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PISA in Focus N°98 - Do parents of 15-year-olds know many of their child’s school friends and their parents?

Parents often establish fruitful relationships with teachers, students and other parents at their child’s school. By doing so, they might gain new friends and help their child’s academic career; but more crucially, they may contribute indirectly to the common good of the school – by reinforcing the norms of behaviour at school, spreading important information, generating trust and/or connecting the school with the wider community.

PISA asked parents from the 18 countries and economies that chose to distribute the parent questionnaire how many of their child’s school friends they know by name and how many of their parents they know. On average across the OECD education systems that distributed the parent questionnaire, parents reported that they know about five of their child’s school friends and four of the parents of their child’s friends.