ABSTRACT
Dr. Sara Lawrence Lightfoot reports that both teachers and parents have images and stereotypes of one another that stem from their own childhood experiences and guide their views of what schooling is, and ought to be, for the children for whom they are immediately responsible. In summary, once public schools assumed significant, nationally-recognized educational functions, the debates of the newly-emerging education professionals stressed the authority and scope of parental involvement in the educational process. Sargent Shriver, for example, sought scholarly legitimation for Head Start in the mental retardation research community, several of whose researchers had demonstrated the impact of environment and/or motivation on individual intellectual performance. W. Warnat states that a successful parent involvement program is difficult to achieve. She adds that the three major barriers to success are professionals, the bureaucracy, and parent power. Professionals generally identified as the "problem" in parent involvement issues are the teachers.
