On the Border of a Precipice for a Paradigm Shift: Navigating Tensions to Cultivate Equitable Collaboration in Family-School Partnerships

Abstract

Drawing on an applied tensional analysis (Mease, 2019), equitable collaboration (Ishimaru, 2020), and transformational resistance (Solorzano & Bernal, 2001), this study examined the complexities of tensions and how the enacted response strategies undermined or fostered more equitable approaches for collaboration within a family-school partnership to improve students’ early learning outcomes. This dissertation used a qualitative single-case study design to explore the interactions within a community-based family-school partnership comprised of parents, community members, community-based non-profit organizations, school district staff, administrators and elected leaders, research institutions, and philanthropy. Data collected from the Summer 2022 to Spring 2023 consisted of more than 95 hours of observations and qualitative interviews focused on understanding how tensions emerged and how tensions were addressed within the Yorbas Early Learning Initiative (YELI) family-school partnerships. Findings suggest how the response strategies to repair tensions can be well-intentioned and equity-driven while also unintentionally reinforcing deficit-oriented perspectives of parents and incorporating school-centric paradigms and strategies that maintain unilateral power dynamics between schools and families (Ishimaru, 2020). By better understanding how tensions emerge, and more importantly, how our responses to these tensions may covertly conform to traditional, dominant, deficit-oriented, school-centric paradigms, researchers and practitioners can learn and shift response strategies in ways that can foster more equitable approaches for collaboration.