Cultural Capital and Schooling: Exploring Student Narratives of Parent Support and Perseverance in School

• In Event: 14.045 - Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: 14.045-15 - The Role of Parents and Parent Narratives in Addressing School and Community Equity

Abstract

This study explored narratives of students re-engaging in secondary school, specifically relating to the ways in which they described the varied types of support they received from their families. In the midst of educational reform discourse that takes a deficit view of students and families who do not follow institutionally recognized norms of parent support, this study seeks to challenge the notion that parents who use non-traditional forms of support do not care about their children’s education. Within Yosso's (2005) cultural community wealth framework, participants described the ways in which the messages they received from interactions with their families helped motivate them to persist through obstacles.

Author

• Nastasia Lawton-Sticklor, Clark University