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Abstract A collaborative and close partnership between families and schools is often seen by researchers and policy makers as a positive policy tool to improve students’ academic performance. However， the literature suggests that parents， especially those from rural areas， are less likely to participate in schools. Based on a long-term ethnographic study， this work describes the strategy of “networking” employed by rural parents in school participation. It points out that， since the formal school system and organizational relationship are always embedded in a wider network of social relationships， the impersonal bureaucracy is easy to be changed by those interpersonal efforts， under the condition that the organizational relationship supported by the system itself is structurally weak. Since the strategy of networking requires sustained investment， it results in a lack of motivation for the average rural household to keep in touch with teachers due to lack of market power or rational calculation， which plays an important role in social reproduction. Therefore， it is of theoretical and practical significance to start from the local reality of China， try to break through the dichotonmy of “strong networks” and “weak networks” that are often used in existing research in terms of conceptualization， emphasize the social constructive nature of networks themselves， and analyze their possible effects on social reproduction.
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Received: 25 May 2022
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2022, Vol. 61 
