Journal of Family Diversity in Education

Engaging While Black: A Racially Realistic Framework for Black Parental Agency in Schools

Jada Phelps, Jomo Mutegi, Dasmen Richards — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The racial realities of Black parental engagement are often rendered invisible, or the engagement itself is framed as deficit or is devalued altogether. This article challenges these orientations by introducing engaging while Black (EWB), a framework rooted in parenting while Black (PWB), to illustrate how endemic racism necessitates not just engagement, but a distinct form of parental agency and resistance. We find that Black parents develop strategic, sophisticated, and selective approaches to mitigate racial harm for their children and themselves. Thus, EWB represents a higher-order form of agency, as it is shaped by civilizational-level experiences with white supremacy and leverages dominant school engagement scripts to navigate and contest systemic racism. Black parents not only engage for their children’s benefit but also negotiate survival within an education system designed to support white supremacy. In doing so, they constantly determine which battles to fight to avoid racial battle fatigue while ensuring their children’s well-being in white supremacist educational structures. Ultimately, this paper calls for a critical shift in conceptualizing Black parental engagement—one that acknowledges white supremacy as an omnipresent force and recognizes EWB as a vital framework for understanding Black parental agency and resistance in schools.

Muxerista agency in North Carolina: Intentional acts of resistance towards access to higher education

Liliana Castrellon, Citlalli Rendon Guzman — Sun, 23 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

This study outlines how the mother/daughter duo’s (participant groups of a mother and daughter) leverage muxerista agency, or intentional acts of resistance to (re)shape inequitable and anti-immigrant educational policy structures, in alliance with immigrant-serving community-based organizations to navigate access to higher education. Engaging in muxerista agency, the mother/daughter duos disrupted anti-immigrant and racist policies while also drawing from their collective power as sources of strength. Alongside community partners, participants offered a liberatory and transformative practice for undocumented immigrant students and students in mixed-status families who are navigating the restrictive access to higher education in North Carolina that is rooted within anti-immigrant legislation. The significance of this study shows how organizations can be a powerful resource in a politically conservative state and hostile anti-immigrant climate. Implications from muxerista agency show that educational practitioners and community-based organizations must name the already limited resources for undocumented communities, acknowledge that they are being even more restricted in this environment, and engage in their own measures of resistance and advocacy to continue supporting undocumented students and families.