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

Abstract

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.