Narratives of single, black mothers using cultural capital to access autism interventions in schools

Abstract

Lack of access to autism treatment has deepened the disparities for Black children with ASD. Limited resources and lack of advocacy skills in Black families are reasons given for these service gaps but a need to identify mechanisms that support Black families access to treatment for their children have yet to be investigated. This paper explores the forms of cultural capital single Black mothers use to advocate for their children with autism in schools in the US. Using a Thematic Analysis, interviews were coded for several domains of cultural capital found in the literature, including aspirational, familial, social, linguistic, resistant, navigational, motherhood and black cultural capital. Mothers in the study predominately provided examples of resistant and navigational capital. Additionally, mothers were more likely to use their capital to impact services for their child, when schools engaged in family-centered practice.

Keywords:

• Mother voice
• empowerment
• cultural capital
• autism

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Drs. Lauren Lindstrom, Sally Rogers, Maisha Winn, Linda Burton, Jasmine Ulmer, and Susan Nordstrom for the invaluable input in the development of this paper. We would also like to thank our research assistants Ms. Aziza Littlejohn and Ms. Susanna Ashmarova for your support in coding the data. Also want to thank the UC Davis Human Development Gradate Group Merit Scholarship Summer Award and The Women’s Resource and Research Center for their sponsorship of this project. Lastly, thanking the mothers and families that allowed us to listen and tell their stories. This research was supported by grants from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (U54 HD079125).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The authors capitalize the word “Black” when that term is used to designate ethnicity and race. Per the American Psychological Association Manual Style (6th edition), Section 3.14, p.75, “racial and ethnic groups are designated by proper nouns and are capitalized: Black and White”. The lead author also prefers to use Black because it functions as a unifying term for the descendants of the African diaspora including people within the African-American, African, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Latinx heritages.

2 All participants and children were given pseudonyms to uphold privacy and confidentiality.

3 U.S. history includes a time period after the emancipation (1897–1965) that denied Black Americans basic civil rights through the enforcement of “Jim Crow” Segregation Laws.