ABSTRACT This article examines practices and products of school culture: jokes, hallway conversations, home-school correspondence and interpersonal interactions between parents and teachers. These practices construct parents as functionally, but not critically, literate and serve to reproduce a dominant ideology which presumes a hierarchical relationship between teachers and parents with professional thought and practice superior to parents' in educational matters. Examples ofparental and professional resistance to such disempowering constructions ofparental literacies are offered to demonstrate possibilities for the development of a more just and literate community.

Literacy becomes a meaningful construct to the degree that it is viewed as a set of practices that functions to either empower or disempower people (Friere, in: Freire & Macedo, 1987, Literacy: reading the word and the world)

A View from the Outside

Paul's mother stands with the other mothers outside the school gate. They are waiting for their children to be dismissed. While they wait, they talk. Paul's mother confides how she agonised over writing an excuse note to his teacher and the consequences she fears. She says,

One day Paul was ill with the runs, so I had to write a note for him to take to school the next day. It was awful. I had no idea how to spell diarrhoea. I felt like I was being tested and that my ability would reflect on my child. I'm told that happens sometimes, but you don't know whether or not to believe it. (Paul's mother in the play The School Gate, 1988)

Insider jokes

Dear Teacher (Lizé & Lizé, 1984), as the title implies, is a book about letters to teachers. Letters from parents to be exact. It's a joke book and the joke is illiterate parents. It's a cheap little volume- in every sense of the word. Facsimiles of the excuse notes which parents have written explaining why their children are absent or unable to participate, face, across the gutter [1], cartoon drawings which have been designed to laugh at their grammatical and spelling mistakes. Some are in horrifically bad taste. There's even one about 'the dire rear'. Paul's mother, standing outside the school gate in Devon, UK, was right to be worried. Bad taste, it seems, doesn't respect continental borders.

Published and distributed to Canadian teachers by the educational arm of Methuen, Dear Teacher is apparently so popular that a third volume is planned. Like the first and second volumes it is to be fuelled by notes which the authors solicit from teachers with the promise of a free copy of the book: notes, that is, which were sent to those teachers by parents, in all good faith and presumably in confidence.

The popularity of this little book speaks volumes about how parental literacy is constructed in school culture. Parents who cannot read and write very well are, quite literally, a joke. Even teachers who haven't read this particular book know the joke well. It appears in academic guise in articles such as Robert's twice- published 'Parent's letters to primary schools' (Roberts, 1985) and it's told daily in staff rooms and corridors of schools. A common version of this joke associates the illiterate with the unclean, both in need of teacherly correction. One school janitor was overheard joking in the corridor with his principal about how he had mistaken the new composter as a cage for Toners (the poorest and most joked about family in the school) (Maternal Literacies Transcripts, 1994). It's not funny, but it is clever in a way---the way it relegates the illiterate to animal status. Theories of literacy do, after all, invariably start with the assumption that it is the ability to symbolise which distinguishes humankind from the rest of the animal kingdom. Clever as it may be, it's not the sort of joke we'd want to tell to parents ... in fact some of us in the profession don't even want us to tell it to each other, but it's hard to resist.

Disinviting Writing

The problem is that insider jokes about parental literacy are not the only way in which parents who don't read and write well are marginalised in teacher discourse and school culture. The message is implicit in the way schools communicate with homes. The invitation to participate is invariably written: the invitation to parents' meetings is written; the criteria for assessment and evaluation as well as progress reports are written; the class/school news is written; feedback loops are written. And when parents are required to respond, it is usually in writing. School is, after all, a literate environment and school correspondence, of necessity, manifests that. Written messages, especially (uni)form letters which can be conveyed home by children, are infinitely the most expedient, reliable and economical way for schools to communicate with homes, at least in the short run.

Parents who had difficulty with the written word when they were at school still try to rise to the occasion. Ironically, in attempting to meet the school's expectation of a good, literate parent they may be seduced into inadvertently exposing themselves. Such was the case when an overwhelming majority of parents in one rural school responded in the affirmative to a contradictory question on a survey about the new report card. The question started 'Do you understand that ... ?'. Well yes, of course ... who'd admit to not understanding!

One mother, a university professor, is rapidly coming to the conclusion that it is not only parents who can't read and write very well who are marginalised, but parents who can read and write too well: so well that they threaten the establishment. This professor has found so many spelling and grammatical errors in the correspondence from her child's school that she considered writing a companion volume to Dear Teacher entitled Dear Parent or Guardian-but only momentarily. Instead, in a genuine effort to communicate, she writes letters trying to fathom and critique such vital documents as the report card her daughter brings home. In a letter to the district elementary supervisor she asks how teachers are able to make distinctions between the descriptors and codes on the new report card 'when they apply them to real children's work'. She asks 'Is there any within-teacher consistency in the interpretation of these descriptors and codes across children? Should there be? Is there any inter-teacher reliability? Should there be?' (Parent's letter, March 23rd, 1994).

Her questions went unanswered. Parent's letters to school often go unanswered. and possibly for good reasons. But if the shoe were on the other foot it is more than likely that the mother's lack of response would be summarily interpreted as a lack of interest.

Preserving the Functional Literacy Myth

Correspondence from the school inevitably carries with it implicit assumptions about parental literacy and, because text and social context are inextricably bound, about the relationship between parents and teachers. When school correspondence exhibits a preponderance of information, direction and rule giving, a hierarchical relationship between teachers and parents is implied. Parents are cast in the subordinate position, required to read only so that they can follow the direction the school has set and comply with its regulations. The school orders and parents obey. Reading school correspondence is presumed to be akin to reading the instructions on one's medical prescription or income tax form and following them to the letter for one's own good. Reading like this is sometimes called 'functional literacy'.

Alternatively, when correspondence from school to home is worded so as to convey an expectation or invitation for parents to enter into open dialogue with teachers and administrators, a different, more equitable relationship is implied: parents are cast not just as receivers of inforination and followers of rules but, as Friere says, readers of the word and the world (Friere & Macedo, 1987), readers and writers who bring an indispensable critical perspective to the making and continual re-making of school rules and educational directions. The underlying assumption in this case is of critical literacy, literacy as 'a form of cultural politics' which 'both illuminates and interrogates school life' (Giroux, 1988). Unfortunately we see more f-anctional than critical literacy in the notes sent home to parents from school. Functional literacy is also the underlying assumption in an increasing number of govemment pamphlets sent home via the school.

The relegation of parents to a subordinate position is not a conscious, deliberate or individual decision. Rather, it is a social construction. an idea which has been collectively produced. It arises from a dominant ideology which presumes the relationship between teachers and parents to be hierarchical. Professional thought and practice is understood to be superior to parents' in educational matters. The 'good parent' thus becomes the compliant parent who defers to the teacher's authority. So insidious is this idea that it is hard to imagine an altemative. That is because 'A dominant ideology represents the view of a dominant group; it attempts to justify this domination over other groups by making the existing order seem inevitable' (Glenn, 1994). This ideological stance is not peculiar to Canadian education. In one British study, so vastly did information flowing in one direction from school to home, outweigh any invitation for parents to have their say that Long (1993) concluded 'It would appear that these schools did not see the need to discover parents' views or ideas in written form'.

Other schools may, on the surface, appear to be less monologic, soliciting written parental viewpoints and critique on a fairly regular basis, in the form of feedback loops, for example. But, when they do, a restricted and restricting view of parental literacy may still prevail. Invariably the invitation to give feedback is an invitation only to fill out a form: check, circle, fill in the blank or at most a line or two. Lengthy written responses are not called for, 'so's not to intimidate those parents who can't read and write very well' said one New Brunswick administrator. This is a laudable intention, but probably not the only one. Asking parents only to fill in the blanks, check and circle also enables teachers and administrators to set the parameters of the conversation (Edwards & Mercer, 1987) and facilitates easy, facile, collation and interpretation of parental voice. Furthermore it relegates parental input to monosyllabic responses-'just reply yes or no.' The implication is that normal parents can and should answer questions in a word. That leaves parents who want to reply more thoughtfully, wondering and worrying whether they are overstepping the mark.

The Silent Partner

When parents appear reticent it may be more than disinviting writing which is silencing them. Long, in his 1994 study of one northern England local education authority, found that parents viewed their relationship with teachers as 'somewhat fragile'. They were 'very sensitive to teachers' non-verbal communication and did not want to seem pushy' (Long, 1993). Some mothers in New Brunswick, Canada have been more explicit about why they didn't want to seem pushy. They fear that their children will suffer repercussions if they appear critical. Consequently they refrain from saying anything much of substance (Allan, 1995). Their silence, like the silence of the children they once were in school, may continue to be interpreted by teachers as evidence that they have nothing much to say.

Parents may worry about saying too much and overstepping the mark, but it is not always clear where the lines are drawn-they move from time to time and school to school. Actually overstepping the mark is a sure way to find out where you stand.

One mother found out how empty the rhetoric about parents as partners was only after she responded to an invitation to participate. She offered to bring her professional expertise to the classroom and coordinate part of a social studies project. She says,

I was really excited about the possibilities and imagined all sorts of opportunities. I was eager to share my ideas and pool resources and offer my time at the direction of the teacher. I naively assumed that the gentleman could be equally ignited by this show of parental involvement. My proposal was met with nothing short of cold rebuff. I've worried that my enthusiasm was overwhelming. Perhaps I should have presented myself in a humbler fashion, hat-in-my hand so to speak. (Allan, 1995)

Another mother, echoing this language of subservience. said bitterly 'They only want you to "Yes Ma[r]m" their projects' (Allan, 1995).

Parents are frequently welcomed into schools, though not necessarily into classrooms, to do domestic tasks such as help with hot lunch programs. The opportunity for them to have a voice in and about the school curriculum is considerably more limited and, in practice, restricted to relatively few parents [21 (Atkin et al., 1988; Greenburg, 1989; Toomey, 1993). Even small children know it. When Dr Lissa Paul, children's literature specialist at The University of New Brunswick, offered to come and do book talk with her son's primary class she was told emphatically 'Mothers help'. Thus the historical distinction between education and care is re-inscribed, the teacher's professional authority is preserved and parents who were inclined to define their part of the partnership in terms of professional expertise are silenced regardless of, or perhaps because of, their academic credentials.

Uncritical Literacy

School newsletters proffer advice heavy with what Cunningham (1983) calls 'expertosis' on how parents can help their children. Parents are supposed to do their part by following the experts' advice. At least that's what the profession would apparently like to think. Homework advertisements recently aired in New Brunswick reiterate this position. They show the good parent as a woman/mother? waiting at home in a sparkling, well-appointed kitchen to receive and approve the young girl's schoolwork and, for the older boy, a male/father? is ever ready to assist when the child produces his homework. Canadian Living, more mindful of sex role and cultural stereotyping, still base their November, 1994 article (Pedwell, 1994) about how parents can help with school projects, on the advice of professional educators, not parents. They assume that the role parents can and should play in homework is a non-academic 'supportive role' (Pedwell, 1994).

The message is that parents have all the time in the world and are willing to dedicate it to support the school's mission and methods. This message was strongly contested by some of the mothers in the New Brunswick maternal literacies study, including ones who are also elementary schoolteachers. These mothers cannot and do not want to find themselves in the glossy image of the ever-ready parent waiting to comply uncritically with the school's bidding. They have their own ideas about what constitutes a good education, including what constitutes the proper teaching of literacy. They adopt a critical stance and, when they find the school lacking, they compensate-sometimes subversively, like the mothers who 'confessed' to systematically teaching phonics at home and then characterised the opportunity to voice their transgression as 'cathartic' (Kershaw, 1994); sometimes more openly like the mother who obtained old readers from a retired teacher in her community to teach her daughter to read, having determined these books were more understandable than the dense, multi-layered trade books which the teacher was sending home (St Pierre, 1994). The mother who asserted that Gilly Hopkins was inappropriate reading material for her 9-year-old daughter because it contained blasphemous language is one of many rural New Brunswick women whose critique of schooled literacies is informed by a Christian ethic (Maternal Literacies Transcripts, 1994).

These particular instances of maternal resistance to schooled literacies were viewed in a positive light by Marilyn Graham and Frankie Blake (the teachers involved), construed as part of an on-going critical conversation between parent and professional educators, a conversation through which curriculum and pedagogies can be shaped. Parental resistance to contemporary 'wisdom' is not usually viewed so positively in schools. Even within professional circles, contemporary thought and practice are still advanced as neutral, objectively derived and therefore uncontestable. 'Our patterns of language enable us to lose sight of the socially constructed quality of schooling. What is socially constructed', says Popkewitz, is 'made to seem natural and inevitable ... ' (Popkewitz, 1987). Parents who resist and critique contemporary 'wisdom' are apt to be viewed not as informed participants in an historically grounded, intense debate about the purposes and functions of schooling, but as displaying an aberrant response. Contrary minded views and non-compliance interpreted as parental deficiency are then framed as evidence of a need for corrective education and more information to bring parents 'on side'.

'On side' is an idea borrowed from competitive sport and such sporting metaphors, hangovers from the 19th century muscular christianity of Tom Brown's Schooldays, demand closer examination in today's educational context. The antithesis of 'on-side' is 'off-side', a term which refers to the offense gaining an unfair advantage by not waiting until the defense is in position before mounting their attack. It's a poor way for educators to characterise parents who aren't on their side.

A better metaphor for the construction of parental literacies in school culture would be play, with it's multiple possibilities and interminable negotiations about who is going to play what role, and how. The script is not constantly re-inscribed as a variation on the same set of rules, as it is in competitive sports, but emerges as a product of on-going conversation between the players themselves: the players play off each other's actions and words with a strong sense of their interdependence. There's a provisional quality about it. Taking sides and winning is not the point. Face to face interaction is. Conversation provides the on-going opportunity to gently disturb each other's ideas about how things have been, are and should or could be.

Some teachers know that talking with parents, as opposed to about them, offers an opportunity to reconstruct parental literacies more honestly, avoiding the 'easy generalisations' and 'shallow truisms' with which parents presently find themselves characterised in school culture (Atkin et al., 1988; Bastiani, 1993). Terry-Lee Beaudry, principal of Anne McClymont Elementary School in Kelowna, BC, knew this when she extended an invitation for a parent representative to come to her staff meetings (as the reciprocal of her own invitation to the parents' advisory committee meetings). When she first proposed this idea to the staff she asked the question 'Why not?' and then spent time with them exploring solutions to the hypothetical problems they imagined, thus transforming some of their apprehension into the language of possibility.

A positive construction of parental literacies began in that school the moment the principal proposed that the relationship between parents and teachers should be reciprocal and parents should be invited into that most hallowed bastion of professionalism, the staff meeting. This act required courage. So too did the act of Maria [3], a single mother in another part of Canada who had been told by the teacher that her boy's behaviour in school must be the result of her giving either too much or too little attention at home. Whichever it was, the boy's behaviour at school was indisputably the mother's fault! In the face of such a monstrous myth [4] many a mother would have, and has, retreated from further contact and tragically affirmed the teacher's stereotypic view of her. Not this mother. She persists in volunteering her services to the school at every opportunity. It's not easy to go where she feels unwelcome, but she knows that through her very presence she will change the discourse.

Examining the construction of parental literacy in school culture, it turns out, inevitably reveals something of how power relations are established and maintained in educational hierarchies. It is not surprising, then, that when teachers and school administrators begin to reflect on how the texts of schooling relegate parents to a subordinate position, they also begin to reflect on their own position in the hierarchy. When they discover that the way in which they treat parents only mirrors their own treatment in the institutional pecking order, they must surely begin to wonder how ever they can hope to cultivate critical literacy in children.

NOTES

[1] The gutter is a publishing term for the extra margin to allow for binding of facing pages.

[2] British Columbia furnishes some noteworthy exceptions, with the parental right to participate in curriculum making becoming entrenched in District policies.

[3] Maria is a pseudonym for this mother who, more than a year after this incident, still feels that she would put her children at risk in the school system by publicly criticising the teacher. As well, revealing her own name would also disclose the teacher's identity locally and possibly embarrass her, something this mother (remarkably) has no desire to do.

[4] A termed used by Mariner Warner in one of the 1994 Reith Lectures entitled Monstrous Mothers: women over the top.

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