Exploring Black parents’ critical consciousness in relation to their engagement with their children's schools

Abstract

Despite consensus that parent involvement is integral to children's educational success, Black parents’ involvement remains largely characterized from a deficits‐based perspective. Using critical race and critical consciousness theories, this study explored parents’ analysis of educational inequities and their school engagement. Using interview data from a sample of Black parents (n = 20), emergent understandings of parents’ thoughts, motivations, and actions to engage with their child's school were explored. Findings revealed that Black parents held both critical and traditional views, expressed themes of internal and external efficacy in their motivation, and engaged critically and traditionally in their child's education. Results are consonant with literature on Black parents’ engagement and to the nascent understanding of how parents' beliefs about structural racial oppression within schools impacts how they engage in that space.

Fighting Racism Denial; Becoming a Mother‐Scholar‐Activist

“…This resistance includes everyday school engagement and advocacy, like building strong relationships with teachers and administrators to prevent discrimination or meeting with teachers to swiftly address unfair treatment when it does arise (Marchand et al, 2024). Parent-child racial socialization at home is another form of everyday resistance, especially for children in majority-White school contexts (Marchand et al, 2024;Posey-Maddox, 2023). Black parents resist through more formal community organizing and advocacy as well.…”

Shifting systems of racial inequity: Applying critical race psychology to advance racial justice

“…However, drawing heavily on CRT's tenet to contextualize counter narratives, they all center the voices and experiences of people of color as they resist and flourish in systems of racial oppression. Marchand et al (2024) offer a critique of institutional racism in secondary school education, qualitatively analyzing Black parents' lived experiences engaging with their children's schools. Their accounts demonstrate a high level of engagement, which contradicts dominant deficit-based narratives of Black parents' school involvement.…”