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Since Fall 2001, the faculty and leaders of the Teacher Education Program (TEP) at the University of California, Los Angeles, have participated in a collaborative inquiry project. This five-year research endeavor provides opportunities for teacher educators, assisted by university researchers, to study their own practice. This paper presents an overview of the TEP faculty's collaborative inquiry experience and then pinpoints implications for other teacher educators. Findings indicate that, while not easy, engaging in collaborative inquiry characterized by critical reflection, critical dialogue, and community building can position teacher educators to be thoughtful and influential change agents within universities and K-12 schools. (Contains 6 notes.)

In this article, the author discusses African American mothers' beliefs about the negative impact that teacher bias can have on students' self-esteem and academic achievement. She draws from in-depth interview data to highlight mothers' opinions of, and experiences with, teachers they characterize as "unqualified" and "uncaring." The data stem from a qualitative study of African American mothers' educational views, experiences, and choices. The data shed light on how these mothers perceive teachers as powerful figures who can undermine their efforts to provide their children with equal, educational opportunity and a positive sense of racial identity. The mothers' sentiments accord with growing bodies of research and critical theory that stress the influential nature of teacher ideology. In addition, the narratives of African American mothers challenge prior research that questions the caring nature of low-income and working class parents of color and doubts the extent to which they value education. Data resoundingly show that the mothers whose standpoint is discussed in this article deeply care about their children's schooling. In fact, their shared conviction that educational attainment is vital to their children's success contributes to their efforts to find competent and caring teachers--even if it requires them to exit the traditional public school system, despite their limited socioeconomic means. Consequently, the author draws from feminist theory to underscore the importance of teacher education programs training social justice educators to be knowledgeable about the positionality of the students and families they serve. She stresses the need for teachers to recognize schools as sites of political resistance, which they must work to improve. This requires that teacher education programs offer ongoing opportunities for their students to examine their beliefs, acknowledge and overcome their biases, and understand the relationship between teacher ideology and practice. It also warrants that educators and school reformers capitalize upon parents' strengths and heed their input to better educate children. (Contains 2 notes.)

Collaborative inquiry in education allows scholars and educators to abandon hierarchical approaches to research that often disenfranchise research participants: instead, it enables both researchers and the researched to share power, voice and privilege. This paper discusses the key rewards and challenges of the first two years of a teacher education collaborative inquiry project. Findings show that collaborative inquiry prompted teacher education faculty members to better define their social justice commitments, enhance the coherence of their department’s program, and strengthen their community of practice. While the inquiry process was not easy, engaging in collaborative inquiry characterized by critical reflection, critical dialogue, and community building better positioned teacher educators to be thoughtful and influential change agents within their university and in local K-12 schools. This paper overviews the faculty members’ inquiry process and it pinpoints implications for other teacher educators who wish to engage in similar work.

In this article, we draw on critical philosophies and theories related to diversity, leadership, and learning to suggest that successful school-family partnerships not only encompass collaborative structures but involve educators who reject deficit-based views of diverse families. We marshal data from our studies of school-family relations in two states to explain the benefits of educational leaders developing a critical epistemological stance that compels them to learn and lead with diverse families. We assert that educators must revisit, rethink, and extend what they know about families' strengths and limitations and reconsider the nature of leadership and learning to build partnerships amid communities of practice. (Contains 2 notes.)

This paper explores the relationship between notions of parent involvement and conceptions of care as they relate to educators' deficit perceptions of African American mothers. Black feminist and womanist interpretations of the ethic of care are used to reframe the biased discourse on parent involvement in schools. Specific consideration is given to how educational scholarship can better acknowledge African American mothers' race-based, gendered, and class-related contexts. Data from an in-depth, qualitative study of the educational experiences, values, and choices of low-income and working-class African American mothers inform the discussion. The study offers insight about the care and justice-seeking efforts of African American women. Implications for revising parent involvement typologies and strengthening school-family relationships according to a culturally relevant framework are emphasized. (Contains 1 note.)

Purpose: Marginalizing dynamics can emerge in school communities that are experiencing rapid demographic change, even when led by equity-oriented principals. The purpose of this article is to consider how educators can serve as transformative leaders through their performing cultural work that addresses inequity, crosses sociocultural boundaries, and fosters inclusion. Cornel West's theories on the cultural politics of difference inform the discussion, as does the literature on transformative leadership for social justice. Research Design and Methods: This comparative case study examined two North Carolina elementary schools that have experienced rapid demographic change, and it explored educators' and families' responses to cultural diversification and their views about school-family relations. Data analysis was conducted via an iterative process that identified common themes, entertained alternative conclusions, and triangulated interview, observational, and document data. Data revealed participants' general beliefs, concerns, and fears about demographic change, particularly as they relate to their communities' growing Spanish-speaking Latino population. Findings: Provided are data-based profiles of school principals and the sociocultural contexts of their school communities. Findings emphasize contradictions between the principals' equity-oriented stances and their exclusionary beliefs and practices; school community members' notions of cultural difference; and the biases, segregation, and brooding tensions affecting the schools. Implications for Research and Practice: The opportunities that principals have to perform cultural work as a form of transformative leadership are discussed, along with the value of explicitly infusing the notion of cultural work into transformative leadership frameworks. (Contains 2 notes.)

This study draws on in-depth interview data to discuss the school choices and educational advocacy roles of 14 African-American mothers. The narratives of the study's participants, who have low-income or working-class status, show how race, class and gender factors influence their school choice-making and their value of education. The author asserts that the mothers' school choice-making constitutes an important act of cultural resistance and empowerment called motherwork. Analysis of the study's findings challenges conventional notions of parent involvement and counters prevalent stereotypes that portray African-American mothers as uncaring. Attention is given to the inequities that the mothers face in the educational marketplace and how they seek agency. Educators are urged to consider how the mothers perceive themselves and construct their educational involvement roles in order to engage parents in empowering and meaningful ways. (Contains 1 table.)

In an effort to improve our nation's underperforming schools, education reformers are designing programs to educate and empower urban school parents. Parent involvement can be critical to a child's academic success, yet the education community still knows very little about the impact of specific parent programs. We evaluated a parent program that was part of a major school-university partnership. A responsive evaluation approach initially guided the design of our qualitative case study evaluation. Our social justice--oriented values, however, prompted us to revise our approach and adhere more closely to a social justice evaluation model. This change caused us to highlight the perspectives of low-income Latina mothers and emphasize the gap between parents' and educators' notions of empowerment. In this article, we describe our evaluation and highlight key findings that offer insightful implications for education practitioners, researchers, and evaluators. The findings pertain to the challenge of educators sharing power with urban parents and developing partnerships that are sensitive to the social and cultural factors that affect parents' values, goals, and modes of participation. We also emphasize the relationship between evaluation theory and practice and point to the potential impact of social justice evaluation in education.

The in-depth interview data from low-income and working-class African American mothers is used to describe how they engage in the educational marketplace and construct their school choices. Their stories reveal that their positionality-race, class and gender factors-powerfully influences their educational decision-making.

The article discusses the stereotyping of poor African American mothers as poor, lazy and dependent. Public opinion projects the poor mothers as women who do not deserve government assistance or public compassion, but the belief is far from the truth historically as African American culture and communities put mothers on a pedestal regardless of socioeconomic status. The biased ideologies were attributed to racist socioeconomic systems and the feminization and racialization of poverty in the U.S.