Broken Windows and Catching Frogs: Exploring Concepts of Historic and Contemporary Parental and Community Involvement

ABSTRACT

Parental and community supports are important factors for Latino student academic success. The purpose of this paper is to explore the parental and community activism surrounding the San Antonio v. Rodriguez school finance case in order to better understand how historic means of activism relate to the contemporary ways that Latino parents and community members continue to be involved in the education of Latino youth. Historic methods, guided by a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework, were employed to analyze archival records and oral histories. This critical analysis revealed influences of labor organizing, traditional civil rights, and the Chicano movement surrounding the parental and community involvement that prompted this lawsuit. Learning from historic events allows us to challenge the contemporary White normative definitions of parental involvement that marginalize the ways Latino parents and community members support student success.

KEYWORDS:

• Parental involvement
• community activism
• deficit thinking
• Latino parents

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.