How Can Family and School Cooperate: A Study on the Institutional Construction of Family-School Cooperation in Chinese Primary Schools

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Abstract

Employing a qualitative multiple-case design anchored in new institutionalism, this study investigates how family–school cooperation is institutionally constituted in three non-first-tier Chinese primary schools. Semi-structured interviews (N = 26) and five focus groups with principals, middle managers, teachers, and parents were triangulated with policy documents, internal school charters, and activity logs. Thematic and situational analyses reveal that regulative policies, normative role expectations, and cultural-cognitive schemata interact to shape divergent yet interdependent action logics: principals as strategic policy interpreters, teachers as pragmatic navigators, and parents as rights-oriented partners. The findings illuminate mechanisms through which micro-level sense-making and macro-level structures co-produce emergent FSC institutions.

Authors

• Chuanyou Bao, Beijing Normal University

• Yuting Wang, Beijing Normal University