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Focus group findings from 34 African American parents in an urban southern school district unmask subtle and concealed aspects of involvement. In contrast to formalized school-sponsored parent activities, involvement is described by participants as their encompassing a physical presence at the school to monitor their children’s behavior, receiving timely communication from teachers, helping with homework, and being an advocate for their children.

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This paper argues by way of analogy that the psychological descriptors of masochist and sadist, a person who submits or dominates, respectively can aptly describe many aspects of the power relationships teachers and students experience within institutions of public education. Teachers operate in an often ethically contradictory position, torn by systemic expectations and how these expectations are often in discord concerning their benefit to the emotional and intellectual lives of the children put in their charge. Examined are aspects of the present educational context, both in terms of policy and in terms of practice, and the sociopsychological theories that explain this context and offer suggestions for its amelioration. Finally, the piece argues for a change in institutional culture based largely in expansion of the parameters in which students, teachers, and administrators have choices specifically pursuant to a love-ethic for interpersonal interaction (discussed in the latter part of the paper).

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