The Education Doctorate (Ed.D.) and Educational Leader Dispositions and Values in England and the United States

Education Success for Black Children in the Public School System: Parent Participation and Community Empowerment

“…Cultural straddlers who develop a bicultural network orientation or who can cross between more than one culture by developing a multicultural network orientation (Taysum & Slater, 2014) are able to navigate the education system effectively. Carter (2008) argued that a way to develop a bicultural network or multicultural network is to develop identity schemas in the classroom.…”

“…Developing identity schemas may enable communities to identify where cultural alignment does and does not empower all students to decode the education system (Taysum, 2016). Developing such bicultural or multicultural identities (Taysum & Slater, 2014) arguably affords access to the kinds of capital required for school success and for successful transitions to college, the labor market, and middle-class benefits based on merit rather than on privilege.…”

“…Teachers require time to think about their pedagogical relationships with their students in relation to their students' diverse identities, and they need to have thought through their own multicultural identities (Taysum & Slater, 2014). If time for this is not created, there will not be time to challenge problems of racism, exclusion, inequality, and students feeling disrespected and misrecognized.…”

“…Cork (2005) affirms that professional ideologies and hegemonies exclude Black children and their parents in Britain, which leads to cultural misalignment resulting in an achievement gap. Cross-cultural critique of different identity schemas or world views with staff, students, and parents taking an intergenerational participatory approach may enable the development of multicultural identities that support social cohesion (Banks, 1998;Gillborn, 2008;Gillborn, Rollock, Vincent, & Ball, 2012;Rich, 2013;Taysum & Slater, 2014;Waghid, 2010). The development of multicultural identities in classrooms empowers parents and their Black children to develop the funds of cultural capital that are dominant in schools to optimize learning and learning outcomes.…”

“…To enable parents of Black children to advocate for the development of democratic, inclusionary, and respectful education systems, three areas need to be addressed. First, parents of Black children need the capital and opportunities to build relationships with the school through authentic invitations to bicultural and multicultural networks underpinned by inclusion, respect, and trust (Lareau, 2000;Lareau & Horvat, 1999;Möllering, 2001;Taysum & Slater, 2014). Second, parents need to use these bicultural and multicultural home-school relationships to advocate for their Black youth's identity schemas to maintain pride and selfesteem in Black familial discourses (Carter, 2005).…”