deviant behavior in their children. Tensions between parentsand teachersare also partof the fabricof a competitive, materialistic society.The school is a major mechanismof and sorting standardizinghuman resources. Some parents may want theirchild's education to reaffirm the cultural and social experience of theircommunity, while the teacherswilloftenin contrasturge the children to transcend the boundaries of their traditionsand historyand initiate their families into the stylesof mainstreamAmerica.Tl Other
9. Charles A. Valentine,Culture and Counter and Poverty: Critique Proposals(Chicago: of Chicago Press, 1968), p. 80. University 10. Hylan Lewis, "The Changing Negro Family,"in SchoolChildren in theUrbanSlum, ed. Joan Roberts(New York: Free Press, 1967), pp. 397-405, esp. 400. See also Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, "Politics,"p. 216. 11. Such a school may in some respectsresemble the "cityschool," one of Margaret Mead's three images of the Americanschool whichcorrespond to threerole definitions of
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parents may recognize the need for the child's successfuland complete futureachievementin the separation fromthem as a prelude to his/her world and school. corporate beyond family When one joins the values of independence, hope in the future, and it is easy to understand why the successfulseparation of mobility, the child fromhis family of orientationand his own willfullaunching upon a career are both possible and necessary.But the potential and recognized consequences extend to the verynature of relations within the family itself. Consciously the future is optimistically is to equip the child as effectively viewed; and the task of the family as possible in the presentwithall the available means forhis solitary climb to better and more prosperous worlds lying far ahead of
him.12
In eithercase, a parent's values and skillsare thoughtto be inadequate for the complex and changing societychildren will grow into. Strong teachers are considered necessarywhen parents are thoughtto be less than adequate. Stillanother cause of confusionand anxietywithinnuclear families that inevitably leads to difficulties in the family's relationshipto schools can be traced to the historicalrole of schools as major institutions for social order and social control-an institutional to strategy designed insure that deviant and threateningstrangerswould not challenge the statusquo. Samuel Bowles describes the transitionfroma precapitalist to capitalist society,in which the basic productiveunit was the family, and the in which the production factorysystem, authoritystructure, of and characteristics of the workbehavior, prescribedtypes response distinctfromthe family.13 An ideal preparaplace became increasingly
the Americanteacher. Mead also discusses"the little red school house" and "the academy." of the teacher oftencombine to formour concepAlthoughthe threeculturaldefinitions tion of the teacher role, parts of the threedefinitions withone another. may be in conflict Each image of the American teacher implies a different set of personality characteristics, social skills,and cognitivefacilities. Each role implies both a different relatedness to parents and community and a different kindof adaptation and responsiveness to the changing needs and demands for society,implicitly and explicitly imposed by the world of work in which children will eventuallyfind themselves.Despite all the differences, there is one theme shared by all three definitions: the expectation that teachers should be all-giving, nurturant servantsof the people whosejob expands to adapt to the needs of society.See Culture(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Margaret Mead, The School in American Press, 1951). 12. Conrad Arensberg and Solon Kimball,Cultureand Community (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1967), p. 377. 13. Samuel Bowles, "Unequal Education and the Social Division of Labor," in Schooled. Martin Carnoy (New York: David McKay Co., 1972), pp. ing in a Corporate Society, 36-64. For a more in-depthhistorical analysisof schoolingas a mechanismof social control and oppression,see Samuel Bowles and HerbertGintis, in Capitalist America Schooling (New
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tion for factorywork was to be found in the social relations of the school-discipline, punctuality,and the acceptance of authority.So an opportuthere was an illusionof a benevolentgovernment offering of social In was a mechanism all. for (and is) actuality,schooling nity schemes control and a place to inculcateworkerswiththe motivational work.14 for factory and assimilation the illusionof mobility There is, therefore, through between middle-classschooling which creates distance and hostility oriented teachers and lower-classparents (i.e., the parents expect that the schools willchange theirchild's orientationtowardmiddle-classlife; mothersare made to feel inadequate in preparing children for an uncharted future;and familiesrelinquishthe finalremnantsof theirculwhile in reality the edutural patterningand familiarsocial structures), socialization servesless to change the resultsof a primary cational system in the home than to reinforcethem (and denigrate them) and render them in adult form.
Mothers,Teachers,and theImage of Women

Because mothers and teachers are at the center of these discontinuitiesand conflicts-the mother is thought to be the dominant shaper of the child's primarysocialization,the teacher is thoughtto be into the adult worldthe most importantforcein the child's transition and because all mothers and many elementary school teachers are women, the antagonisms I have described will largely be between women. In addition, the culturalroles and images of both mothersand teachershave been at once idealized and demeaned in Americansociety. The negative images attached to mothersand teachersare emotionally and discharged. When people trembleat decaying social institutions become and teachers mothers life, culpable obcommunity integrating cultural social and such of discontent. images distort, Although jects That is, they half-truths. of the have even contradict, power they reality, become incorporatedintothewaysin whichpeople definetheirlivesand identities. of good and bad become more ambiguous in As culturaldefinitions of the the definitions as the futurebecomes less predictable, our society, teacher's role found in the literaturehave been enormouslyexpanded. Criticsof formalizedschoolingand advocatesof strongfamilialsocializa-
and Schools(New York: York: Basic Books, 1976); and Michael Katz, Class, Bureaucracy, Praeger Publishers,1971). 14. See Eleanor B. Leacock, Teachingand Learningin CitySchools(New York: Basic observationsabout New York public schools. Books, 1969), for similarcontemporary
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tion have challenged the all-encompassinginfluenceof teachers in the lives of children. In Deschooling for example, Illich claims that Society, schools have taken total controlover the lives of children,and that the teacherhas become a custodian,preacher,and therapist.15 The mother's role is seen as even more encompassingand dispersed than the teacher's role. Mothers,thoughtto be the ultimateextensionof the women's role in this society,are ultimately blamed for a child's incomplete socialization.16 The school becomes the first place wheremothers experience public evaluation and scrutiny, where teachers and other mothersvoice approval or disapproval of the motheras reflected throughthe child. Since cognitivegrowthsignifiesadequate preparation for school, its rate reveals the skillsand competenceof a motherin termsof how well she has prepared her children for school. Hess and Shipman and their colleagues epitomize a general orientationof the child developmentliterature when theycharacterizedisparitiesin cognitivegrowthbetweenchildren of middle-classand lower-class mothers.17 The authors based their on three that arguments major assumptions generallygo unquestioned in the literature. (1) The behaviorwhichleads to social, educational, and economic povertyis socialized in earlychildhood. (2) The centralquality of cultural deprivationis the lack of cognitivemeaning in the motherchild communication system.(3) Cognitive growth occurs in families where mothers provide a wide range of alternatives of action and thought,and cognitive growthis restrictedin familieswhere mothers offer predetermined solutions and few alternativesfor consideration and thought; these divergent communicativestylesduring preschool years are said to create children with differentverbal and cognitive abilities and differentpotentials for successful school and vocational performance.Even if one ignores all the methodologicalproblemswith theirlaboratory Hess and communications, experimenton mother-child value to an ethnocentric view lanlanguage structure, Shipman give as the valuable means of a model of communication, guage only provide socialization that anticipatesonly one good and productive end point, and never question the structureand functionof the institutions in
15. Ivan Illich,Deschooling (New York: Harper & Row, 1970). Society and Experience(New York: Ronald Press, 16. See, e.g., J. McV. Hunt, Intelligence 1961); R. Green, "Dialect Sampling and Language Values," in Social Dialectsand Language ed. R. Shuy (Champaign, Ill.: National Council of Teachers of English, 1964); C. Learning, Deutch and M. Deutch, "Theory of Early Childhood EnvironmentPrograms," in Early Education:Current and Action, ed. R. Hess and R. Bear (Chicago: Aldine Research, Theory, Publishing Co., 1968); and I. Katz, "Research Issue on Evaluation of Educational HarvardEducationalReview38 (1968): 57-65. Opportunity:Academic Motivation," 17. R. Hess and V. Shipman, "Early Experience and the Socialization of Cognitive Modes in Children," in Learningin Social Settings, ed. M. Miles and W. W. Charter,Jr. (Boston: Allyn& Bacon, 1970), pp. 170-87; and R. Hess, V. Shipman,J. Brophy,and R. Environments Children Bear, The Cognitive of UrbanPreschool (Chicago: Graduate School of of Chicago, 1968). Education, University
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Mothersand Teachers
which a great majorityof mothersand children are judged as deviant strangers. The general orientationof such child developmentresearch,therefore, is to judge the competence of mothersharshly;ignore the social, their actions withchileconomic, and psychologicalforces influencing dren; and reflect and reinforce the distance and distrust between all of the mother's mothersand teachers (who are viewed as inheriting failures). When teachers are encouraged to blame mothers for inadequately preparing theirchildren for successfulsocial and cognitive assimilation in school, then the relationship between mothers and to and teachersare not likely teachersbecomes defensiveand accusatory, the for the mother-child of boundaries look beyond the relationship originsof differenceand deviance in theirchildren. Ironically,mothers and teachers are caught in a strugglethat rethe devaluation of both roles in thissociety.Their generalized low flects statusmakes them perfecttargetsforeach other's abuse. Neitherdares to strikeat the more powerful and controllinggroups who are most responsiblefortheirdemeaning social and economic position.Not only safe and visibleobjects of discontentfor one do theyprovide relatively another and for the rest of society,but mothersand teachers are also involved in an alien task-required to raise children in the serviceof a dominantgroup whose values and goals theydo not determine.In other words, mothersand teachershave to socialize theirchildrento conform to a societythat belongs to men. Withinthis alien context,it is almost inevitable that mothers and teachers would not feel an authenticand meaningfulconnection to theirtask and not completelyvalue the conof one another. tributions In recent years, a severe cultural lag has developed between the and the literature teacher stereotyped bycultureand by the professional as want teachers: lives of real acceptance working "They contemporary of theircompetenciesin their equals, equalityof status,and recognition .... Puttingit bluntly, own area of responsibility theydo not want to be talked down to but theydo want to be talked to at eye level. ... In the dignityof their professionalcompetence theydo not appreciate being Yet perception of directed in every detail of their daily function."18 the image of the because status a as low partly persists, job teaching teacher is connected to images that belong to the family,despite the conflictsbetween teachers and families.19 First,the teacher is seen as
ed. F. W. 18. Joseph Azzarelli,"Four Viewpoints,"in Struggle forPowerin Education, Lutz and J. J. Azzarelli (New York: Center for Applied Research in Education, 1966). the low social statusof teachersto a low respectfor have attributed 19. Social scientists intellectualendeavors, the preponderance of women in the profession,the lack of professional autonomy (i.e., the lack of power in the gatekeeping function),and the low in the way the teacher is There are of course differences degree of professionalization. who have been systematthose To in this various society. groups subgroups perceived by
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female, for reasons other than the large proportion of women in the profession.Character traitsthat symbolizethe psychosocialqualities we attach to both male and female teachers are the traditional"womanly" and passivity. dimensionsof nurturance,receptivity, However, theyalso and enthusiasm.In include childlikedimensionsof creativity, affection, withchildren,teachers must,accordorder to communicate effectively exhibitthe nurturant, receptivequalities of ing to a cultural definition, the female characterideal and the expressive,adaptive qualities of the child. Ironically,these same qualities are viewed as inferiorand of low status when one conceives of the teacher in relation to the social and of society. occupational structure It is importantfor social scientiststo probe the origins of image betweenthose images of teacherthatarise out of making-to distinguish and academic the mass media, and memories culture, literature, history from childhood. For instance,Willard Waller claims that much of the between teachers and parents reflects the parent's negativeexhostility in as a child school. The of a authoritarian images tyrannical, perience into and are carried out adulthood projected onto the teacher-figure teachers of their children. When parents greet teachers they are not but theywill likelyto see themon equal terms,as potentialcollaborators, Waller asserts authority. respond as childrento a feared and threatening that productiveand egalitarian relationsbetween parents and teachers willnot evolve untilchildrenhave more positiveexperiencesand perceptions of teachers that theycan carryinto adult life.20 The interrelatedimages of mother,teacher, and child are further a magnifiedby the prevalentsocial attitudestoward women establishing must choice of The woman her life-style, justify professionalidentity. and the locus of thisjustificationlies in the familyrather than in her professionalwork. One of the obvious wayswomen seek to establishan of theirdomesticand professionalroles is to findworkin the integration conceived as feminine.Choosing a profession like fields traditionally a enough, the teaching provides continuityof this sort. Interestingly life the of distinctions between and family professionof teachblurring with an to give less attenhas social scientists ing provided opportunity and qualitiesof the professionaland workrole. tionto the characteristics Such a continuity has led sociologiststo assert the lack of commitment and attachment thatwomen feel towardtheirworklives. Once again the
icallyexcluded fromschoolingand who viewschool as the major avenue of culturalassimiand laudable position. lation and social mobility, teachingis likelyto be considered a lofty is the expressionof disdain for of the academic, middle-classcommunity But characteristic are These feelingsof superiority teachers-viewing teachersas servantsof the community. reflectedin the perceptionsand orientationsof social science researchers. 20. Willard Waller, Sociology of Teaching(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1932), pp. 58-59.
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teaching professionis seen as a woman's secondary role that competes withher primaryrole as motherof a family.It receives,therefore, only who do not seem to be interperipheral attentionfromthe sociologists, ested in the teacher'sconceptionof her work,her professional goals, and her maturation.So in a strangetwist, mothersand teachershave become and ultimately enemies, yet teachers are inevitably (at the verycore of theirbeing) mothers.Does thislead to teachershaving to magnify their separateness in order not to succumb to a biological role of mothering? As one teacher said to me, "I trymybest to be asexualin the classroomin order not to be confused withmotheror motherly-things."
Toward Resolving the Conflicts

The differences in the role behaviorand perspectiveof parentsand teachers in this societyare real, but they should not inevitably lead to theirmutual distrustand hostility. The differences have to do withthe nature of the social structureand the economic and social slots that also restwiththe people hold in the system.The originsof resentment lack of communicationand the modes of exclusionthatare sustainedby the institutionalarrangements of schools. The bureaucratic and inflexiblestructure of the school systemencourages parentsand teachers to feel that theydo not have goals and agendas in common. Nor is it beyond reason to imagine a healthyeducational system focus of parents and the univerresponsive both to the particularistic salisticorientationof teachers. It is important to recognizethe potential for creativity and growthin the conflicts between familiesand schools. The academic literatureimplies that homogeneitybetween the values, and school will provide a more conbehaviors,and norms in the family tinuous, productive educational experience for the child than discontinuities.Although I support the notion that hostility and noncommunicationbetween parents and teachersis likelyto create barriersfor childrenwho are trying to make the transition fromhome to school,it is not necessarilytrue that dissonance between patternsof socialization, to the child or dysfunctional expectations,and goals willbe detrimental to society. Philip Slater argues that in American society people have endured a historicalpattern of chronic change which has created an "experiental chasm" between parents and children. This generational distance has, to some extent,invalidatedparentalauthority and wisdom because parents have not experienced what is of central importanceto the child,nor do theypossess the knowledge,skills, and attitudes thatare to the conditions of This child-adult disadaptive contemporary society. is viewed a Slater as natural lever for social Schools continuity by change. have served the important (and any other nonfamily-based collectivity) functionof regulatingand modifyingparent-childrelationships."One
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segregateschildren fromadult life because one wishes to do something special with them-to effectsome kind of social change or to adapt to one. Such segregation insulates the child from social patterns of the present and makes him more receptive to some envisioned future."21 Dissonance between familyand school, therefore, is not only inevitable in a changing society,but helps to make children more malleable and responsive to it. By the same token, one could say that absolute homogeneity between family and school would reflect a static, authoritariansocietyand would discourage creative,adaptive development in children. Discontinuitiesbetween familyand school become dysfunctional when they reflectdifferencesin power and status. When parents and teachers perceive the origins of conflictas being rooted in inequality, or racism, then the message being transmitted to the ethnocentrism, excluded and powerless group (both parents and children) is denigrating and abusive. When schoolingserves to accentuate and reinforcethe inequalities in society,then it is not providinga viable and productive alternativefor children. The message of ethnocentrism is conveyed to and children when socialization, acculturation,and learning parents withinschools are defined in the narrow,traditionaltermsof the dominantculture.The negativeand paternalistic messages are also communicated when schools begin to take on the total range of familial functions-notjust matters of cognitiveand social learningadaptive to a changingsocietybut also the dimensionsof primarysocializationusually found withinthe familydomain. Creative conflict can exist only when thereis a balance of power and responsibility betweenfamily and school, not when the family'srole is negated or diminished. In an effort to initiateand sustainproductiveinteractions withparents,educators must begin by searchingfor strength (not pathology)in children and their families.Teachers need to communicate praise and will not be viewed as a negative support for children so that criticism assault and so that children and parents will not begin to adapt their behaviors to negativeexpectations.There must be a profound recognition that parents are the firstteachers, that education begins before formal schooling and is deeply rooted in the values, traditions,and norms of family and culture. Positiverelationships withparents are not merelyrelated to a deep appreciation of differentcultures, traditions,and histories,but also interwoven withthe teacher's feelingsof competence and self-esteem. If a person feels secure in her abilities,skills,and creativity as a teacher, then parents will not be perceived as threateningand intrusive. As
21. Philip Slater,"Social Change and the DemocraticFamily,"in TheTemporary Society, ed. Warren G. Bennis and Philip Slater (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), p. 40. As early as 1932, Waller (p. 69) noted thata child willexperience more freedomof expressionwhen different demands are being made by teachers and parents.
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teachers express the dimensionsof personal authority ratherthan the of positionalauthority, constraints theywillfeelless need to hide behind the ritualistic barriersof institutionalism and professionalism. There is to clarify and articulateareas of teachercompetence,to need, therefore, make more explicitthe spheres over which teachers have ultimateand uncompromising authorityand those areas where collaboration with parents could be an educational and creativeventure. Finally,establishingpositiveand productiverelationshipsbetween the roles of parents and teacher,so entwinedwithwomen, means that the values and goals of our culturethatshape the education and socialization of children must undergo a transformation that reflectsmore than the competitiveand individualistic of a male-dominated agenda but also the and valuable society, encompasses special qualitiesthathave of cultural norms will not been assigned to women. This redefinition roles more esteemed and valued in the only make the mother-teacher of but also others, eyes give greatermeaning and purpose to those who chooseto take on those roles-and inevitably the various ways in clarify which mothersand teacherscan engage in collaborativeand supportive movementlies relationships.One of the positiveaspects of the feminist in addressing the transformation of social and culturalvalues betterto reflect the psychosocialneeds and characteristics of women. One hopes thatthe growthof the feminist perspectivewould have a positiveimpact on the relationshipsbetween mothersand teachers: throughthe transin formation of societalvalues willcome potentialsforfindingstrengths each other's work. Graduate SchoolofEducation Harvard University

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Family-School Interactions: The Cultural Image of Mothers and Teachers Author(s): Sara Lawrence Lightfoot Source: Signs, Vol.

Family-School Interactions: The Cultural Image of Mothers and Teachers

The Parent-Teacher Conflict

Mothers and Teachers

and Teachers Mothers

Mothers and Teachers

and Teachers Mothers

Mothers,Teachers,and theImage of Women

Mothers and Teachers

Toward Resolving the Conflicts

Mothers and Teachers

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