Walking on eggshells: elementary school teacher alienation in parent-teacher relationships in China

Conflicts in the parent-teacher relationships have become conspicuous and inevitable, deteriorating the supposedly mutually beneficial relationship. To understand teachers' negative experiences in such relationships and underlying reasons, this study, based on alienation theory and its latter extensions, collected and analysed eight teachers' in-depth interviews and 47 pieces of school-life observation records in a Chinese elementary school. The findings revealed that although elementary school teachers adopted different strategies to handle parent-teacher relationships, each experienced at least one dimension of alienation (powerlessness, meaninglessness, isolation, or self-estrangement). Especially, they felt "double powerlessness": loss of control in relationships with both the school and parents. To be specific, the major sources of double powerlessness are the big gaps in educational attainment, wealth, and social connections between teachers and parents. However, teachers can still be partially empowered by their identity, colleagues, and even educational bureaucracy to resist alienation.