A Bakhtinian Analysis of Particular Home-School Relations

Abstract

In this article, we explore home-school relations as the establishment of a complex relationship between institutions and individuals in specific contexts. Using Bakhtin’s ideas of answerability, which depict a particular kind of responsibility, and addressivity, a conception of the relational nature of being, we explore how parents in one elementary school came to understand and enact relationships with schoolpeople. Answerability and addressivity have located within them ideas of power (What is the ethical response in the development of a child?) and voice (Who gets heard in the discourse of the school?). These concepts provide a framing of relationships that shows us how responsibility is mapped in inquiry on home-school relations. We analyze data from interviews with the parents of kindergarten and first grade children at the beginning and end of an academic year to illustrate enactments of answerability and addressivity through discussions of expectations for their child, themselves, and their child’s teacher.