Socially Distanced Schooling: The Limits of Weak Ties Among Parents in a Pandemic

• In Event: Toward Understandings of Fundraising PTAs as Sites for Exclusion, Engagement, and (In)Equity

Abstract

Purpose
Social capital among parents and educators is assumed to increase trust and reciprocity among stakeholders, enforce desirable social and behavioral norms, and create inclusive participation in school associational life (Bryk et al., 2010; Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 2001). However, participation is rarely egalitarian and opportunities for parents to build and deploy social capital often reify dominant racial- and class-based hierarchies in schooling (Horvat, Weininger, & Lareau, 2003; Murray et al., 2020; Noguera, 2001). Although Parent-Teachers Organizations (PTOs) play a central organizing role in creating and sustaining opportunities for families to build ties to the school, they simultaneously reinforce racial and class-based stratification among families (Lewis-McCoy, 2015; Murray et al., 2019; Posey-Maddox, 2014). This paper leverages PTOs to understand variation in social capital across families and school structural contexts.

In this paper, we seek to understand how PTO structures facilitate the construction of social capital among families, particularly as the mode of schooling changes between in-person and virtual. By examining the variation in the source and forms of parent relationships before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic, our analyses shed light on the organizational structures and practices that produce various forms of social capital, the extent to which those relationships are sustained through structural changes at the school, and how the ability to form relationships and use them instrumentally for educational gain differ across racial- and class- subgroups of families.

Specifically, we ask:
1. How does a racially and socioeconomically diverse school use PTOs to structure opportunities for family engagement?
2. What is the relationship between the social structure of schools and various forms of social capital among families and educators?
3. How does the school structure matter for racial- and class-based differences in access to and deployment of social capital?

Data and Methods
The COVID-19 pandemic provided a unique opportunity to understand the implication of schools’ social structure on family-school life. We follow a single school between 2017 and 2022 to learn about how families’ ability to build and deploy social capital changed as the existing PTO structures paused as they adapted to rapidly changing health protocols during the pandemic. This longitudinal case study leverages school administrative data, survey data, interviews, observations, and document collection to understand racial- and class-based differences in how families build and leverage social connections to secure their educational needs both with and without an active PTO presence. To that end, we pay analytical attention to the sorts of relationships that are enduring and compare them to those that either form or dissolve during the pandemic.

Preliminary Results
In this study, the PTO played a primary role in organizing family-school relationships. PTO leadership had ultimate say over the nature and scope of parent and family involvement initiatives. Additionally, PTO programming was essential in facilitating the construction of social capital between families. However, we find evidence that the absence of these organizations tended to have a larger negative impact on minoritized families than advantaged families whose tightly bonded relationships persisted across the duration of the study period.

Authors

• Brittany C. Murray, Davidson College

• Linda A. Renzulli, Purdue University

• Thurston Domina, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

• Alma N. Garza, University of Texas - Arlington