African American parent involvement in Title I schools: establishing effective home-school-community partnerships
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Carolyn Alexander Brown (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
- Advisor
- Ulrich Reitzug
Abstract: Empirical evidence suggests that parent involvement is promotive of positive educational outcomes for students. However, scholarship exploring parent involvement for African American parents with students attending Title I schools is limited. To address this limitation in the literature, this study uses Participatory Action Research as a methodological approach to explore this topic. The purpose of this study is to give voice to African American parents with students attending a Title I middle school and to engage them in parent to parent and parent to educator/community leader collaboration to increase parent advocacy and to establish effective home-school-community partnerships. During this study, seven parents of varying social classes, educational levels and family structures representing seven schools and two school districts participated in individual and focus group interviews. They also participated in Parent Professional Learning Community meetings which allowed them to become co-constructors of knowledge about Title I schools and parent involvement. At the end of the Parent Professional Learning Community meetings, parents presented their findings to a group of educators, parents, and community/business leaders. As a result of participating in this study, parents were inspired to seek ways to form collaborative relationships with other parents to increase social networks and to establish support systems. They were also motivated to seek additional ways to advocate for their children. Program evaluation data in the form of surveys also indicated that because of the presentation, educators and community/ business leaders wanted to continue the critical discourse on African American parent involvement and they also desired to find more ways to establish authentic home-school-community partnerships to meet the needs of parents in Title I schools.
African American parent involvement in Title I schools: establishing effective home-school-community partnerships
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Created on 5/1/2017
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Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2017
- Keywords
- African American parents, Culturally responsive strategies, Home-school-community partnerships, Parent empowerment, Parent involvement, Title I schools
- Subjects
- Middle school education $x Parent participation
- African American parents
- Culturally relevant pedagogy
- School improvement programs
- Home and school
- Community and school