Black families’ resistance to deficit positioning: addressing the paradox of black parent involvement

ABSTRACT

Traditional conceptualizations of parent involvement are applied in paradoxical ways to Black families – schools ostensibly seek families’ participation in schooling, while positioning multiply-marginalized Black families as deficient and disregarding their contributions. This article explores the experiences of Black families of Black girls using a Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) framing. Our exploration reveals how Black families experience and resist racism and ableism imbued in traditional conceptualizations of parent involvement grounded in white, middle-class families' norms. We describe ways Black families (1) relocated the problem from Black girls’ behavior to schools’ expectations and actions; (2) shifted schools’ priorities from a focus on disciplining dis/abled Black girls to a focus on their support needs; (3) initiated dialogue to support Black girls; and, (4) assisted Black girls in recognizing, processing, and responding to racism and ableism. Through this discussion, we address ways to reconceptualize parent involvement to center multiply-marginalized Black families’ priorities and contributions.

KEYWORDS:

• Racism
• ableism
• parent involvement
• Black families
• resistance
• Disability Critical Race Theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In acknowledging the many adults who contribute to the development and education of children within Black families, specifically Patricia Hill-Collins (2000) work on other-mothering, we focus on the contributions of the myriad of family and community members caring for Black children, not just biological parents.This language also refuses the heteronormative assumptions on who cares for children. Consequently, we use the language of Black Family.

2. In this paper, we use disability and disabled to connote a political identity. We use dis/ability to foreground the ways conceptions of ability and disability rely on each other and coexist (Annamma, Ferri, and Connor 2018). We believe engaging this distinction allows us to better engage in conversations about the ways both ability and disability operate in social arenas.