Repairing Confianza: A Principal's Efforts for Parent and Community Engagement in a Neoliberal Context

• In Event: Exploring Students' Sense of Belonging and the Home-School Connection

Abstract

This study focuses on the efforts of a high school principal attempting to build trust in a mostly Latinx and African-American urban community. Using ethnographic methods, I study the ways that he navigates tensions surrounding family engagement in an environment where school leaders are pressured to fulfill school district goals to raise achievement levels through neoliberal policies and build trusting relationships to create empowering engagement opportunities. However, the district’s neoliberal tactics of school closures and school choice policies created obstacles to developing community trust. I explore the ways that the principal’s discourse builds his identity and creates space for different definitions of engagement as he aligns with or disrupts district policy to successfully navigate the community’s tensions and build collaboration.

Author

• Ana Julia Contreras, University of Colorado - Boulder