Linn Posey-Maddox

Beyond the consumer: parents, privatization, and fundraising in US urban public schooling

Given recent budgetary gaps in public education, many civic and educational leaders have relied upon private sources of funding for US public schools, including funds raised by parents. Yet parents’ role as economic actors in public education has been largely unexplored. Drawing from a qualitative study of parent engagement, fundraising, and school change in Chicago public schools, I explore the educational investments of a largely White group of middle- and upper middle-class parents and how they understand their collective engagement in relation to educational disparities. The findings show that parents were not only consumers through school choice, but also economic brokers of private capital via their fundraising efforts and producers of urban school change. Despite their stated commitments to public education and desire for diversity, most parents worked with and for a more selective public in their school change efforts, exacerbating resource disparities in the segregated urban district. The findings highlight the tensions and equity issues that arise when White, economically advantaged parents are positioned as consumers within neoliberal urban educational contexts while simultaneously called upon to support, sustain, and improve the public schools they choose for their children.

Seeking a ‘critical mass’: middle-class parents’ collective engagement in city public schooling

A growing body of literature has begun to explore the individual identities, motivations, and school choices of middle-class, typically white, parents who choose to reside in socioeconomically and racially mixed central city neighborhoods. Drawing on qualitative research in three US cities, we argue that a focus on middle-class parents’ collective engagement in schooling is particularly important in under-resourced urban contexts. In these environments, we show, middle-class parents’ use of social networks often extends beyond basic information-sharing about school quality to encompass a range of activities undertaken with other families ‘like them’ who have also chosen to enroll their children in an urban public school. We find that, in some instances, middle-class parents’ collective actions can benefit an entire class or school. Yet in other instances, their activation of social capital can contribute to processes of social reproduction in urban schooling by excluding or marginalizing low-income students and their families.

One Size Does Not Fit All Understanding Parent Engagement in the Contexts of Work, Family, and Public Schooling

We examined how parents and educators in a low-income school conceptualize parental engagement, and how school, work, and family domains together shape these parties’ practices as well as understandings of how and why parents engage. From interviews with the principal, five teachers, and 17 mothers of children at a Title I elementary school, we observed mothers’ varied approaches to juggling employment and caregiving responsibilities with desires to be involved in their children’s education, strategies often unknown and mismatched to the focuses of school staff. The study suggests the value of engagement opportunities tailored to families’ unique circumstances and assets.

Schooling in suburbia: the intersections of race, class, gender, and place in black fathers’ engagement and family–school relationships

ABSTRACT Few studies have explored the engagement of fathers in children’s schooling. Understanding the role that black fathers, in particular, play in their children’s education is both important and timely given the persistent opportunity gaps faced by many black students in the US and the influential role that black fathers can play in their children’s academic success. This paper thus explores the experiences and educational engagement strategies of a socioeconomically mixed sample of 16 black fathers in a predominantly white suburb in the US. The research findings challenge dominant portrayals of black fathers as largely absent or uninvolved in their children’s education, and illustrate the importance of understanding the intersections of race, class, gender, and place in studies of parents’ engagement.

Challenging the Dichotomy Between “Urban” and “Suburban” in Educational Discourse and Policy

Abstract This article builds a case for nuanced conceptualizations of “urban” and “-suburban” educational contexts and issues. The author analyzes data across two studies—one of upper-middle-class White parents with children in Chicago public schools, and the other of Black low-income and working-class parents who moved from Chicago to a Wisconsin suburb. The findings suggest that monolithic framings of urban and suburban educational issues and populations can mask patterns of inequality within and across particular locales.