Race and Parental Desires: What Teachers Need to Understand

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Reimagining Black Parenting in School and Community

Abstract

In examining family-school relations amongst Black families (BFams), scholars have under-analyzed the significance of race, even as it profoundly shapes everyday experiences and opportunities. When race has been considered meaningfully, the focus has been on BFams’ concerns that their children will experience racism in school and on their individual or collective efforts to combat these experiences. What is less clear is how race permeates BFams’ explicit articulations of what they want for their children’s educational experiences. Drawing upon interviews with BFams and teachers in one racially diverse school, we explore BFams’ racialized desires for their children compared to teachers’ accounts of their pedagogical practices. We consider implications not only for BFams’ involvement but for school and teacher practice.

Authors

• Carla D. O'Connor, University of Michigan

• Alaina Neal-Jackson, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

• Mara D Johnson, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor