School Charter and Parental Management in West Germany

Abstract

The kind, degree, and timing of parents' management of their children's school careers may reflect institutional characteristics of schooling. This article examines the relationship between parental management and an institutional characteristic of schooling, the school charter. It examines managerial actions of a sample of 238 parents with students in three types of West German secondary schools with distinctly different charters: the Gymnasium, Realschule, and the Gesamtschule. The analysis indicates that parents' actions about their children's schooling vary, depending on the school's charter. The advantages of a managerial and institutional approach to studying the family-school relationship are discussed.