Why We Gather: Educational Empowerment and Academic Success Through Collective Black Parental Involvement

• In Event: 25.070 - No Choice Is the Right Choice: Understanding Black Parents' School "Choices" and Engagement

Abstract

Though previous literature has explored the role of parents in education, scholarship has failed to empirically demonstrate the influence voluntary parent groups have on the educational trajectory of Black students. Using the dual frameworks of institutional agency and community cultural wealth, the author illustrates how one parent organization negotiates an environment in which their racial group comprises less than 5% of the population to effectively guide students to academic success.

Three bodies of literature inform the investigation of the collective role that Black parents play in their students’ education—parental involvement in education, institutional agents (Stanton-Salazar, 2010) and community cultural wealth (Yosso, 2005). This literature provides an overarching framework that articulates how “African American parents often do not control the political discourse on education, nor do those at the forefront of reform actively seek out African American parents” (Martin, 2006, p. 200). It is, therefore, important to consider the role that parents—Black parents in particular—play in reform efforts (Martin, 2006). This framework informs this study’s analysis of how Black parents were able to create, maintain, and extend their influence in the academic success of their children.

This study is qualitative as this provided the best method by which to access perspectives of parents and students—how parents and students view the organization as a whole and the specific components of the organization that are most pertinent to students and parents on an individual level. Interviews, observations, and document analysis created the data used in this paper. Under the guidance of the critical paradigm I worked to elucidate the cultural phenomenon of collective Black parental involvement and high-achieving students in a meaningful way that does not distort the data (Van Maanen, 2011). Participants all lived in a suburban community in Los Angeles County.

The existing depictions of Black parental involvement do not fully capture the experience and needs of the participants in this study. Parents stressed three factors that provide insight on the establishment, sustainability and accomplishment of the organization—(1) accountability, (2) alliances and networks and (3) legitimacy. There are three key ways to think about parental involvement in education: (1) our notion of what it means to be an involved parent transcends the walls of the school (as evidenced in the discussion of alliances and networks and legitimization), (2) parental involvement for Black families can sometimes be more likened to community involvement and (3) the community can and when necessary, should serve as the author and finisher of Black student’s educational fates.

Research in and with communities of color are important, relevant, and necessary to the advancement of education. While the stories shared in this paper might be typical within the organization, the data is counter to the dominant rhetoric describing Blacks in education in the larger society. The evidence provided in this study demonstrates that CAAP simultaneously acts as a bulwark against injustices encountered by Black students and parents in the school and the community and as a springboard for valuable resources for Black parents and students.

Author

• Raquel M. Rall, University of California - Riverside