Reframing parental involvement of black parents: black parental protectionism

Abstract

In 1787, Prince Hall, a Revolutionary War veteran, community leader, and Black parent, petitioned the Massachusetts legislature on behalf of Black children demanding a separate “African” school. Hall claimed that Black children were met with continuous hostility and suffered maltreatment when attending White controlled schools. Many have documented similar claims and actions by Black parents throughout history. These experiences present a consistent insidious counter-narrative of parental involvement challenging the notion of race neutral schools but congruently demonstrate a racial phenomenon in the purview of parental involvement that is undertheorized. Considering these experiences, my central research question was, how is one involved as a Black parent in their child’s education? Among 16 sets of Black parents, this study explored the relationship between race, racism, parental involvement using critical race theory (CRT), and critical qualitative research methods. Findings indicate that Black parental involvement included the consideration of how race and racism in schools may impact, at the very least, their children’s academic achievement, which led to two means of protection of their children from anticipated or experienced school related racism; racial socialization, which was chiefly exercised as involvement at the home level, and racial vigilance, which seemed to be a pervasive form of involvement at the school and home level. I consider the totality of these parental involvement means, Black parental protectionism drawing from Mazama and Lundy conception of racial protectionism. This finding should reframe our understanding of parental involvement but the implications of Black parent protectionism suggest that Black children need protection from racist institutions. When considering the treatment of Black children in White dominated schools over the last four centuries, perhaps Black parents have been their children’s only saving grace to escape the continuous racial maltreatment in schools through time. Instead of falling into traditional research paradigms, which typically relate involvement to achievement, this study concludes with questioning if Black children can receive an optimal education in a pervasive system of racism in schools regardless of Black parental protectionism.