In Their Own Words: Black Parents on School Suspension

• In Event: Poster Session 5
  In Poster Session: The English Learners in the Mainstream (ELM) Project: A Comprehensive Teacher Training Model

Abstract

The Black child is the most suspended child in America. While research has called attention to the phenomena of a link between school and prison for many Black students, there has been much less examination of the direct impact to students and families. This paper seeks to attach faces to these dismal statistics through a descriptive case study that illustrates the stress and trauma to which Black parents are exposed when their child is suspended. With a personal narrative approach and cultural trauma as a theoretical framework, this paper sheds light on the overwhelming pressure and stress that comes from being a Black parent in an education system that is implicitly, and in some cases explicitly, pushing Black children out.

Author

• Tunette Michele Powell, University of California - Los Angeles