2nd Annual Review

1. 2nd Annual Review Antwan Jefferson EDLI Student University of Colorado Denver

2. Professional Goals • I aspire to pursue a career path that will be varied, and will include: • Teaching pre-service and novice teachers • Consulting with an urban school to improve connection and facilitate collaboration with surrounding community • Conducting research and writing scholarly papers

3. Personal Philosophy • My personal educational philosophy impacts my work as a developing scholar. Because I believe that schools are not to be simply in the community, but they should be of the community (Keyes & Gregg, 2001, p. 32), I perceive schools’ challenges with family and community involvement through an increasingly critical lens questioning power and equity. This philosophy has developed over the past year, and continues to develop.

4. Self-Evaluation • In reviewing my work over the past year, I: • continue to grow in my understanding of family/community involvement in schools; • better understand the history of schooling in America; • became involved in a local school’s effort to engage parents and community members; • made limited progress in reading more broadly; • conducted an independent research project; • progressed through five courses.

5. Purpose • Statement of purpose for pursuing doctoral study: • I applied to the EDLI Ph.D. program at UCD to build on my five years of teaching experience without pursuing an administrative position; instead, I wanted to gain depth of understanding of the social issues impacting schools that serve urban minority students and their families. What I observed is that families often do not appear to feel served by schools. My intent in this program is to examine schools as a social phenomenon and seek to understand families and communities as important resources for changing public education in urban environments.

6. Doctoral Writing • Two papers are included in this portfolio along with reflections: • A literature review • A independent study

7. Literature Review • Semester: Spring 2009 • Course Format: Independent Study with Honorine Nocon, Doctoral Advisor • Review Focus: Critical History of Education in America

8. Literature Review • Some highlights (in no particular order) • Chronology reveals strong correlation between changes in society and changes in schooling; • Industrialization and urbanization of society led to bureaucratization of school; • Charity toward the less-fortunate—whether racially inferior, religiously segregated, poor, or of a low social class—had two practical benefits: it reinforced the dominance of whites and helped to reduce crime and social unrest;

9. Literature Review • Highlights, cont’d: • Great hopefulness to improve society and surpass European education surfaced in schooling; • Current between-group conflict for control of schools has its roots in the Colonial Period; • Colonization continues through schooling to Americanize immigrants as well as American minorities.

10. Qualitative Study • Semester: Fall 2009 • Course: Advanced Methods of Qualitative Inquiry • Instructor: Laura Summers

11. Qualitative Study • Context • Urban high school in Denver, Colorado with a population of more than 1700 students, of whom 53% are categorized as Hispanic, 38.5% are categorized as African American, 4.3% are categorized as White, and 3.5% are categorized as Asian.

12. Qualitative Study • Study Relevance • The school under study, which faces downward trends in achievement and attendance, has organized a formal 5-year Revitalization Plan initiated by an outside organization, the Far Northeast Denver Pastoral Advisory Council. According to the Plan, “the community strongly feels that curriculum, professional development, a comprehensive student services program, and an integrated parent involvement program are the important aspects of creating a culture of academic excellence” (p. 1, italics added).

13. Qualitative Study • Research Question • How does a Community Liaison, requested by parents and hired by a school district, mediate parent involvement in a public urban high school?

14. Qualitative Study • Data Sources • Complete Observation (rather than participant observation, because it reveals the researcher’s feelings about a phenomenon without any direct interaction during the observation, according to Bernard, 2006) • Document Analysis • Interview

15. Qualitative Study • Significant Findings • As demonstrated at the study site, an integrated parent involvement program suggests that parent/family/community involvement occurs within a highly controlled context. This context is revealed through the language of the Community Liaison, whose aim is to train parents to participate in the schooling process, and reinforced through bureaucratic school systems such as the Collaborative School Committee, where parent contributions to school decision-making is autocratically regulated.

16. Next Steps • Semester: Spring 2010 • Courses: • DSEP 7830 – Families and Communities, Manuel Espinoza (3 crd) • DSEP 7840 – Independent Study, Shelley Zion (3 crd) • EDLI 7605 – Urban Schools Doctoral Lab (4 crd)

17. Spring 2010 • Families and Communities • Aim of course is to further develop students’ understanding of the ways in which families function in contemporary society. • Final Product is a poster presentation of ethnographic research on a single family. • Urban Schools Lab • Aim of lab is to develop a self-study rubric based on Banks’ (1988) framework and a facilitator’s guide to be used by schools and teachers to examine their pedagogical, curricular and personal response to issues of diversity in schools.

18. Spring 2010 • Independent Study with Dr. Zion • Review Focus: Exploring the Third Space as a platform for improving Community Involvement in Urban Schools • Anticipated Products: Strong, clear conceptual framework supported by literature review; submission of IRB application to further research of Qualitative study

20. Now what? • What are the next steps of this process (i.e., Comprehensive Review, remaining courses, etc.)? • What additional reading do you recommend? • What type of dissertation do you recommend? • How do I begin preparing for a career?

21. Resources • Banks, J. A. (1988). Approaches to multicultural curriculum reform. Multicultural Leader, 1(2). • Bernard, H. R. (2006). Participant observation Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches (4th ed., pp. 342-386). New York: Alta Mira Press. • Denver Public Schools Report to the Board of Education: Revitalization Plan for "X" High School (2006). Denver: School District No. One: City and County of Denver, Colorado. • Keyes, M. C., & Gregg, S. (2001). School-community connections: A literature review. Charleston, SC: AEL, Inc.