Family Engagement in Black Students' Academic Success

Achievement and Resistance in an American Suburban School

Vilma Seeberg

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000361964
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Multicultural Education

This timely volume presents powerful stories told by Black families and students who have successfully negotiated a racially fraught, affluent, and diverse suburban school district in America, to illustrate how they have strategically contested sanctioned racist practices and forged a path for students to achieve a high-quality education.

Drawing on rich qualitative data collected through interviews and interactions with parents and kin, students, community activists, and educators, Family Engagement in Black Students' Academic Success chronicles how pride in Black American family history and values, students' personal capabilities, and their often collective, proactive challenges to systemic and personal racism shape students' academic engagement. Familial and collective cultural wealth of the Black community emerges as a central driver in students' successful achievement. Finally, the text puts forward key recommendations to demonstrate how incorporating the knowledge and voices of Black families in school decision making, remaining critically conscious of race and racial history in everyday actions and longer term policy, and pursuing collective strategies for social justice in education, will help eliminate current opportunity gaps, and will counteract the master narrative of underachievement ever-present in America.

This volume will be of interest to students, scholars, and academics with an interest in matters of social justice, equity, and equality of opportunity in education for Black Americans. In addition, the text offers key insights for school authorities in building effective working relationships with Black American families to support the high achievement of Black students in K-12 education.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Contributors
• Introduction: Context, Purpose, and Overview of the Book
• 1 Perspectives on the Education of Black American Students
• 2 Our Families, Schools, and Approach to the Study
• 3 Families’ and Students’ Engagement
• 4 One Black American Family Tells Its Story
• 5 Negotiating with the Schools: Achievements and Asymmetries
• 6 Moving on up to the Suburbs
• 7 Families’ Perceptions of Teacher Expectations
• 8 How Black American Students Achieved Success in a Racially Fraught, Academically-driven Suburban School System: Summary of Findings and Discussion
• 9 Toward Equity in Educational Opportunity and Outcome: Conclusion, Implications, and Recommendations
• Epilogue
• Appendix A: Participant and School District Demographics
• Appendix B: Interview Protocol
• Appendix C: Racial Achievement Disparity
• Index