Introduction

The Introduction opens with the stories of a Black parent and a Black student who were victims of the school-to-prison pipeline and their journeys to racial justice organizing. These experiences and these stories ground the emergence of the movement to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. The Introduction then recounts the author’s own journey to awareness of the school-to-prison pipeline and describes the development of the community engaged research project upon which the book is based. It recounts the author’s traumatic experiences in the field witnessing the abusive treatment of students and parents of color, and it discusses the challenges faced addressing the author’s privileges and positionality as a white, male professor partnering with and studying organizers and leaders of color based in low-income communities. It ends with an overview of the book and its chapters.

Distinguishing Racism, Not Race, as a Risk Factor for Child Welfare Involvement: Reclaiming the Familial and Cultural Strengths in the Lived Experiences of Child Welfare-Affected Parents of Color

Child welfare-affected parents of color (CW-PaoC) are often described using language that is deficit-focused, their families depicted as fragile and living in a near constant state of crisis and need. This commentary challenges the stereotypes created by hyper-attention to these parents’ struggles and situates them, and their families, within the broader context of the American appetite for family separation, wherein specific types of families are targeted for scrutiny, intervention and regulation. The concept of fragility within families is dissected to illustrate the ways in which racism and classism demarcate certain families for separation. Excerpts from two separate interviews conducted with Black mothers in 2014 and 2020 are used to illustrate how the appetite for family separation is currently fed. Familial and cultural strengths that counteract the prevailing deficit-focused narrative of CW-PaoC, particularly Black parents, are discussed. This commentary ends with a call for the dissolution of the CW system in its current regulatory form and the rebuilding of family-centered supports that center familial strengths.

What’s Fair in Child Welfare? Parent Knowledge, Attitudes, and Experiences

Parents play a critical role in the progression and outcomes of juvenile dependency (child welfare court) cases. Yet, very little is known about these parents’ knowledge, attitudes, and experiences. We examined legal understanding and attitudes among 201 parents involved in ongoing dependency cases in California and Florida via semi-structured, in-person interviews. We expected parents’ understanding to be low and attitudes to be negative, particularly among parents of color and low SES parents. We expected greater dependency understanding to be related to more positive justice attitudes, and procedural and distributive justice attitudes to be indistinguishable in this population. Findings partially confirmed expectations. Parents’ understanding of the system was low, especially among parents of color and less educated parents. Parents felt less than satisfied about the fairness of procedures and decisions. However, procedural and distributive justice attitudes were distinguishable. Finally, and unexpectedly, parents’ knowledge and attitudes were negatively related. The consistently low levels of knowledge across CA and FL suggest the critical need to increase parental knowledge. It is also important to promote fair court procedures and decision-making to improve parents’ attitudes about procedural and distributive justice, which were found to be distinct and important factors among parents navigating juvenile dependency cases.

Elementary principals’ social construction of parents of color and working class parents: Disrupting or reproducing conflicting and deficit orientations of education policy?

School principals, contending with competing characterizations of parents in education policy and society, may view parents in a number of ways. Two common understandings portray parents as authentic partners or, in contrast, simply supporters of the school’s agenda. This paper explores these characterizations by considering the possible link between principals’ understandings of parents and their approaches to parent engagement and/or shared decision making, especially in light of the ways that the social context and education policy construct parents of color and working class parents as deficient. We use the lens of social construction of target populations to add to the currently minimal literature that directly examines principals’ views of parents. We report findings of a multi-phase analysis of surveys of 667 elementary principals in the state of California and interviews with a subgroup of 34 of these principals. We explore how principals structured parent engagement and conceived of the goals and rationales for parent workshops, illustrating how they socially constructed the target population of parents, particularly parents of color and working class parents. We find that principals often constructed parents in terms of deficiencies and as needing to learn to better support school goals. Our findings have profound implications for advancing equity in schools.

Parenting in the Age of High-Stakes Testing: Gifted and Talented Admissions and the Meaning of Parenthood

Background/Context This work contributes to the growing body of scholarly and popular literature on middle-class parental anxiety and competition to ensure their children's academic success. Specifically, this study provides a better understanding of the measures parents will take to obtain high status gifted and talented (G&T) placements that advantage their own children at the expense of others, which is somewhat contradictory given the growing uneasiness they feel about putting their children through the testing process—and paying for test prep—that the system ultimately rewards. By analyzing the different ways in which White parents and parents of color conceive of good parenting in the era of high-stakes testing, I demonstrate the processes in our current educational system that help to produce inequities related to race, class, and G&T identification. Purpose/Objective This paper examines White parents’ beliefs about parenting as it relates to their school choice preferences in the segregated and stratified New York City school system. It also compares the parenting styles and school choices of lower income general education (Gen Ed) parents of color. It explores how parents’ social constructions of where their children belong in school are tied to their beliefs about parenting and doing what is best for their children in a highly competitive society and city. Research Design A qualitative case study was utilized to examine how a diverse group of 52 New York City parents make sense of and interact with an elementary school that offers both a segregated G&T and a Gen Ed program. The semistructured parent interview data was triangulated with school observations, a professional school-choice consultant interview, and an observation of a public school choice workshop for incoming kindergarten parents led by the consultant. Findings/Results The data show that White parents believe that paying for test prep, going through the “hassle of getting your child tested for G&T,” and receiving a high test score are symbolic of being a good parent in the system. In comparison, parents of color had different conceptions of good parenting that did not include prepping for the G&T test or getting into the G&T program, where their children would be in the minority. White parents had social networks of like-minded parents pressuring them to get into the G&T program. Black and Latino parents did not have the same G&T pressure from friends or family, nor did they view a G&T placement as giving their children extra advantages in terms of test scores or future schooling opportunities. Conclusions/Recommendations The findings suggest that the pressure for children to succeed on a single test feeds into parental anxiety and competition regarding getting their children into the high-status G&T program. Instead of trying to avoid an overly anxious parenting culture, the White advantaged parents in this setting get swept up in the test-prepping fad because everyone else is doing it and because of the competitive nature of obtaining a G&T seat. If policy officials want to attack the root of the G&T segregation problem, the city should consider phasing out district G&T programs altogether and instituting school-wide G&T magnets instead.

Infant Sleep Position: A Telephone Survey of Inner-city Parents of Color

Objective. To assess what positions parents were placing their infants to sleep and their opinion about sleep positioning. Design. A prospective telephone survey of parents of 2-month-old infants with repeated measures at 4 months that began during the second wave of the Back to Sleep campaign in 1994. Participants. African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and American Indian parents from inner cities in the north central United States. Results. Preference for prone positioning existed at both 2 and 4 months (over 40%). Twenty-four percent of parents disagreed with the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics regarding supine or lateral positioning. Conclusions. Although prone sleep positioning has decreased over the past 5 years, many inner-city parents of color prefer this over supine. The Back to Sleep campaign appears effective in changing attitudes and medical personnel appear influential in promoting risk reductions associated with sudden infant death syndrome. More efforts are clearly needed to convince parents who disagree with and resist recommendations.sleep, infants, SIDS, African-Americans, Back to Sleep (campaign).