This paper explores the insights of five social theorists regarding families, schools, and parent-teacher relations. The five theorists are: (1) Urie Bronfenbrenner, a child psychologist and advocate of public policies that support families, who argues that frequent, positive communication between parents and teachers creates the optimal conditions for child development; (2) Talcott Parsons, the sociologist primarily responsible for the development of structural/functional theory in American sociology, who contends parent-teacher contacts are not important beyond some minimal level since, in general, both teachers and parents share the same basic goals for children; (3) Sara Lawrence Lightfoot, a sociologist of education, who points to characteristics of family and school life that result in conflict and distancing between parents and teachers; (4) Jane Roland Martin, a philosopher of education and feminist, who focuses on the education of girls and women in order to understand the purposes of education for both males and females; and (5) Miriam David, a British social policy analyst who has combined Marxist and feminist perspectives in her studies of the politics of education. Each of the theorists is introduced in turn; their ideas are summarized, compared to those analyzed earlier, and critiqued. Issues raised by the theorists are summarized in the form of a list of questions for further research. (AC)