“Parent Leadership and Voice”: How Mid-Level Administrators Appropriate Pre-Kindergarten Parent Involvement Policy

Abstract

In the United States, where public pre-K has recently undergone rapid expansion, pre-K policies often include a mandate for parent involvement. We analyze a pre-K parent involvement policy in the state of Michigan, demonstrating the ways mid-level administrators appropriated the policy. We show how the silences and tensions embedded in the policy became visible as the policy was appropriated by these actors. We argue that while the policy sought to “empower” parents, it simultaneously created subject positions that reified traditional notions of desirable parent involvement. This study points to the need for policies that address the complex nature of parent involvement and the importance of understanding the role of mid-level actors in policy appropriation.

Uncovering new opportunities for family engagement during COVID-19

“…As we spoke to teachers about their experiences teaching preK during the pandemic, we were struck by the centrality of interactions and relationships with families in their reflections. Although family engagement has long been a centerpiece of GSRP policy (Wechsler et al, 2018; Wilinski & Morley, 2021; Wilinski & Vellanki, 2020), the conditions of the pandemic appeared to have fostered a new type of responsiveness among teachers to family needs, while also providing families with a new window into their children’s preK experiences and creating new roles for them in the teaching and learning process.…”

Parent–practitioner engagement in early education and the threat of negative thinking about the poor across England and the USA

“…In the UK and the USA -the contexts focused upon in this article -politicians have moved away from an earlier resistance to supporting policies which encroach too extensively into family life. The UK government and the US Federal government, along with individual States, have become increasingly active in family and parenting policy to support interventionist approaches in the last two decades (Eisenstadt and Oppenheim, 2019: 148;Wilinski and Morley, 2019). Some differences between the policy approaches adopted by successive UK governments are evident (Eisenstadt and Oppenheim, 2019).…”

“…There is, however, one common feature of family policy between the UK and USA that runs through the period since the millennium began. This has been growing emphasis upon ECEC as a core part of provision which can support parents and children (DHSS & DE, 2016: 1;Eisenstadt and Oppenheim, 2019: 105;Wilinski and Morley, 2019).…”

“…Federal programmes such as Early Head Start and Head Start are targeted at the poor and place an emphasis upon parental engagement as an important factor in the development of young children (Ansari and Gershoff, 2015: 562;Nix et al, 2018: 106). Many States have actively supported an emphasis on parental engagement which locates low-income families as the subjects of intervention by expanding Pre-K (Pre-Kindergarten) and other ECEC provision (Stark, 2010;Wilinski and Morley, 2019).…”

Reconceptualizing Family Engagement as an Improvisational Practice: Lessons from Pre-K Teachers’ Practices During COVID-19

“…Indeed, tensions around agency pervade existing literature on family engagement. Elsewhere, family engagement is termed “parental involvement,” referencing a more traditional—“doing to”—model of interacting with families (Wilinski & Morley, 2021 ). In this article, we use “family engagement” to signal the “doing with” dynamic of responsive practice, both imagined in GSRP policy and enacted by GSRP teachers.…”