Fever Dreams: Black Parents Creating Radical Education Imaginaries During COVID-19

• In Event: The Promise and Limitations of Parent Pandemic Innovation for K–12 Policy and Practice

Abstract

Purpose
Anti-Blackness is embedded in the justifications and designs of education policy such as school desegregation and school discipline (Dumas, 2016; Dumas & Ross, 2016). Due to anti-Black realities, there are social movements toward Black educational equity. One contribution of Black social movements is that they create radical Black imaginaries or visions of an emancipatory future (Kelley, 2002). Scholarship employing the concept of the Black imaginary is limited in the K-12 education field. The work that does exist is largely theoretical (Love, 2019; Stoval, 2017, 2018). Research has yet to use the radical Black imagination as a conceptual lens to examine policy actors or policy design. To contribute to this gap, I examine two Black parent advocacy organizations and their work during the COVID-19 pandemic. I ask: What visions of education did two Black parent advocacy organizations build during the COVID-19 pandemic? How might the organizations’ COVID-19 work shape their policy advocacy moving forward?

Theoretical framework
This study is guided by Kelley’s (2002) scholarship on the Black radical imagination. Kelley writes that the “existence of social movements enable participants to imagine something different, to realize that things need not always be this way” (p. 9). Imaginaries allow Black communities to conceptualize an existence outside of oppression. Further, Black imaginaries create a vision of the policies and practices worth fighting for (Kelley, 2002). As Kelley writes, without imaginaries Black people “don’t know what to build, only what to knock down” (p. xii). I use the concept of Black imaginers to examine programming two Black advocacy organizations built during the pandemic and how their solutions might shape policy and practice moving forward.

Methods
I conducted a cross-case study of two Black parent advocacy organizations during the 2020-2021 school year (Yin, 1994). The Oakland REACH designed a virtual school to supplement students’ pandemic learning in Oakland, California. The Black Mother’s Forum created two micro-schools for Black students in Phoenix, Arizona. Study data were collected virtually and consist of semi-structured interviews from both cases (n=41) and documents (n=12). I used multiple aspects of the constant comparative method (Boeije, 2002) and data displays (Miles & Huberman, 1994) to analyze and refine the findings.

Findings
Preliminary findings suggest that both organizations used the upheaval of COVID-19 to move away from traditional forms of advocacy (i.e., policy campaigns, attending school board meetings) to directly providing educational services to families. In these spaces, the organizations were able to design pro-Black educational programs rooted in community knowledge. Participants across both cases suggested that post-pandemic they would advocate for the replication of their model within schools and districts. Data also indicates that in both organizations there were tensions over racial inclusion, future directions, and partnerships.

Significance
This study conceptualizes how Black imaginaries forged during the COVID-19 pandemic might shape Black parent advocacy in the post-COVID-19 era. These findings offer lessons for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to address educational inequity.

Author

• Eupha Jeanne Daramola, University of Southern California