Parental Involvement: Rhetoric of Inclusion in an Environment of Exclusion

Abstract

This article explores how parents and school personnel perceived and experienced parental involvement at a school serving a low-income mainly black population. The first author recorded detailed field notes (n=70) and conducted in-depth interviews with parents (n=20) and school personnel (n=20) over a three-year period. Despite rhetoric of inclusion, the school's policies and practices restricted parents to predetermined and acceptable roles of parental involvement. Ideologies of colorblind racism undergirded school policies and practices, thereby maintaining current social hierarchies of white privilege and racial minority disadvantage. This colorblind approach to parental involvement created barriers to the development of authentic relationships and, therefore, the development of a positive, mutual, and respectful relationship between student families and school personnel.

Critical Ethnographies of Education and for Social and Educational Transformation: A Meta-Ethnography

“…They are expressions about ways to build bridges between the institutions of the university, the home and family, the school, and the people there, through critical ethnography in an action research collective. Research by Jacobs (2008), Parsons et al (2018), and Theodorou (2008) ran along these lines too. However, while they tended to reinforce the teachers’ convictions about the value of a reflective, cultural, and critical educational practice for familiarity and familiarization in support of pupils learning from the traditional curriculum, they did not explore and overcome the challenges of deconstructing and changing existing relationships and suturing new ones.…”

“…Aiming to give voice to participants is really a standard of ethnographic research (Eisenhart, 2018). However, in the parental participation research in Spain, giving voice was not just about letting people express themselves, it was also a practice of representation, identity, and power (Ares, 2016; Fabricant & Fine, 2012, 2013; Fine, 1991; Harris, 2010) in the development of agency (Horvat & Antonio, 1999; Parsons et al, 2018). Work by Bouakaz (2007), Crozier and Davies (2007), Crozier (2005), Jacobs (2008), Parsons et al (2018), and Schecter and Sherri (2009) provides examples we are familiar with that tried to do this.…”

“…However, in the parental participation research in Spain, giving voice was not just about letting people express themselves, it was also a practice of representation, identity, and power (Ares, 2016; Fabricant & Fine, 2012, 2013; Fine, 1991; Harris, 2010) in the development of agency (Horvat & Antonio, 1999; Parsons et al, 2018). Work by Bouakaz (2007), Crozier and Davies (2007), Crozier (2005), Jacobs (2008), Parsons et al (2018), and Schecter and Sherri (2009) provides examples we are familiar with that tried to do this. The researchers listened to parents and teachers when formulating research questions and ideas, but moreover, they also gave regular reports about their own actions to open a window of discussion and reflection not only as feedback about what it was that researchers thought they had found out, but also on how they had done their work and might have done things differently from the perspective of others.…”

Las familias en el corazón de la educación inclusiva

“…Un indicador muy claro de que la educación inclusiva no es posible si no se cuenta con las familias, sin su implicación real (Parsons et al, 2018) es el espacio reservado al análisis y promoción de su implicación en las guías encaminadas a ayudar y orientar a los centros escolares en el proceso de su transformación, con la finalidad de ser más inclusivos. Con la pretensión de ilustrarlo, lo analizaremos en cuatro guías diferentes: Alberta Education (2013), Booth y Ainscow (2015), CSIE (2016) e IBE-UNESCO (2016).…”

Promoting professional growth to build a socially just school through participation in ethnographic research

“…Where there are needs of change in participants' lives there are always also possibilities for change as well (Bogotch and Reyes-Guerra 2014;Mansfield 2013Mansfield , 2014 and there is a value in ethnographic research when it comes to identifying and contributing to these developments. Interaction between researchers and participants can influence the practices researched, the perspectives held by actors on these practices, their knowledge, and the ways they put this knowledge to work in schools and classrooms (Carr and Kemmis 1986;Parsons Walsemann, Jones, Knop, and Blake 2018).…”