‘School without parents’: problematizing the accounts of vocational school principals about their relationships with their students' parents

This article examines how vocational school principals in Israel view their relationships with their students' parents. Interviews with 26 vocational school principals reveal three predominant themes: lamenting the parents' lack of involvement, describing the parents through the deficit discourse, and adopting a managerial strategy of operating a ‘school without parents.’ This approach to parents carries implications, such as implementing many improvisations in light of the lack of a recognized cultural script of a ‘school without parents’, making educational and therapeutic decisions in place of the parents, taking the role of surrogate parent, and preferring caring practices over the cultivation of the students' academic capital. The Discussion explores these findings through the concept of symbolic violence. Moreover, the Discussion examines the impacts of the principals' descriptions and the symbolic violence accompanying them on establishing and maintaining social inequality and educational stratification.