‘Are they teaching?’ An alternative perspective on parents as educators

Parental involvement in children’s school learning poses questions about the nature of their role and the extent to which they can be said to be teaching their children. In this chapter Janet Atkin, formerly a lecturer at the University of Nottingham, and John Bastiani, visiting professor in Education at Nottingham Trent University, provide insights into the various roles that parents can adopt when they provide learning support to their children. Their research leads them to suggest that parental practice can vary widely and they raise a note of caution with regard to the tendency for schools to see parents as a homogeneous group or to define teaching in narrow terms.