Advancing or Inhibiting Equity: The Role of Racism in the Implementation of a Community Engagement Policy

ABSTRACT

Governmental policies in the United States and beyond increasingly call for school leaders to involve local communities in decision-making, yet engagement practices have often centered the perspectives of White parents and marginalized the voices of racially minoritized families. In this comparative case study of seven school districts, we draw on critical race theory to explore how race and racism shaped district practices under a statewide community engagement policy. Our findings suggest that, without careful attention to racial power and privilege, the implementation of community engagement policies may promote racism in practice, highlighting the need for culturally responsive approaches to engagement.

Acknowledgement

We gratefully acknowledge Jason Salisbury's feedback on an early iteration of this study.

Disclosure Statement

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

Notes

1. Pseudonyms are used throughout the article to protect the identities of the school district.

2. The model minority construction, typically applied to Asian Americans, has served to uphold White supremacy by implying that the marginalization of African American and Latinx communities results from inherent cultural characteristics rather than from institutionalized racism (Lee et al., 2017; Poon et al., 2016). In pitting racialized groups against each other, the model minority myth functions as a racial wedge and leaves White supremacy unaccountable.