“Do white parents feel the same?”: Latin American and Black Caribbean parents fighting for participation in partnership-oriented education

ABSTRACT

The present article sought to explore how Latin American and Black Caribbean parents experience and navigate the measures of school-parent partnership expected of them in the Ontario education system. Based on qualitative interviews with a total of 32 Latin American and Black Caribbean parents, this study found that parents must constantly negotiate being recognised as equal partners in their child’s learning by both schools and educators. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital, the study examined how Whiteness is embedded within the Ontario education system and the uphill battle racialised parents faced when interacting with the system. The study ultimately found that Latin American and Black Caribbean parents were required to work harder to strategically navigate the education system in ways White parents did not in order to be involved in their child’s education. Even then, their children might still face continuous disadvantages.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• Black
• Latin American
• parents
• critical race theory
• capital

Acknowledgments

The authors recognize and thank Fabiola Limón Bravo, Kadeem Brown, Rachel Cheung, Rhiema Shuster, and the entire Rights for Children and Youth Partnership (RCYP) research team for their contributions to this study. The authors would like to give a special thank you to all the parents who participated in this study and shared their time and stories with us.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [895-2015-1014].