Lies, Denials, and Cover-Ups: The Pervasiveness of Whiteness in School District Relations With Black Parents and Racialized Parents

• In Event: Advocacy for Equitable Education in the 21st Century: Opportunities and Obstacles

Abstract

"School districts often have numerous statements, policies, and structures that create the illusion of a commitment to equity, inclusion, and more recently, anti-oppression and anti-racism. The focus on parent conferences, parent and community engagement policies, parent advisory committees, family and community support workers, parent and family grants, and school advisory councils, offers an image of a strong commitment to parent engagement, with increasing attention to anti-Black racism, anti-Indigeneity, and other expressions of racism. Yet, the experiences of Indigenous, Black and racialized students and families remain far from equitable, inclusive, or welcoming, and many parents and families continue to fight for education systems that are worthy of their children. As Matias and Mackey (2016) state, if racism is the symptom, the enactment of whiteness is the disease. In parent engagement, it is evident in the protection of racist administrators and institutional scripts that uphold the status quo (Ishimaru & Takahashi, 2017), the limited attention to how school districts navigate district-level equity policies in response to outside pressures from White parents (Horsford et. al, 2019), and in upholding white, middle-class notions of parent engagement (Pushor & Amendt, 2018).
Yet, there have always been parents, families, communities, and collectives that have resisted these racist practices and demanded more for children most marginalized in education. In Ontario, Canada, there is a growing movement of parents rising up against systemic racism and challenging schools and districts to create safer and more humane spaces for their children. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and social movement theory, this study explores the experiences of 11 Black parents, 1 Latinx parent and 1 Middle Eastern parent in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area in Ontario, Canada involved in these efforts. These counter-stories challenge conceptions of educational leadership for racial justice as situated within schools and districts by demonstrating the influence that parent activists and parent collectives have both inside and outside of schooling in their efforts towards racial justice. These stories also challenge race-neutral and power-neutral approaches to parent engagement that deem parent activism towards racial justice as danger and defiance as opposed to the ultimate form of parent engagement.
This study highlights important findings, such as the importance and reach of grassroots parent collectives, strategies used by parent activists to influence formal political and other decision-making bodies, the role of media and social media in sharing counter-stories and holding school districts to account, and the importance of parent movements that engages cross-solidarities and intergenerational visions for racial justice. In particular, we note the importance of Black mothers in this study, against longstanding histories of Black mothering in movements towards racial justice. We conclude with recommendations for scholarship on educational leadership and parent engagement, as well as practical recommendations for parent activism spaces that are central to transformative shifts in racial and intersecting justice in schooling.
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Authors

• Vidya Shah, York University

• Diana Grimaldos, York University