Stoking the Flames: A Community Cultural Wealth Analysis of Black Parents’ Engagement in an Empowerment Organization

Abstract

While parent involvement has been shown to have positive academic outcomes for their children, for structural changes to be made, parents have to go from being active to taking on a more activist role, thus “stoking the flame” of the norm. Parent advocacy and empowerment groups play a vital role in the transformation of parent activists, yet their contributions are often overlooked in the literature on parent involvement. Using Yosso’s Community Cultural Wealth Framework, findings from this qualitative study examine how a parent empowerment group embraced the cultural assets and strengths of Black parents, served as the spark to engage them in the educational reform process, and built a platform for them as activists. This research expands conceptualizations of parent involvement to include activism and asserts parent advocacy and empowerment groups as vital stakeholders in educational change.