Negotiating positive student identities: what can we learn by listening to the voice of parents?

The question as to why some children fail to thrive in our education systems in the Western world has motivated a large and diverse body of research that spans many decades and the ongoing debate shows, that the question of success or failure is a complex one. One element of that complex picture, not yet fully understood, is the intergenerational character of educational failure and the social processes through which this transmission occurs. This paper reports on an ongoing qualitative study concerned with the intergenerational factor which has revealed that the beliefs parents bring to their interactions with their child regarding educational matters can have an immense impact, in complex ways, on their child's reality as a learner and in terms of their child's motivation to succeed in the education system. These beliefs arise in part from a parents own experiences in the education system and it seems that they can be passed down through the generations. It is emerging in this research that 'class' is a factor influencing the beliefs parents bring to important interactions regarding their child's reality in the education system.