What urban parents want: A parent network’s negotiation of school choice and advocacy efforts in underserved city schools

Abstract

This community-based participatory research study examined the perspectives of parent participants in an organized parent network in Detroit seeking the best school options for their children entering Kindergarten within city boundaries. Their residency and school choices have emerged against the grain of public schools that have racially charged histories and decades of residential mobility trends. Examined are ways in which the parent network researched, collaborated, and made informed public, private, and charter school choices. Through the lens of Freire’s concept of praxis, interviews documented parents’ perspectives during the inception year for fulfilling school and community linkages and roles in improving city schools and enhanced knowledge of traits of successful schools that inform expectations for curriculum, school culture, and impressions of school visits.