Holla if you hear me; giving voice to those we have missed: A qualitative examination of Black middle class parents' involvement and engagement activities and relationships in public secondary schools

Despite increased access to the desired cultural capital on the part of their families, middle class Black students have continued to under perform. With this epidemic as the impetus, in an effort to examine Black middle class parents' perceptions of engagement, their relationships with public school officials, and the confluence of race and class as it pertains to their engagement, this project examines the following questions: (1) How do Black middle class parents characterize or describe their experiences within schools and with school officials1? (2) Do race and class influence parent engagement in schools? If so, how? If not, why? (3) According to Black middle class parents, what practices do school personnel employ that most serve to facilitate or thwart their engagement.;Theoretical/conceptual framework. While there are a number of studies concerning the benefits of parent involvement, the Ecologies of Parent Engagement (EPE) conceptual framework considers the hows and whys of parent engagement, and how the process of engagement relates more broadly to parents' experiences and actions both in and out of the school community (Calabrese Barton, Drake, Gustavo, St. Louis, & George, 2004). EPE uses the term engagement rather than involvement in an attempt to reflect a more authentic relationship between parents and schools. In explaining an EPE framework, parent engagement is situated as a relational phenomenon that relies on activity networks and the crucial importance that both space and capital play in the relative success parents have in engaging in the academic setting of schools.;The theoretical framework used to situate this study is Critical Race Theory (CRT). CRT serves to challenge and dismantle prevailing notions of fairness, meritocracy, colorblindness, and neutrality in the education of racial minorities (Parker, Deyhle, & Villenas, 1999). Critical race scholars theorize about race along with other forms of subordination and the intersectionality of racism, classism, sexism, and other forms of oppression. These thoughts are particularly pertinent as it relates to Black middle class parents as we see clearly the plausibility of this group of people facing possible forms of oppression, exclusion, and subordination surrounding issues of race and class. CRT is useful in examining the experiences of Black middle class parents in public schools given the fact this study addresses issues of race and class with parent engagement, and a theoretical framework that explicitly acknowledges the salience of race and class in every day life, including schools, is necessary in order to capture the nuanced implications of this intersection.;Methods. A qualitative design, specifically the case study approach, using a phenomenological lens (Dyson & Genishi, 2005) to analyze the data, was used to ascertain a social phenomenon by looking at what is "interesting" and "surprising" in the parents' reporting of their experiences with public school officials, their perspectives regarding engagement in these spaces, and the societal influences involved in these interactions (Burawoy, Camson, & Burton 1991). Case studies provided a depth and richness of description that allowed me to generate ideas and produce theoretical conclusions (Lincoln & Guba, 2002). My aim was to represent the sixteen cases authentically, on their own terms to amplify the voices of those whose experience as well as perspective often go unheard (Rothman, 1986).;Implications of race in class in parent-school relations experienced by the middle class Black parents in this study are considered with the use of CRT which was an important intellectual and social tool for deconstruction, reconstruction, and construction: deconstruction of the racialized and, at times, exclusionary policies and practices parents encountered at their children's schools, reconstruction of agency as depicted in the examples given by the Black middle class parents who took deliberative, intentional actions to advocate on their children's behalf, and finally, the construction of an ideal model for equitable and socially just relations of power between Black middle class parents and school officials. In this study, race superceded any factor in determining how parents and school officials related to one another. If school officials and Black middle class parents are to realize an authentic, democratic, mutually beneficial, reciprocal partnership, issues they have around race must be confronted and addressed. (Abstract shortened by UMI.);1"School officials" refers to personnel with decision-making power in schools such as administrators, counselors, psychologists, teachers, and program coordinators, and any other District personnel with whom parents might interact.