Parents’ Use of Digital Literacies to Support their Children with Disabilities in Online Learning Environments

Abstract

An emerging research base has highlighted various roles and responsibilities that parents of students with disabilities accept when they enroll their children in online schools. Since finding and using online texts and using various programs and applications that require search and evaluation skills to do work are typical for online learning, it follows that part of parent responsibilities in many families might involve using basic technological literacies or even more advanced digital ones. To focus on the range of technological literacies that parents employ, researchers gathered self-report data from parents about how they engage with online education technologies while working with their children with disabilities. Interviews with (n = 32) parents across six states in the West, Midwest, and Southern United States revealed that parents employ various skills with a specific set of purposes in mind. Literacies were used to (a) perform basic technological computing tasks, (b) evaluate information to supplement existing instructional materials, and (c) communicate with the school about children’s needs. Reported purposes for using these skills emerged as (a) instructing, (b) monitoring, (c) advocating, and (d) learning school expectations. Implications of this study include the potential for literacy-based approaches to parent preparation for supporting vulnerable children in online settings.

Online Learning: Engaging Families Using Culturally Relevant Pedagogy

“…Remote learning shifts the power and focus away from the school building, thereby disrupting the traditional structure of education (Rice & Ortiz, 2021). When online learning is implemented with strategies that are culturally relevant, students and families have the opportunity to experience emancipation from oppressive, hegemonic structures and be co-collaborators in their child’s education.…”

“…Educational leaders particularly stressed the need to connect with families of students who are more vulnerable such as English learners (EL) and students with disabilities (Johnson et al, 2022). However, parents often feel like middle-managers rather than collaborative partners when helping to facilitate remote learning for their child with a disability (Rice & Ortiz, 2021).…”

“…Returning to the same institutional and curricular structures that oppressed Black students and other traditionally marginalized populations does not support educational progress for all students (Ladson-Billings, 2021). When applied to parent engagement, CRP provides a framework educators can use to move past status quo views of parents as teacher-helpers (Rice & Ortiz, 2021) toward sincere partnerships where parent knowledge is highly regarded and their criticality encouraged as an instrument for change.…”

“…In an online setting, educators must be proactive about intentionally creating opportunities for families to interact. Rice and Ortiz (2021) found that most school communication was one-sided, with schools preparing lectures and trainings to direct rather than collaborate with parents. As families engage with each other, they build on their collective critical consciousness.…”

Special Education Teachers’ Entangled Agencies, Intersectional Identities, and Commitments to Equity and Inclusion

“…Oftentimes the adult overseeing the technologies used in this way is a teacher (Boot, Dinsmore, Khasnabis, & MacLachlan, 2017; Neca, Borges, & Pinto, 2020). In cases where students are learning in fully online or remote settings, this adult might also be an on-site mentor, parent, or another caregiver who again, is usually assumed to be a white woman (Rice & Ortiz, 2021, 2022). Such understandings unfold within technofeminist conceptions where social identities, such as gender are regarded to play a role in one’s relationships with technologies (Barad, 1998; Wajcman, 2010).…”