The Ambassador Program: An Emerging Strategy for Community-Driven Educational Justice Organizing

• In Event: Community Schools Across Cities: At the Intersections of Inequity, Power, and Radical Possibilities

Abstract

Objectives
This research focuses on the organizing practices of the Philadelphia Community Schools Task Force (PCSTF), an independent, citywide entity that advocates for neighborhood public schools and delivers the Ambassador Program, a community-based initiative that strengthens educational justice leadership. This paper focuses on the following critical participatory action research (CPAR) objective: to document and assess the efficacy of the community schools organizing approach with a focus on the Ambassador Program.

Theoretical & Methodological Framework
This study is situated within scholarship that centers parent and community engagement in education and socioeconomic reform (Lopez, 2003; Noguera, 2001; Warren 2005, 2011; Warren & Mapp, 2011). Extensive research has connected poverty-related adversity with educational and social indicators, including: academic achievement, learning, literacy, attendance, social and emotional development, employment, and so on (see Bumgarner & Brooks-Gunn, 2015; Darling-Hammond, 2010). Furthermore, education disparities and intergenerational economic inequality are highly correlated with race, ethnicity, language and social status (Carter & Welner, 2013; Orfield, 2014). The community schools approach advocated by the PCSTF reimagines public schools as community hubs and a comprehensive anti-poverty strategy.

Critical participatory action research is a methodological framework committed to democratic principles of equity and justice (Torre, 2014). Teaching community members how to design and conduct research begins with the assumption that marginalized communities possess critical experience, insights, and knowledge for defining problems, innovating solutions, and evaluating impact.

Data
This three-year multimodal qualitative study began in January 2017 and follows the public school calendar (Sept-Aug). The initial year focused on training the research team and evaluating the Ambassador Program. The research team documented and assessed the Ambassador Program with: videos, participant observations, and field notes of meetings and events; post-participation surveys; and phone interviews and two focus groups about the Ambassador Program. We conducted an inductive and deductive thematic analysis of the Ambassador Program data set (Braun & Clarke, 2006). First, we identified themes at the surface level of meaning. Second, we examined specific moments of learning and relationality to help us understand what happens when community members come together to work toward educational justice.

Results
Three key themes emerged from the Ambassador Program data-set:1) bridging the disconnection among educational stakeholders is crucial to holistically addressing the needs of families and communities, 2) building relationships is interconnected with creating sustainable accountability mechanisms within and across stakeholders, and 3) revising the language, principles and corresponding practices in order to assert and maintain a “from the ground up” approach within a context of a district-wide community schools initiative. Together, these themes provide a framework for building community-led educational justice movements.

Scholarly significance
As national examples of district-wide community schools strategies increase (see Oakes, Maier, & Daniel, 2017), the Philadelphia context provides a vital opportunity to identify practices that effectively transform neighborhood public schools to true democratic institutions. This research supports the evolution of the Ambassador Program and Network—the first program of its kind—in order to develop a best-practices strategy of educational organizing that can be replicated in other locales.

Authors

• Kristen P. Goessling, The Pennsylvania State University - Brandywine

• Shivaani Aruna Selvaraj, Penn State University

• Kendra Brooks

• Caitlin Elizabeth Fritz, The University of Pennsylvania

• Zakia Royster-Morris