A School-Based Support Group for Urban African American Parents

Research on parental educational involvement has been organized into three overarching domains—home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and academic socialization. Conventional empirical work in these domains typically centers involvement strategies around White, middle-class experiences rather than examining how optimal parenting approaches vary by race and context. Even fewer studies have explored the manifestations of involvement across these categories in underresourced urban educational settings. In response, the current study draws on the voices of African American parents and their children attending urban public schools to describe the distinct approaches to home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and academic socialization that parents use to ensure a quality education for their children. Findings demonstrate how African American parents engage in racially infused and contextually tailored navigational involvement approaches as they seek to offset the effects of inhibiting educational contexts. Results add ecological nuance and new typologies to how parental involvement in education is conceptualized across the settings.

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Fortifying Parent Partnerships Through the Black Church Space

Advances in Educational Marketing, Administration, and Leadership - Social Justice and Parent Partnerships in Multicultural Education Contexts ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-3943-8.ch007 ◽

2018 ◽

pp. 118-137

Author(s):

Libra N. Boyd

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Black Church ◽

African American Parents ◽

Technology Access ◽

School Based ◽

The Social ◽

Parent Partnerships ◽

Successful School ◽

Collaborative Activities ◽

Community Space

This chapter examines the Black Church as a community space for African American families to engage in collaborative activities with schools. The author explores why the Black Church functions as a desirable space for collaborations between schools and African American parents, as well as how schools can make greater use of church space to strengthen their parent partnerships. The author identifies several barriers to successful school-based partnerships including parent work schedules, socioeconomic status, mistrust of mainstream education, busyness of school staff, limited technology access and proficiency, and lack of culturally relevant experiences. The author offers recommendations for expanding outreach efforts with approaches that lean on the social and cultural relevance of the Black Church as well as some of its resources.

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African-American Parents' Knowledge and Perceptions About BMI Measurements, School-Based BMI Screening Programs, and BMI Report Cards: Results from a Qualitative Investigation and Implications for School-to-Parent Communication

Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities ◽

10.1007/s40615-015-0149-0 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 3 (2) ◽

pp. 320-330 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

Dominique G. Ruggieri ◽

Sarah Bauerle Bass

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Report Cards ◽

African American Parents ◽

Qualitative Investigation ◽

Parent Communication ◽

Screening Programs ◽

School Based

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APA Journals Article Spotlight: Perceived Underemployment Among African American Parents: What Are the Implications for Couples' Relationships?

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e500892020-001 ◽

2020 ◽

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

African American Parents

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Racial Identity Beliefs of African American Parents: A Qualitative Approach

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e664732012-001 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Allana Zuckerman ◽

Dominique Thomas ◽

Ciara P. Smalls

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Racial Identity ◽

Qualitative Approach ◽

African American Parents

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Achieving Social Mobility Through Education: An Ethnographic Study of African American Parents

PsycEXTRA Dataset ◽

10.1037/e665292012-001 ◽

2012 ◽

Author(s):

Ashland Thompson ◽

Sherry C. Eaton ◽

Linda M. Burton ◽

Whitney Welsh ◽

Jonathan Livingston ◽

...

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Social Mobility ◽

Ethnographic Study ◽

African American Parents

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Nuanced and Dissenting Voices

10.1093/oso/9780199959723.003.0004 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Peggy J. Miller ◽

Grace E. Cho

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Working Class ◽

Cultural Context ◽

Self Esteem ◽

The Self ◽

African American Parents ◽

Dominant Discourse ◽

Social Positioning ◽

Conservative Christian ◽

Bakhtinian Theory

Chapter 4, “Nuanced and Dissenting Voices,” examines the nuances diverse parents brought to their understandings of childrearing and self-esteem. Framed within Bakhtinian theory, this chapter gives voice to African American parents, working-class parents, conservative Christian parents, and mothers, particularly women who had experienced low self-esteem. These parents endorsed self-esteem, but refracted the language of the self-esteem imaginary in ways that made sense, given their diverse values and ideological commitments, social positioning, and idiosyncratic experiences. This chapter also describes the perspectives of two groups from the larger study who challenged key elements of the dominant discourse: grandmothers of Centerville children who raised their children in an earlier era, and Taiwanese parents who grew up in a different cultural context but were temporarily residing and raising their children in Centerville. These two groups of dissenters underscore again the book’s theme that self-esteem is rooted in time and place.

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