Opportunities and barriers to parental involvement at the high school level: A study of inner city African American parents

This study was conducted to examine why parental involvement is lacking among African American parents of adolescents who attend high school in the inner city. The objective was to understand how to increase parental involvement and support efforts to close the achievement gap. The design was a qualitative research methodology study. The research tools were semi-structured interviews and field notes from observations. The study consisted of telephone interviews. The study involved 10 African American parents from separate households, all with adolescents presently in high school, who had graduated from high school in the past three years or had entered high school in September of the 2019-2020 school year. Each participant resided in the inner city neighborhood of East Garfield Park in Chicago, Illinois. The identified findings included but were not limited to safety issues at their child’s high school, closed-door policies that restricted parental involvement, perspectives of African American parents that school personnel do not care, a definition of parental involvement that differs from the high school personnel’s, and African American parents’ lack of awareness that parental involvement increases student academic achievement.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2020

Author dc:creator

• Young, LaVern

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cope, William
• Dhillon, Pradeep
• Davila, Liv
• Witt, Allison

• Parental Involvement
• Inner City High Schools

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2019 LaVern Young

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/106483

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/106483