“Oh, All of Them. They’re All Mine:” Case Studies of Four School-Engaged Black Mothers Working Towards Educational Justice

• In Event: 52.041 - Working Toward Justice: Examining Different Contexts in Educational Research and Praxis

Abstract

Purpose:
Twenty years after Ladson-Billings and Tate (1995) first applied Critical Race Theory (CRT) to the field of education, this presentation examines CRT’s utility for the conceptualization and practice of educational justice. I use my own research – a multicase analysis of school-engaged Black parents – to illustrate and support the notion of CRT as a framework for conducting research for justice.

Theoretical framework:
Critical Race Theory (CRT) frames this inquiry.

Methods:
Methods include a review of relevant CRT literature, and an examination of the use and implications of CRT in my own qualitative multicase study research (Stake, 2006).

Data sources:
This presentation has two sources of data:
1) Foundational CRT in law and CRT in education literature, as well as literature that specifically examines CRT methodology in education.
2) My critical race multicase study examining how and why school-engaged Black parents involve themselves in their children’s education. This research includes interviews with 20-30 school-engaged Black parents, and further in-depth case studies of 5-10 school-engaged Black parents. In addition to interviews, case studies include participant observation and document analysis.

Conclusions:
The literature makes clear that utilization of CRT in educational research demands inquiry for racial justice and promises to improve the education of those children for whom an education debt is owed (Ladson-Billings, 2006). CRT has informed all aspects of my research process – not only data analysis, but also framing of the literature review and forming a research question, the research methodology, and study implications/next steps – and thus aligns all aspects of my project with work for racial justice. For example, a CRT analysis of parent involvement literature illuminated theoretical and empirical injustices in the field of education, namely that published research about school-engaged parents overwhelmingly focuses on White middle-class parents, centers White experience, and uses class-based frameworks. Thus CRT called for a documentation and analysis of school-engaged Black parents’ experiences (i.e. counter-stories).

Findings point to the salience of racial oppression for Black families, and suggest many Black school-engaged parents involve themselves in their children’s schools with a collective orientation, aiming to improve the school for the entire community rather than focus on the advancement of their own child, which is in contrast to most White middle-class parents (Demerath, 2009; Lipman, 1998; Oakes, 2005; Posey-Maddox, 2014).

Scholarly significance:
As AERA reflects on 20 years of CRT in education, this presentation explores the role of the framework in promoting educational justice for students of color through research.

References:

Demerath, P. (2009). Producing success: The culture of personal advancement in an
American high school. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the achievement gap to the education debt:
Understanding achievement in U.S. schools. Educational Researcher, 35 (7), 3-
12.

Ladson-Billings, G. & Tate, W. F. (1995). Toward a critical race theory of education.
Teachers College Record, 97(1), 47-68.

Author

• Jennifer Leigh Foubert, University of Wisconsin - Madison