"Parents Need to Know Their Rights": Black Parents' Response to the School-Prison Nexus

• In Event: Racial Socialization of Black Children: Families' Sociopolitical Preparation in and out of Schools

Abstract

This paper examines responses of parents invited to participate in focus groups about the school prison nexus (SPN). In this paper the words of parents are shared from focus groups titled “Community Conversations” where participants responded to and discussed the SPN (Meiners, 2006) and criminalization of youth in the city. With disproportionate criminalization of youth, suspension, and expulsion of Black students from school (Author 2, 2012; Author 2 & Williams, 2018), the SPN has to be addressed by both schools and communities (Gonzalez, 2012; Muschert et.al, 2014). Studies that have examined the relationship between families and the SPN are often concentrated on the impact of incarceration on the family (Justice for families, 2012). Rarely examined is how families respond or advocate for the demolition of policies or practices that created the arrest in the first place, or the process of building school-community partnerships. In this paper we discuss a portion of our findings when examining the research question What does navigating racial healing practices look like for a local African American community when healing from injustice perpetrated on them by the school community in relationship to the school prison nexus and the criminalization of African American youth?

Drawing from anti-blackness (Dumas, 2017; Sexton, 2008) this paper reinterprets school discipline and the SPN as tools of white supremacy through an anti-blackness lens to construct Black parents within their own experience. In the paper we briefly review the literature on SPN and school discipline. We spend the majority of the literature review constructing anti-blackness in the context of school discipline and especially pay attention to the ways Black parents are constructed as not meeting the involvement standard are schools, while also being the ones who are requesting meetings. Specifically, we are attentive to the ways they are positioned as intimidator and those who are intimidated. The third section provides data and analysis from the community conversations to illustrate the experiences of Black parents and the ways anti-blackness disrupts their children’s learning experiences. Finally, the paper closes with discussion and clear recommendations of advocacy among black parents.

This paper is situated in the AERA 2020 call as we imagine the possibilities for public good when parents know their rights. As one parent responded: “I definitely believe there has to be something where parents know their...parents know their rights. Parents need to know their rights. They have a right to look at grades, they have a right to ask questions about a test question or, they have a right to request a meeting, they have a right at the meeting in leaving after school, they have the right to make a meeting. It's the school's responsibility to make the time for it.” In knowing their rights parents are able to advocate for themselves, their children, and one another. It is important that Black children are getting what they deserve from a system created to exclude them but that is legally obligated to educate them.

Authors

• Timberly Baker, Arkansas State University

• Joy Howard, University of Southern Indiana