Choosing Diversity, Organizing for Equity: Middle-Class Parents' Collective Engagement in Gentrifying Schools

• In Event: Expanding School Choice Narratives: Parents, Teachers, and Rural, Suburban, and Urban School Choice

Abstract

Middle-class parent engagement in urban schools is hypothesized to infuse resources and transform schools in ways that benefit all students. Broadly, researchers have found that middle-class parent engagement can exacerbate or create new patterns of inequity (Cucchiara, 2019; Posey-Maddox, 2014). However, middle-class parents’ perspectives and orientations toward other people’s children may foster the conditions for their investments to benefit all stakeholders in urban schools (Cucchiara & Horvat, 2009).

This paper draws on data collected for a multisite case study of school gentrification in Washington, DC. This analysis centers on two schools in one gentrifying neighborhood where middle-class parents have organized to promote inclusive school communities and support practices designed to reduce opportunity gaps in achievement, discipline, and access to advanced classes. Three questions guide this analysis: 1) What factors motivate middle-class parents’ decisions to choose urban elementary schools, 2) How do the changing contexts of urban schools and neighborhoods influence middle-class parents’ engagement practices, and 3) How do middle-class parents’ collective engagement promote equity and inclusion in gentrifying schools?

The analysis leverages ecological perspectives on parent engagement (Barton et al., 2004) and ParentCrit (DePouw, 2018; DePouw & Matias, 2016) to frame parents’ motivations and strategies for engaging with schools. These frameworks offer analytic power to investigate the “whys” of parent engagement as influenced by the social and temporal contexts as well as parents’ commitments to challenging white supremacy and other forms of subordination in schools. Data sources include interviews with a sample of 15 middle-class parents and 10 school staff members, conducted between April 2020 and June 2021, observations of Parents for Equity and Inclusion (PEI) meetings, as well as a review of documents (e.g., the PEI mission statement).

Interviewed parents’ commitments to diversity and their neighborhoods shape their schooling decisions. Parents believed that their children would benefit from attending racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse schools. Moreover, parents were acutely aware of how gentrification processes threatened the very features that attracted them to their schools. Parents frequently referenced how gentrification and middle-class parents’ actions exacerbated inequities in nearby schools and other metropolitan areas. For these parents, their engagement practices were motivated by a desire to “be on the right side” of demographic change in their schools.

PEI, a parent-led initiative, became a key vehicle for parents’ organizing efforts across the two schools. Group members routinely used this space to name and challenge inequities both within the school communities. At the forefront of this work is the mission to “advocate for all children as if they were our own.” Parents’ organizing has prompted several changes across the schools, including increasing diversity and shared leadership on other school-based parent committees (e.g., PTOs and school advisory teams).

The findings from this study complicate our understanding of middle-class parent engagement in gentrifying schools. Study findings reveal the importance of the broader social context in informing parents’ motivations and engagement practices. Additionally, study findings illustrate how middle-class parents’ orientations can create the conditions for their engagement to benefit the collective school community.

Author

• Alisha Butler, Wesleyan University