Table of Contents
Series Foreword James A. Banks ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
Situating "What Counts" for Families in Education 2
Beyond Critique to Fostering Equitable Collaborations 4
Showing Up in the Work 5
A Few Notes on Language 7
Organization of the Book 10
Equitable Collaborations in Reaching for Transformation 13
1 Fuzzy Families, Prickly Racism: Framing the Problem Space 14
Start with Warm Fuzzies: Families Matter 15
Enter the Cold Pricklies: Racial Inequities from Parent Involvement to Family Engagement 17
Conclusions: From Involvement and Engagement Toward Equitable Collaboration 33
2 New Rules of Engagement: From Conventional Partnerships to Equitable Collaborations 35
Why Equitable Collaborations? Critical Race Theory, Community Organizing, and Sociocultural Learning 37
Toward Equitable Collaborations: Case Study of a "New Relationship" 42
A Changing Community: Traditional Approaches, Deficit Conceptions 43
"We Had to Take Action": New Roles for Parents in the Formation of the Coalition 44
A Collaboration Emerges: Shared Responsibility for Systemic Change Goals 46
Capacity- and Relationship-Building Strategies for Systems Change 47
"Navigating Insecure Ground": Change Processes at the End of the Honeymoon 49
Case Discussion: A "New Relationship" 50
Conclusions 54
3 Nondominant Families on Their Own Terms: Lived Theories of Educational Injustice 56
Introduction 56
Nondominant Family Insights as Lived Theories of Injustice 57
"They Just Want to Pass the Kids": Systemic Dynamics of Accountability Policy and Equitable Learning 58
"Are You Speaking for Yourself or for All the Parents?": Power and Engagement at the School Level 61
Listening to Respond: Inequities in the Moment at the Individual Level 66
Conclusions 71
4 Systemic Collaborations: Multiorganizational Educational Equity Initiatives 73
Cross-Sector Collaborations: New Policy Contexts for Engagement 74
New Context, Familiar Territory: Conceptualizing Education Beyond the School Walls 75
Cross-Sector "Collabetition": Reinforcing Interorganizational Inequities 77
Cultural Brokering as Bridging 82
Emerging Approaches to Equitable Cultural Brokering 85
Conclusions 94
5 Collaborating in Organizational Improvement: Data Inquiry with Families, Communities, and Educators 96
Conceptualizing Relationships Between Families and Data 99
A Model of Data Inquiry for Equitable Collaboration 106
Questioning Phase 108
Engaging Phase 111
Making Sense Phase 114
Tensions and Opportunities in Strategizing and Moving to Action 118
Conclusions 119
6 Rewriting Moment-to-Moment Interactions: Families as Co-Designers 120
Racialized Institutional Scripts in Family-Teacher Relations 121
Changing Racialized Institutional Scripts 125
Putting Principles into Practice in Participatory Design-Based Research 127
Co-Design Practices as Rewriting Racialized Institutional Scripts 135
Repositioning Racial and Cultural Differences 136
Conclusions 137
7 Co-Designing Justice and Well-Being with/in Systems and Conclusions 140
A Call to Reimagine Family and Community Engagement 141
District Leaders and Co-Design 143
My Teaching Challenge: Proleptic Politic as Pedagogy 144
Dilemmas as Systemic Tensions 146
Co-Design as "Solidarity-Dreaming" 158
On Solidarities 162
Conclusions (and New Openings) 162
Appendix A Initial Partnership Assessment Tool 165
Appendix B Final Lesson Topics and Design Principles 167
Notes 169
References 172
Index 188
About the Author 199