Centering Community: Recontextualizing Family and School Relationships for Transformative Educational Leadership

• In Event: 26.019 - Toward Justice: Affirming Diverse Families and Communities Through Inclusive School Leadership

Abstract

While educational policymakers and researchers routinely call upon educational leaders to reduce academic achievement disparities between various student groups, little priority has been given to preparing leaders to equitably value, engage, resource, and collaborate with diverse families and communities. Such reforms require fundamentally transforming the dynamics between communities and schools; yet, the traditional school-family-community relations frameworks that dominate educational literature and practice are ahistorical, power-neutral, and culture-blind.
In our presentation, we will introduce an in-depth critical framework that promotes school-family-community engagement practices that affirm diversity and inclusion. We examine five core issues rarely tended to together in school-family-community research, policy, or practice. These issues include: 1) families’ histories with structural oppression and systemic educational inequity; 2) socially and culturally relevant norms of educational engagement; 3) families’ indigenous, educational epistemologies and practices, 4) the democratic function of family advocacy and activism; and, 5) the transformative potential educational leaders have to ally with diverse families to improve schools. We briefly refer to our research on school-family-community contexts in metropolitan Detroit, Seattle, and elsewhere to elucidate our arguments.
Our framework reflects an understanding that the educational landscape that shapes school-family-community engagement is characterized by power differentials, dominant cultural norming, and disregard for the knowledge of marginalized families and community members. We move beyond de-contextualized conceptual models to propose ways educational leaders can enact transformative and equitable engagement.

Authors

• Camille M. Wilson, University of Michigan

• Muhammad Khalifa, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

• Ann M. Ishimaru, University of Washington