The Role of Parent Leaders in Supporting the Professional Development of Educators

• In Event: Preparing Educators for Family and Community Engagement: A Spotlight on Co-Constructed Research Approaches

Abstract

Objective:
Educators must have opportunities to learn and practice family and community engagement throughout their careers; not just in their education programs. This research documents how families enrolled in a Parent University workshop developed an equity toolkit that will guide the professional learning of educators in a local school district. Families and their communities are sources of educational knowledge and expertise. Their histories, cultural nuances, modes of survival and moments of joy all shape their lived experiences. Family engagement that is truly transformational is rooted in building authentic, equal partnership between families and schools that acknowledge the social and cultural identities, assets, habits and contexts that families bring to learning in order to create learning environments that are culturally responsive and sustaining for all students.

Theoretical Framework:
Mapp and Bergman’s (2019) Dual Capacity Building Framework situates this work. This Framework recognizes that to promote successful student outcomes, both families and educators must engage in processes that enhance their capabilities, connections, cognition, and confidence. The Framework explicitly calls for families to not just support schools, but to co-create, encourage, monitor, advocate, and model what culturally responsive and sustaining schooling should and could look like.

Methods and Data:
We conducted semi-structured individual interviews with program staff and parents/caregivers involved in Parent University programming during 2021 and 2022, observations of Parent University sessions during the summer of 2021, and documents/notes provided by program staff. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and checked for quality by the research team. We used an emic coding method to identify themes and patterns (Denzin & Lincoln, 2003).

Findings:
Parent University sessions created a space for families to be creative, resourceful, and use their voice to advocate to shift mindsets around the value of parents’ engagement in schools. During the development of the toolkit, families highlighted the various assets they bring to the table when partnering with schools (e.g., learning styles, approaches to problem solving, and varying thought process) that can assist educators in designing new instructional activities aligned with students’ and families’ ways of being.

The resulting racial equity toolkit – interwoven with the voice and stories of families – includes seven learning modules that educators can learn from throughout their careers (1) introduction to equity, 2) representation, 3) intentional planning, 4) partnerships, 5) communicating with families, 6) co-design, and 7) parent/caregiver leadership to better support educators in maintaining parent-school relationships and building culturally responsive and sustaining learning environments.

Implications:
Our findings help to illuminate the pivotal role of families in schools. Parent University families created an asset-based resource linked to learning and development for educators centered on being culturally responsive, collaborative, and interactive. The “Equity in Family Engagement” toolkit supports educators in learning how to uplift the assets, strengths, and skills that families contribute to the cultural knowledge of the classroom.

Mapp, K. L. & Bergman, E. (2019). Dual capacity-building framework for family-school partnerships (Version 2).

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2003). The landscape of qualitative research theories and issues. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Authors

• Danielle M. Perry, New York University
  Presenting Author

• Joanna D. Geller, New York University
  Non-Presenting Author