An analysis of parental engagement in contemporary queensland schooling

AN ANALYSIS OF PARENTAL ENGAGEMENT IN CONTEMPORARY
QUEENSLAND SCHOOLING.

Kym Macfarlane
Bachelor of Education
Diploma of Teaching (Early Childhood)

Centre for Learning Innovation
Faculty of Education
Queensland University of Technology - Doctor of Philosophy
2006

i


Queensland University of Technology

Doctor of Philosophy Thesis Examination

Candidate Name:

Kym Majella Macfarlane

Centre:

Centre for Learning Innovation

Supervisors:

Professor Erica McWilliam
Dr. Daphne Meadmore

Dr. John Knight

Thesis Title:

AN

ANALYSIS

OF

PARENTAL

ENGAGEMENT

IN

CONTEMPORARY QUEENSLAND SCHOOLING.

Under the requirements of the PhD Regulation 16.8, the above candidate presented a final
seminar that was open to the public. A Faculty Panel of two academics attended and
reported on the readiness of the thesis for external examination. The members of the panel
recommended that the thesis be forwarded to the appointed Committee for examination.

Name: …………………………………….

Signature: …………………………………….

Panel Chairperson (Principal Supervisor)
Name: …………………………………….

Signature: …………………………………….

(Panel Member)

ii


The work contained in this thesis has not been previously submitted for a degree or diploma
at any other higher education institution. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis
contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due
reference is made.

Signed: …………………………………………………………………
Date: ……………………………………………………………………

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KEYWORDS.

Case study, genealogy; bricolage; discourse; truth; power; governmentality; discourse
analysis;

performativity;

propriety;

pedagogicalisation;

responsibilisation;

Foucauldian theory; poststructuralism; Bourdieu; habitus; capital; field; game.

iv

Foucault;


ABSTRACT

This thesis examines an instance of the failure of a parent-led bid for a new local school in
Queensland at the end of the last millennium. This parent-led and school-endorsed initiative
failed despite a policy climate that appeared actively to encourage such initiatives from
government funded school communities. The work shows that the parents of Sunnyvale
College, (a pseudonym), were both encouraged by the policy environment and discouraged
by the response given to their new schooling initiative, from being full educational partners in
the process of the schooling of their children. The unanticipated failure is investigated as a
case study of parent engagement set against a background of relationships between
government and particular educational stakeholders in that time and place. It examines how
these relationships are played out in this context and what the implications of this are for
contemporary relationships of this type.

Because the approach to the case study is not based on any assumption that the “failure” was
the outcome of a pernicious state, the investigation acknowledges the discontinuous nature of
such educational relationships and thus, refuses notions of linearity and continuity. The case
study approach draws on poststructuralist scholarship, in particular the work of Michel
Foucault (1979-84), who is the key theorist informing the investigation. Foucault’s theories
relating to truth, power and governmentality, are of particular interest and are used as a basis
for argument and analysis.

The case study is conducted in three key parts. First, the study brings together an overarching
framework of interpretive and theoretical bricolage, which works to allow multiple
theoretical perspectives and understandings to inform the process of investigation. Second,
there is an acknowledgement of the importance of history and also, of historical contingency,
in the production of events such as this failure. Thus, there is an historical account of the
establishment of schools in Queensland, particularly in the 1990s, and an exploration of the
differences in the establishment process across this decade. This exploration is undertaken by
working backwards through relevant archival documents and other data in order to highlight
the discontinuous nature of such processes. This means that parent/school relationships are
historicised, using a macro and micro analysis to understand how such relationships have

v


been produced over time. The case in question is situated within this historicising, allowing
for an exploration of its nature and setting, its historical background, the roles of particular
individuals, and the processes and procedures that were important in the development of the
case. The third part of the study involves re-theorising parent/school relationships in
contemporary contexts.

The main argument of the case study is that there was a shift in the discursive constitution of
schooling that was taking place at the very time that the initiative was undertaken in 1997. It
is argued that the school community in question was working out of a set of assumptions
about school partnerships, which had already been substantially reinscribed by a new
discursive system. This new system reframed “choice” and “community” in terms of the
“performative” rather than the “democratic” school.

The main arguments and findings in the case study are then used to re-theorise parent/school
relationships in post-millennial Queensland, particularly in relation to policy reform. This retheorising is conducted in the form of a discourse analysis of current federal and state
government policy and other types of data, which are relevant to schooling in contemporary

contexts. Various interpretive and theoretical perspectives are used in this process of retheorising, including notions of performativity (Ball, 2003a, 2003b, 2004), responsibilisation
(Rose, 1990, 1999, 2000) and pedagogicalisation (Popkewitz, 2003). Such notions are
employed to build on the lines of inquiry that develop as a consequence of the use of
Foucauldian theory in the earlier part of the study. These concepts are also used to develop
new epistemological understanding of parent/school relationships in contemporary contexts.
The work of Pierre Bourdieu (1984, 2001) further assists in the conceptualisation of parent
engagement in schooling as a game played on the field of schooling.

As a consequence of this re-theorising, it is argued that parent engagement in schooling is a
focus of increased attention on the part of educational stakeholders and is increasingly
demanded by way of increased levels of responsibilised participation. This trend raises
questions about the levels of fatigue and anxiety that could result for parents as a
consequence of such demanding levels of performance. Additionally, an argument is
presented that “performative” parenting is a prescribed set of activities, not an open invitation

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to leadership and high-level decision-making. Thus, as previously mentioned, choice is
always already framed, as “proper” parents make “informed” choices with regard to their
children’s schooling. This thesis concludes that “performative” schools offer new and
problematic subject positions for “performative” parents, which are inviting more
engagement but constraining the type of partnership that is possible between parents and
schools.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During the writing of this thesis I have received a great deal of support and encouragement
from many individuals to whom I owe heartfelt thanks. To Professor Erica McWilliam whose
support and friendship have sustained me on the journey to the completion of this work. It is
no exaggeration to state that this project would not have been completed without her
encouragement and enthusiasm throughout some very tough times. Her dedication and
appreciation for my research inspired me to continue when it seemed impossible. To Dr.
Daphne Meadmore, I express thanks for her encouragement and valuable comments in
relation to my work. Her intelligence and knowledge of poststructuralist theory gave me a
sound base to work on. Her patience with my slow understanding was also very
commendable. Finally, to Dr. John Knight whose editorial work and supervisory support was
exceptional and proved indispensable in the later stages of the work. My special thanks to
him for his support, at the emotional, last stages of the process.

The generous support of Associate Professor Nicholas Buys and Dr. Jayne Clapton has had
no small role in the completion of this thesis. Their constant encouragement to achieve
completion and assistance throughout difficult times has allowed me to remain focused and to
enjoy many opportunities to present my work both in this country and overseas. Additionally,
I thank Jayne further for sharing with me her insight and understanding of parent fatigue.
Special thanks also must go to my colleagues in the School of Human Services at Griffith
University who have encouraged me and convinced me that the end is nigh! They will no
doubt be pleased that it is.

I would like to express appreciation to my mother and father, Kath and Leo Barber, for their
belief in the importance of education and to my brother Peter for his intelligent conversation.
I am also grateful to my friends, particularly Trish, Gay, Marty, Sally and Mark, who were
‘unfree’ to decide to join me on this time-consuming journey.

Finally, thank you to my husband Ian, whose belief in me never waivers and to my children
Sarah, Jacob, Kimberley, Caitlin, Lachlan and to my granddaughter Bailey Rose, who were

viii


never patient and demanded my time and attention no matter how engrossed I should have
been. This, after all, is their right.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
KEYWORDS........................................................................................................................................IV
ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................... V
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................... VIII

List of Tables ...................................................................................................................xii
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................xii
CHAPTER 1: PARENT ENGAGEMENT IN SCHOOLING: FROM CONTINUITY
TO DISCONTINUITY ............................................................................................................1
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................. 1
THE CASE.............................................................................................................................................. 2
THE STUDY .......................................................................................................................................... 4
RESEARCH DESIGN ............................................................................................................................ 7
DESIGN COMPONENTS...................................................................................................................... 8

Historicising parent/school relationships...........................................................................8
Beyond orthodoxy............................................................................................................11
RE-THEORISING PARENT/SCHOOL RELATIONSHIPS............................................................... 13
HOW GOVERNMENT SPEAKS PARENT CHOICE........................................................................ 15
THESIS FRAMEWORK ...................................................................................................................... 19

CHAPTER 2: INVESTIGATING THE CASE AS AN ANOMALY................................29
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 29

Policy Slippage ...............................................................................................................31
Federal/State Relations ....................................................................................................34
“State” theory...................................................................................................................36
“Random causes” .............................................................................................................38
“SITUATING” THE RESEARCH ....................................................................................................... 40
USING CASE STUDY AND BRICOLAGE ....................................................................................... 45

Bricolage ..........................................................................................................................46
Chapter conclusion...........................................................................................................49
CHAPTER 3: THINKING DISCONTINUOUSLY ...........................................................50
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 50
UNDERSTANDING GENEALOGY................................................................................................... 50
UNDERSTANDING “TRUTH”........................................................................................................... 55

Good schooling as discourse............................................................................................56
UNDERSTANDING POWER ............................................................................................................. 59
UNDERSTANDING GOVERNMENTALITY ................................................................................... 65
NAVIGATING THE JOURNEY ......................................................................................................... 69

The discontinuous path ....................................................................................................71
Chapter conclusion...........................................................................................................72
CHAPTER 4: SCHOOL, COMMUNITY, PARENT.........................................................74
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 74

Modes of engagement ......................................................................................................75
Governance in Australia ..................................................................................................77
The Queensland position..................................................................................................78

Inviting “Participation”....................................................................................................80
Answering the call: selective community “involvement” ...............................................83
A call to arms: battling for participation..........................................................................85
Localising Power .............................................................................................................89
Confirming participation: deafening silences ..................................................................95
The emergence of grass roots participation .....................................................................97

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The possibility of social democracy ................................................................................98
The “progressive” school...............................................................................................100
Random acts of “sabotage”............................................................................................107
Discussion ......................................................................................................................120
Discussion ......................................................................................................................128
Discussion ......................................................................................................................135
From activism to performance .......................................................................................138
Formalising the Invitation..............................................................................................144
The limits of parent choice ............................................................................................147
Chapter conclusion.........................................................................................................148
CHAPTER 5: PRODUCING RESPONSIBLE COMMUNITIES: THE PROGRESSIVE
CORPORATE SCHOOL....................................................................................................149
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 149

The responsibilised corporate community .....................................................................149
“Training days”: Neo-liberalism and microeconomic reform .......................................151
To market, to market: understanding schooling as a marketplace................................156
The new “progressive” school .......................................................................................166
Emerging folklore ..........................................................................................................168
Properly Pedagogicalised: Producing Sunnyvale College.............................................174

Making a fragile assertion powerful ..............................................................................176
Sunnyvale College – the breakdown of pedagogicalisation: concluding thoughts........181
Chapter conclusion.........................................................................................................185
CHAPTER 6: THE TIES THAT BIND - SCHOOL, COMMUNITY AND PARENT
POST 1997 ............................................................................................................................186
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 186

The possibility of partnership ........................................................................................187
Partnerships of the future: Schooling 2010....................................................................192
Sunnyvale 2000 – Princip[al] values .............................................................................196
Categories at work .........................................................................................................202
Chapter conclusion - An unequal game .........................................................................207
CHAPTER 7: PLAYING THE GAME: ENGAGEMENT IN SCHOOLING ..............209
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 209

Understanding the game ................................................................................................211
Chapter conclusion.........................................................................................................222
CHAPTER 8: PLAYING THE SAME GAME DIFFERENTLY: ENGAGEMENT AS
RESISTANCE ......................................................................................................................224
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 224

Engaging in choice.........................................................................................................235
Engaging in diverse choices...........................................................................................238
EXPLORING HOW THE GAME IS PLAYED................................................................................. 244

Negotiating the field ......................................................................................................245
Thinking otherwise about games of truth ......................................................................249
REFEREEING THE GAME............................................................................................................... 257

Conclusion .....................................................................................................................263

CHAPTER 9: A PROBLEM OF THE PRESENT: INDUCING PARENT FATIGUE264
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 264
THE POSSIBILITY OF PARENT FATIGUE ................................................................................... 265

Chapter conclusion - Active resistance..........................................................................277

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CHAPTER 10: CONCLUSION..........................................................................................280
INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................................. 280

Revisiting research questions.........................................................................................281
Relevance and utility of theoretical framework for this study.......................................294
Effectiveness and relevance of the analytic framework to the examination of the research
questions. .......................................................................................................................297
Limitations of the thesis.................................................................................................299
Contributions and implications of the thesis to sociology of knowledge, policy and
practice...........................................................................................................................299
Further research .............................................................................................................301
Conclusion .....................................................................................................................304
REFERENCES ................................................................................................................................... 306

List of Tables
Table 4.1 ................................................................................................................................104
Table 4.2 ................................................................................................................................117
Table 4.3 ................................................................................................................................123
Table 4.4 ................................................................................................................................133
List of Figures
Figure 1 Thesis framework ......................................................................................................28

Figure 2 Thinking parents as community ..............................................................................143
Figure 3 The schooling field (A) ...........................................................................................214
Figure 4 The schooling field (B)............................................................................................227
Figure 5 The schooling field (C)............................................................................................229
Figure 6 The successful engager............................................................................................261
Figure 7 The game of engagement on the schooling field.....................................................262

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CHAPTER 1: PARENT ENGAGEMENT IN SCHOOLING: FROM CONTINUITY
TO DISCONTINUITY
INTRODUCTION

Parents and teachers should be put in charge of the country’s 7000 public
schools to stem the drift to private education…[Dr. Barry McGraw of the
OECD states that] public schools should be run like private schools to ensure
that they do not become “a residual provider bogged down in bureaucracy…
Where there is more competition between [public] schools – as there would
be here – there’s more innovation in teaching practices and creativity”.
(Norrie & Doherty, 2005:np)

The role of parents in the process of schooling in Australia has undergone some significant
changes since the establishment of government schools in the late nineteenth century. Whilst
in the early twentieth century, parent involvement in schooling tended to be that of
“assistant” or “helper” (Johnston, 1981; Kirner, 1976; Limerick, 1988; QCPCA, School Talk,
1997)1, more recently parents have been invited to be involved in the schooling process in a
more concrete way (Department of Education, 1990a; Department of Education, 1997a). In
Queensland, policy has been more “parent-friendly” over the last four decades (Schools in
Australia: Report of the Interim Committee of the Australian Schools Commission [Karmel

Report], 1973; Department of Education, 1997a; Department of Education, 1999d) with both
state and federal governments increasingly devolving decision-making power to school
communities (Cranston, Dwyer & Limerick, 2000; Gwyther, 1997; Lingard & Rizvi, 1992;
Meadmore, 2000; Rivzi, 1993; Smyth 1995). This devolutionary process has included
inviting parents to become more involved in their children’s schooling at the level of school
leadership and governance. In countries such as the United Kingdom, as well as in Australia,
policy has called on parents to engage actively in making decisions about schooling and
schooling alternatives for their children (Gerwitz, Ball & Bowe, 1995; Marginson, 1996,
1997). Australian federal government rhetoric has had a particular focus on the importance of

1

This thesis is referenced according to the Harvard style. See – Variation on Harvard style - The Written
Assignment, (1998) Queensland University of Technology.

1


parent choice in the marketplace as a means of meeting diverse needs of the community and
determining quality in schooling. These trends culminated in 1996 in an explicit government
invitation to parents to establish new non-government schools if existing schools did not meet
their children’s needs (States Grants [Primary and Secondary Education Assistance] Bill,
1996).

In an apparent contradiction of the emergent agenda of devolution, choice and engagement,
an application for planning approval2 for a particular community secondary school was
refused, by the Queensland Department of Education (Office of Non-State Schooling) in
1997. The parent community involved in this application was part of Sunnyvale State School
(a pseudonym) that had been in existence since 1985. This school had a strong reputation in
the community for successfully engaging students in schooling via a particular nontraditional pedagogical approach. The school’s “progressive” reputation was well known and

reasonably widespread, and many of the parents at the school whose children had
experienced successful engagement were very committed to the type of curriculum that was
conducted there. This commitment by parents culminated in their application to establish
Sunnyvale College as a secondary school extension of Sunnyvale primary school in order to
further continue this school’s pedagogical approach under the same principal.

THE CASE

Sunnyvale State School was, from the outset, a fully multi-age school that engaged in
teaching children by means of an integrated, thematic curriculum. The principal of the school
was experienced in this type of teaching and had argued strongly in correspondence with
parents3 that children learn best in a co-operative environment, free from academic
competition. Students from Sunnyvale school, unlike their counterparts in the Queensland
government school system, were not subjected to formal lockstep testing but were
encouraged to learn at their own developmental level. Even though the children at this school
were in grades that corresponded to their age, they were not restricted to working only at that
level but could move above and below the standard of their grade. The purpose here, as was
2

Planning approval was the precursor to any school obtaining non-state school status in Queensland in 1997,
immediately following the introduction of the States Grants [Primary and Secondary Assistance] Bill, 1996.

2


advocated by the principal at the time, was to ensure that children felt less threatened by an
inability to do the work and were less likely to become bored doing work they already knew.
Anecdotal data4 indicated that the children from this school, by and large, appeared to enjoy
the learning environment and were relatively happy to come to the school. This was borne out
by the children’s seemingly close relationship with their teachers, the absence of complaints

about bullying, and a very low incidence of damage to school property. There was also a
wide range of further curricular activities that they could undertake, and children of all levels
of ability were encouraged to participate5.

As has previously been stated, for almost two decades in Queensland, parents had been
invited to take a greater role in their children’s education. In this particular case, parent
initiatives in this respect were to work towards the establishment of the afore-mentioned
secondary school. In 1991, the parents of Sunnyvale State School established “The Multi-Age
High School Lobby Group” with a view to continuing their children’s education in a similar
setting. This group was given the responsibility by interested parents at a special meeting to
lobby the State government to establish a multi-age high school in their region.

After five years of negotiations with the State Government, the parents of this community reestablished the “Sunnyvale College Steering Committee”, a body that pursued the
establishment of the school via the non-government system. Finally, in July 1997, application
was made to the Office of Non-State Schooling to set up Sunnyvale College. However, on the
9th December, the secretary of Sunnyvale College Limited received correspondence stating
that the committee’s application had been refused. The reason given for this refusal was that
the application did not meet the first three criteria for the establishment of a new school
required by the Office of Non-State Schooling at this time in 19976.
3

The researcher was for an extended period of time an active member of parent groups within the school.
Six years as President of the Parents & Citizens Association gave the researcher access to strongly held
opinion in that association, as well as that of the principal and other staff.
5
An example of this is the school’s participation in ‘Tournament of Minds’ competition where up to twenty
teams from the school participated, which, at that time, was a record for this competition.
6
At the time of the Sunnyvale application, the relevant documentation stated that a new school would need to
meet the following criteria:

(a) Approval of the application will not have a significant impact on existing state or non-state schools in the
catchment area in the five years following approval as evidenced by:
4

3


This decision was apparently at odds with the stated policy direction inviting communities to
engage more closely with schools and to exercise choice. Its logic appeared to contradict
prevailing ideas for schooling in terms of parent choice and engagement made explicit in a
plethora of policy documents from the Department of Education promoting choice, diversity
and devolution. Certainly since 1987, policies such as Focus on Schools (FOS) (Department
of Education 1990a) and Leading Schools (LS) (Department of Education, 1997a) had
directly advocated school-based management and had encouraged parents, in particular, to
look towards the establishment of school councils in an effort to participate in this process.
Coupled with federal government advocacy of parent choice, such policy moves had created
a climate in which this group of highly engaged parents came to see themselves as deciding,
at least in part, how their children were to be educated.

Out of this contradiction arose the questions that prompted the research in this thesis: How
was it possible that the Sunnyvale College application was refused, given the high degree of
parent involvement and the prevailing policy climate? How can this event increase
understanding of the relationship between school policy and schooling practices that pertain
to parent engagement?

THE STUDY

The major aims of this study are (a) to investigate the failure of Sunnyvale College as a new
schooling initiative in Queensland in 1997 and (b) to use that investigation to re-theorise
parent/school engagement in contemporary Queensland. This research is undertaken as a

A significant reduction in enrolments or, as appropriate, projected enrolments;
A contraction of curriculum offerings to a point which would significantly jeopardise the educational
program of the school; or
• Unplanned closure of a state or non-state school.
(b) The proposed school’s catchment area is within an area where expected student population is growing by
two per cent or more per year or where the proposed school provides a significant element of choice for which
there is an established clientele in a non-growth area;
(c) Unless the proposed school is offering the significant element of choice envisaged in the criterion above,
there is not an excess of permanent accommodation of more than ten per cent in aggregate in schools in the
catchment area which cannot be used productively or the new school is likely to lead to a greater than ten per
cent underutilisation in the five years following approval. (Office of Non-State Schooling, 1997:4)
•
•

4


case study, but one with a difference as the strangeness of this particular case provided a
means for producing “new” or “alternative” answers to epistemological questions about
parent engagement in the schooling process. Thus, a different framework was needed that
generated a means for developing such “alternative” ways of researching a “familiar”
problem of parent participation and its limits and possibilities.

In this study it was deemed necessary to undertake the investigation of the case in three key
parts. First, an overarching framework that provided for the multiplicity of the case was
necessary. Second, a focus on the case itself in terms of its nature, its relationship to history,
the physical setting, its relationship to other contexts and how it has come to be known
(Stake, 1998) was needed. Third, an examination of what can be learned about parenting and
policy from the case given its history, attributes, characteristics, operations and relationships

was an important component. Such an investigation then required an approach that enabled
new and alternative understandings and possibilities to be highlighted, in ways that allowed
multiple perspectives and approaches to be considered. Thus, a framework that privileged the
notion of multiplicity and valued both local and broader opinions, understandings and
perspectives as informing understanding was deemed necessary.

For this reason, a decision was made to draw on the notion of bricolage as a way of opening
up the issue as both a local event and as an opportunity to re-theorise parent/school
relationships. Bricolage (Levi-Strauss, 1966) is understood as a ‘pieced together set of
representations that are fitted to the specifics of a complex situation’7 where ‘the choice of
research practices depends on the questions that are asked, and the questions depend on their
context’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003:6). Such a process allowed for an ‘emergent construction’
(Denzin & Lincoln, 2003:5; Weinstein & Weinstein, 1991) to be produced that added ‘rigour,
breadth, complexity, richness and depth’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003:8) to the theory building
and re-theorising that followed. This approach was used to enhance the possibility of dealing
with the subsequent questions that arose as a result of the first stage of the analysis. These
questions highlighted the development of particular themes of investigation that became
evident through this analysis, and which warranted further study. As Yin attests, case study
7

The researcher, as bricoleur, utilises whatever resources – cultural objects, signs, texts, practices, theoretical
perspectives – that are available in addressing the task at hand (Levi-Strauss, 1966).

5


investigators are ‘driven to theory’ (1999:3). Thus, the opportunity to investigate and/or
develop theory could be more fully undertaken by examining multiple perspectives, and this
was made possible through the bricoleur’s lenses.

While the notion of case study as a method was integral to the study of this event, there was
also a need to move beyond the case to seek clearer understanding of how such an event was
possible. The case study method was applicable to historically understanding the event but
needed to proceed in a way that incorporated historicising rather than merely history8. If
history affirms all knowledge as perspective (Foucault, 1980, 1984a, 1984c), historicising
allows previously disqualified perspectives to be opened up for scrutiny. The history of the
Sunnyvale case was messy and disparate and, consequently, was impacted by multiple
identities, perspectives, policies and practices that were both locally and globally produced.
In this study then, the nature of the Sunnyvale case was explored in relation to how it was
produced, that is, as an effect of the relationship between the historical and contemporary
economic, political and social discourses in post-millennial Queensland. Thus, the case was
understood as an anomaly or discontinuity - a contradiction of systemic and social practice
that produced new and contesting understandings and knowledge.

Exploring the Sunnyvale case as an “anomaly” and tracing its applicability to the present
context involved consideration of the following questions:

1. How were new schools established in Queensland in the 1990s? How was Sunnyvale
College to be established?
2. What role did communities normally play in the establishment of new schools?
3. What roles, processes and procedures in establishing a new school were enacted in the
case of Sunnyvale College?
4. How did the Sunnyvale parents understand their role in relation to the schooling of
their children and subsequently in relation to the establishment of Sunnyvale College?

8

Here, to historicise is to ‘specify the particular historical conditions with which it [the event] was generated
and what its properties and shape owe to these conditions, and…what part it plays in wider circumstances’.
(Fairclough, 1995:19).

6


Examining these questions necessitated the use of an approach that allowed possible
“alternative” explanations to these questions to be explored through probing the experience,
knowledge and contribution of the local actors in the event. Exploring discontinuity in social
and systemic practice in this way opens up the possibility for “new” ways of theorising
“familiar” problems. In relation to this particular case study, the examination of such
explanations has led to a re-theorising of how parent/school relationships may actually work
in this current context. This re-theorising was undertaken by a focus on further questions that
became apparent following the analysis of the case. These are:

1. What are the conditions of possibility that now produce the “success” or “failure” of
parents engaging in the process of schooling for their children?
2. How can an analysis of these conditions inform theory about parent/school
relationships?
RESEARCH DESIGN

The case study undertaken in this thesis situated the notion of parent engagement in schooling
as “a problem of the present” (Foucault, 1984a, 1991). Foucault’s notion of “a problem of the
present” invites a researcher to investigate a present problem in terms of how it has come to
be historically constituted. As previously stated, this particular investigation proceeded by
using a particular event of “failure” as a means for building theory and by the application of
this new theoretical understanding to analyse present notions of parent engagement.
Undertaking the case study in this way enabled the researcher to problematise the Sunnyvale
“failure” and to build new theory as a result of the examination of the problematisation.

To investigate questions about the Sunnyvale case in order to build theory meant attending to
a number of tasks, namely:

•

examining significant historical shifts in establishing non-government schools;

•

documenting notions of “community” that informed this process;

•

identifying roles, processes and procedures in the Sunnyvale case, and

7


•

synthesising past and present practices to explain how the engagement by parents in
the Sunnyvale school is currently understood.

These four tasks were accomplished by means of three methodological components in the
study design:

•

historicising parent/school relationships (situating the case, its nature and setting and
its historical background, (Stake, 1998));

•

using this theoretical account to conduct a macro and micro analysis into roles,
processes and procedures in the Sunnyvale case (the consideration of contextual
factors and informants, (Stake, 1998), that is, who, how, what, when? (Yin, 1994));

•

re-theorising parent/school relationships (by the consideration of multiple
perspectives).

Each of these components is outlined briefly in this chapter.
Undertaking this research as bricoleur involved the use of information acquired from the case
study to apply new theorising to Queensland parent/school relationships since 1997. This part
of the investigation built a theoretical understanding of how parents now engage in the
schooling process framed in terms of propriety and performativity (Ball, 2000, 2003a, 2003b,
2004; Jeffery, 2002) - that is, in terms of what counted as “the right thing to do” and what it
meant to conduct oneself as a “parent doing the right thing”. Thus, the investigation focussed
on a “normalising” discourse that produced understanding and logic in terms of what might
be deemed “normal” in relation to parent engagement in schooling.

DESIGN COMPONENTS

Historicising parent/school relationships
According to Foucault (1984a, 1984c, 1991), schooling is historically constituted through
discourse. Historicising parent/school relationships in both government and non-government
contexts is fundamental to any discursive analysis that tries to explain the “success” or

8

“failure” of these relationships. To this end, relevant historical and contemporary policy
documents, newspaper articles and correspondence were analysed for their significance in
“producing” the Sunnyvale case and the impact of such an event on parents’ engagement in
the schooling process. This textual analysis was undertaken by a combination of “working
backwards” and then “forwards”9 through such documents as those relating to:

-

The history of schooling in Australia and in Queensland from Leading Schools in 1997 to
the Karmel Report in 1973;

-

Government and non-government schooling debates;

-

Key government policies related to democratic localism and/or its limitation; and,

-

Relevant correspondence and texts relating to the Sunnyvale case.

The historicising was conducted in terms of a discourse theoretical reading of the term
community within “schooling” discourse. In this study, following Foucault (1984c, 1984d,
1991), discourse refers to language use associated with an institution or set of practices.
Foucault understands discourse as producing social and systemic practice by means of the
constitution of ‘regimes of truth’ (1980:131) that govern such practices. This includes
expressions of the values of particular institutions engaged in these practices. Foucault
(1980:131) attests that:

Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth; that is, the
types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true: the mechanisms
and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the
means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded
value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying
what counts as true.

Understood in this way, a discourse theoretical reading of the term community then, is a
reading that indicates how community (or equivalent terms) worked within particular
9

In this type of analytic work the notion of “working backwards” is paramount. This analysis works by
beginning in the present and “working backwards” to the past. Within this process however, the researcher
begins by working backwards, then can move forwards and then backwards again. It is also possible for the
researcher to move in and away, examining micro then macro events and data in various combinations.

9


discursive systems or institutions at any given point in historical time to constitute
educational identities and norms in that time and place. Thus, in Foucault’s terms (1980), the
word community signifies a social category of possibility.

The idea of a community of parents as “highly involved” in policy making, was unthinkable
until quite recently in Australia. Yet recent and current conditions, (historical, discursive,
situational) allow for new possibilities to be made apparent. For example, it has become
possible for the local newspaper The Courier-Mail (5/8/00) to declare the rights of parents in
relation to such matters by highlighting government initiatives ordering government school
teachers to provide better information to parents about how their children are faring in
relation to other children in class. This article argues that the government is making such a

call in order to enhance ‘greater parental involvement in school decision-making’ (p. 1)10.

Moreover, recent government policy and rhetoric, social and economic shifts, discourses of
individualisation and media advocacy, have worked to normalise a high level of parent
involvement in schooling. Put another way - parents have been “responsibilised” as
community members (Rose, 1999, 2000). Ironically, the character and effects of this
responsibilisation were central to the Sunnyvale case and yet, in this case, these aspects
worked to constrain rather than enable this particular parent group in terms of their
engagement in the schooling of their children.

In order to examine what is sayable and unsayable about parent involvement in schooling,
relevant discourses producing notions of the “proper” or “normal” performance of parents in
the schooling context need to be fore-grounded. The initial investigation of the case study
then, proceeded as a discourse analysis comprising:

-

An examination of how the participation of parents in schooling in Australia came to be
organised. (This was conducted as archival research that “worked backwards” and then
“forwards” to track key parent/community discourses and discursive shifts, that is,

10

Cole, M and Parnell, S. (2000) ‘Parents call for more say on schools,’ Courier-Mail, 5th August, p. 1,
Brisbane: Queensland Newspapers.

10


documentation of rhetorical moves within policy and other official discourse. It focused

on key government policies related to participatory schooling and/or its limitation);
-

An identification and exploration of key texts in the “state/private” debate, as important
nodes for producing rhetoric about ideal schooling and ideal school communities and how
they ought to be achieved in Australia;

-

Analysis of relevant rhetorical shifts around the idea of “choice”, “community” and
“diversity” in specific state and federal policy texts in order to fore-ground the
mechanisms used to produce claims made about ideal schooling and ideal school
communities; and,

-

Scrutiny of the rhetorical structure of texts made available from the Sunnyvale case,
particularly in relation to the notion of community.

Beyond orthodoxy
When “abnormal” events (such as the Sunnyvale case) occur within school communities,
researchers tend to seek explanations that provide closure. They often seek a reason that
completely explains why the situation is as it is. As a departure from this orthodoxy, the study
of Sunnyvale documented in this thesis focused on contingencies, creating events as
“strange” and asking how they might have been “otherwise”. Consequently, a genealogical
approach (Foucault, 1983, 1984a) was important to this study because it allowed for an
intentional positioning of the Sunnyvale event as both within and against normalised
convention and inquiry (Lather, 1996)11. Genealogy allows for “the telling of the story” but
also for a critique of the storyteller and story at the same time. Such an approach assisted the
researcher to work within and against the dominant educational, historical and disciplinary

discourses producing the event in question. In this case, it allowed for the development of an
understanding of “normal” parenting as historically and discursively constituted.

The research design represents a departure from traditional case studies of schooling
practices. In terms of the analysis of the case, genealogy builds theory at the same time as it
challenges orthodox readings of historical events, precisely because it refuses the twin
imperatives of linearity and continuity that drive most understandings of educational history
11

Such work required an explanation of examples of conventional approaches, as documented in Chapter Two.

11


as “developing” over time. This particular means of theory-building created space for reunderstanding the policy/practice relationship regarding parenting. Thus, the departure from
tradition allowed room for “thinking otherwise” about how the policy/practice relationship
impacted on the engagement of parents in the process of schooling in Queensland at this
particular time and place.

If the inquiry were to proceed out of orthodox explanations that rely on causality, there might
have been four possible reasons given for this type of event (whether such reasoning is based
on a developmental or critical theory of history or both). It is likely that such explanations
would have included notions that:

•

policy “slippage” occurred between policy intention and enactment, that is, that the

link between state government and local schools had broken down (Burke, Limerick,
Cawte & Slee, 1993; Gwyther, 1997; Lingard, Hayes & Mills, 2000; Lingard & Rivzi,

1992; Meadmore, 2000; Riley, 1992);
•

federal/state relations are at odds on some deeper level, that is, that federal invitations

and policy were not reciprocated at the state level (Lingard, 2000; Lloyd, 1998;
Marginson, 1985);
•

anomalies such as Sunnyvale are indications that school policy is at work to repress

individuals despite democratic rhetoric, that is, that policy effects are hegemonic
(Marginson, 1996, 1997); or,
•

this was an accident of timing and spatial location – the parent body was in the wrong

place at the wrong time. Here “accident” is not used in the sense that Foucault uses it12,
but in the sense of an aberration in an otherwise logical and coherent set of
“developments” (Quirke, 1992).

All these “explanations” arise out of epistemological assumptions that anticipate an ordered
and rational world of events, in which structures both invite and inhibit human agency. As
such, what these traditional explanations offer are assumptions about systemic and social
practice that may or may not be realised. They each provide only one perspective that
12

Foucault’s understanding of accident is not in terms of aberration. Rather, it is representative of idiosyncratic
events that represent discontinuity.

12


privileges one line of thinking. By allowing a focus on multiple perspectives and lenses
(including these), other lines of thought were opened up for scrutiny and these lines of
thought allowed space for new understanding to be developed. Orthodox explanations can
only remain assumptions and cannot be verified as “truth” but as separate “stories”.

The notion of how systemic and social practices are constituted is an important component of
this thesis. The analysis undertaken in the thesis highlighted that parent involvement in
schooling, as both a systemic and social practice, has increased and is continuing to do so.
This means that it is becoming more reasonable to consider high level parental involvement
as a necessary undertaking for both children to succeed and schooling to function. Thus, a
methodological approach that does not assume such practices as necessarily reasonable was
used as a central component of this work.
RE-THEORISING PARENT/SCHOOL RELATIONSHIPS

The genealogical analysis of the Sunnyvale event highlighted possible issues for parents and
for school communities. Such issues were then examined in terms of how these might impact
on the current context of schooling, particularly in relation to parent engagement. To do so,
an analysis of present policy documents, texts and relevant rhetorical data was undertaken as
a means of understanding how such data contributed to notions of schooling and parent
engagement at this historical time. The bricoleur’s lenses used to develop this analysis
allowed consideration of multiple perspectives, that is, perspectives that might incorporate a
variety of underpinnings but that are also epistemologically coherent. In this case, these
perspectives included the archival and genealogical approaches undertaken, which were
underpinned by Foucauldian theory, as well as further theoretical and literary work that
incorporated aspects of such theory and also other poststructuralist and postmodern
understandings. Such a framework enabled an account of the ways that logic and reason
about parent engagement came to be produced and internalised (Bourdieu, 1984, 2001;

Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992; Popkewitz, 2000).

As Ball (1990a, 1994) attests, no invitation by government to engage is ever truly an “open”
one.

However, parents may well regard invitations to engage as “real” and, as such,

misrecognise the invitation as being relatively limitless. Ball’s (1990a, 1990b, 1994, 2000,

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