ABSTRACT
This chapter closely examines teachers' perceptions of ethnic minority parents, and minority parents' expectations of schools, which identifies considerable scope for improvement but some grounds for optimism. It notes the difficulty of defining 'good' home-school relations, and documents some of the dissatisfactions which minority parents are currently expressing. Minority parents' views of schools and teachers' views of minority parents and pupils are reviewed, and the mismatch of expectations between parental and community desires and teachers' offerings is discussed. The chapter also then examines contact and communication with minority homes, and suggests some policies to improve home, school and community relations. The chapter highlights that the current tensions and problems between minority homes and schools are based on clashes of values and mismatches in expectations, and that there is a lack of knowledge and misunderstanding on both sides.
