Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / In 1787, Prince Hall, a Revolutionary War veteran, community leader, and Black
parent, petitioned the Massachusetts legislature on behalf of Black children demanding a
separate “African” school. Hall claimed that Black children were met with continuous
hostility and suffered maltreatment when attending White controlled schools. Many have
documented similar claims and actions by Black parents throughout history. These
experiences present a consistent insidious counter-narrative of parental involvement
challenging the notion of race neutral schools but congruently demonstrate a racial
phenomenon in the purview of parental involvement that is undertheorized.
Considering these experiences, my central research question was, how is one
involved as a Black parent in their child’s education? Among 16 sets of Black parents,
this study explored the relationship between race, racism, parental involvement using
critical race theory (CRT), and critical qualitative research methods. Findings indicate
that Black parental involvement included the consideration of how race and racism in
schools may impact, at the very least, their children’s academic achievement, which led
to two means of protection of their children from anticipated or experienced school
related racism; racial socialization, which was chiefly exercised as involvement at the
home level, and racial vigilance, which seemed to be a pervasive form of involvement at
the school and home level. I consider the totality of these parental involvement means,
Black parental protectionism drawing from Mazama and Lundy conception of racial
protectionism. This finding should reframe our understanding of parental involvement but the implications of Black parent protectionism suggest that Black children need
protection from racist institutions. When considering the treatment of Black children in
White dominated schools over the last four centuries, perhaps Black parents have been
their children’s only saving grace to escape the continuous racial maltreatment in schools
through time. Instead of falling into traditional research paradigms, which typically relate
involvement to achievement, this study concludes with questioning if Black children can
receive an optimal education in a pervasive system of racism in schools regardless of
Black parental protectionism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:IUPUI/oai:scholarworks.iupui.edu:1805/11642 |
| Date | 11 May 2016 |
| Creators | Moultrie, Jada |
| Contributors | Scheurich, James Joseph, Lopez, Gerardo, Mutegi, Jomo, Scribner, Samantha, Waterhouse, Carlton |
| Source Sets | Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
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