Listening to parents' voices: Participatory action research in the schools.

Abstract

How can schools and parents work together more effectively? This article describes a participatory action research (PAR) project with a group of parents whose children had been classified as having emotional disabilities. As the parents shared their stories of trying to navigate the special education system, they developed critical consciousness about their experiences of stress, powerlessness, and alienation. They became mobilized and obtained information about testing, diagnostic classification, and educational options for their children. Armed with this information, they developed and implemented an action plan to improve family-school relationships at the local, community, and state levels. The article concludes with an example of how the PAR model can be exported to a variety of mental health settings. Family-school collaboration is an approach that virtually every- one supports but few know how to implement successfully. Al- though all children benefit from parent involvement (Dauber & Epstein, 1993), it is particularly important for economically dis- advantaged and ethnic minority families. Unfortunately, these are the families with whom school personnel have the most difficulty developing effective partnerships (Moles, 1993). Outcome re- search has suggested that schools and mental health agencies have frequently failed to establish meaningful partnerships with families because the professional staff and the families come from different socioeconomic, ethnic, and racial backgrounds. Given these dif- ferences, there is sometimes little connection between the way that professionals think about the services they provide and the con- cerns and experiences of the families who actually receive those services. The staff and the families too often become engaged in a cultural clash rather than an effective collaboration. This is especially true in the area of special education. Tradi- tional approaches to working with families of children classified with emotional disabilities have tended to blame, marginalize, or ignore them (Koroloff, Friesen, Reilly, & Rinkin, 1996). Research has demonstrated that schools have difficulties supporting involve- ment of parents of children classified with emotional disabilities in the schools (Osher, Quinn, & Hanley, 2002). In this article, we describe a participatory action research (PAR) project involving a school psychologist and a group of parents whose children had been characterized as having emotional dis- abilities. We present this project as an example of the potential of PAR to increase collaboration between parents and school person- nel, improve services to children, and generate a model for effec- tive staff-family partnerships. This model can be implemented not only in schools but also in a variety of clinical settings. The project also illustrates how collaborative research builds social and cul- tural capital for individuals and communities.