A Case Study of African American Parental Involvement in an Urban Middle School
Abstract
Studying parental involvement offers the opportunity to develop new strategies and resources to
increase involvement at the middle schools serving a similar demographic population. In a large
economically disadvantaged urban middle school in the southeastern United States, very little
parental involvement occurs from the African American population. The purpose of this qualitative
single case study was to examine African American parents' perception about their involvement in
their middle school students' education. Guided by Epstein, Simon, and Salinas' parental
involvement model, which describes 6 levels of parental involvement, the research questions guiding
this project study examined African American parents' perceptions about middle school children's
educational experiences, the level of parental involvement in middle school education, and parental
beliefs about student success. A purposeful participant pool of 10
African American parents of Grade 7 and 8 students was used for data collection. Ten parents
completed the preliminary paper questionnaire, 10 parents participated in 1-on-1 semi-structured
interviews, and 7 parents participated in a focus group discussion. Thematic analysis of data
followed the open coding process and identified categories and themes. The findings suggested the
need for a parent education program involving the use of new strategies and resources for
increasing African American parent involvement at the middle school level. Social change will
occur by empowering African American parents to be involved in their middle school students'
education.
