How do teachers evaluate their parent communication competence? Latent proﬁles and relationships to workplace behaviors Martin Gartmeier a, * , Markus Gebhardt a , Benjamin Dotger b a Technische Universit€ at München, TUM School of Education, Arcisstr. 21, 80333 München, Germany b Syracuse University, School of Education,161 Huntington Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA highlights  677 German mathematics-teachers evaluated their parent communication competence.  24% showed high, 36% medium and 16% showed lower competence with balanced proﬁles.  24% exhibited a focus on problem solving in communication with parents.  Higher competence related to more exchange with colleagues on parent-issues.  Competence did not relate to time spent working with parents. article info Article history: Received 5 May 2015 Received in revised form 26 November 2015 Accepted 10 January 2016 Available online xxx Keywords: Parent-teacher communication Parent counseling Teacher competence Teacher collaboration Teacher learning abstract Parent-teacher communication competence, frequency of exchange on parent-related issues with col- leagues and time spent working with parents were measured with questionnaires in a sample of 677 German mathematics teachers. A latent class analysis revealed four groups of teachers: 24% showed high, 36% showed medium and 16% showed lower levels of communication competence with balanced pro- ﬁles. A fourth proﬁle (24%) showed a strong focus on pragmatic problem solving in communication with parents. The proﬁles differed in the extent of their exchange with colleagues on parent-related issues. No relationships were found regarding the time spent talking to parents. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Talking to parents is an important task that teachers face in their everyday work (Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005; Hertel, Bruder, Jude, & Steinert, 2013; Hoover-Dempsey, Bassler, & Bris- sie, 1987; Hornby, 2011; Lasky, 2000; Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2004; Walker & Dotger, 2012). The relevance of this task is underscored by current reports of parents acting in more and more demanding ways when meeting teachers (Shoup, Gonyea, & Kuh, 2009; Wilhelm, Esdar, & Wild, 2014). Moreover, teachers' communica- tion competencies are operationalized and depended upon as the primary resource for establishing effective family-school partnerships (Christenson & Reschly, 2010). The international literature reﬂects that teachers are poorly prepared for the communication aspect of their professional work, especially regarding interactions with parents (Aich, 2011 [GER]; Dotger, 2010 [US]; Evans, 2013 [US]; Epstein, 2013 [US]; Hornby & Witte, 2010 [NZ]; Lemmer, 2012 [ZA]; Neuenschwander et al., 2005 [CH]; Symeou, Roussounidou, & Michaelides, 2012 [CY]). This is also documented in a survey of 60 teacher education programs in 22 different federal US-states (Shartrand, Weiss, Kreider, & Lopez, 1997). It was found that only 23% of the programs allowed teacher candidates to interact with families during ﬁeld experi- ences (cf. also Walker & Dotger, 2012; Denessen, Bakker, Kloppenburg, & Kerkhof, 2009). A seldom explicated consequence of this situation is that teachers are challenged to acquire and develop the necessary communication competencies through informal learning processes associated with their everyday work (e.g., Billett, 2001; Fuller, Hodkinson, Hodkinson, & Unwin, 2005). * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: martin.gartmeier@tum.de (M. Gartmeier), markus.gebhardt@ tum.de (M. Gebhardt), bdotger@syr.edu (B. Dotger). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Teaching and Teacher Education journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tate http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2016.01.009 0742-051X/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Teaching and Teacher Education 55 (2016) 207e216