Representations of Family and Primary School Relations in National Documents, Laws, and Sub-Legal Acts

Abstract

The aim of this research is to describe how family and school relations are represented in national documents, laws, and sub-legal acts that organise the primary education sector. The research is based on a qualitative research paradigm and documentation analysis procedure. A reflexive thematic analysis was carried out on 17 documents, laws and sublegal acts relevant to primary school education in the Republic of Croatia, which resulted in four basic representations of the relations between family and school, placed in the context of humanistic, legalistic, procedural and patronising constructions of their relations. Further analysis revealed examples of incongruity in the generated representations of family and school relations within documents, as well as the deviation of individual representations from recent knowledge about the optimal positioning of family and school relations. The conclusion discusses the practical implications of the obtained findings and potential directions of an empirical approach to the described problem.