Abstract
Whilst many practitioners value positive and effective working relationships with parents, enhancing home–school interactions can be complex, especially within highly diverse contexts. Within the UK, partnership working with parents is widely advocated. However, there may exist subtle, but crucial differences between interactions that scaffold parents into a professional’s view of the child and those that attempt to co-construct an understanding of that child. This paper outlines a case study set within a British international school in Thailand, wherein attempts were made to co-construct an understanding between practitioner and parent about each child’s learning. At the onset of the study, it was hypothesised that foregrounding scaffolding could alienate parents who may hold diverse, but equally valuable, perspectives on learning at home. Thus, the co-construction of understanding was emphasised. However, the study indicated that integrating conceptions of scaffolding and co-construction might be most beneficial for partnership working.