Abstract
Parents experiencing poverty are rarely consulted about their needs when it comes to supporting the development, well-being, and education of their young children. Furthermore, they are often overlooked as experts on their own needs by actors in positions of power and excluded from spaces and processes that aim to create resources, programs, and policies to support families of young children. Using an ecological systems framework (Bronfenbrenner in: The ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1979), we conducted a qualitative interview study of mothers’ needs in a school community in Central Texas as perceived by multiple community members, including mothers themselves, teachers, school administrators, district leaders, and policymakers (n = 14). The findings show that the three mothers felt they needed more money, time, opportunities for self-care, and validation to support their young children in the ways they would like to. Actors in positions of power (teachers, school administrators, district leaders, and policymakers) however, primarily discussed mothers’ needs for education, training, and models of parenting. To a lesser extent, actors in positions of power also discussed needs that partially reflected those expressed by mothers, including a need for higher wages and more money, childcare to free up time, and emotional support or social capital to provide validation of mothers’ parenting. We discuss the importance of understanding mothers’ needs as they are expressed by mothers themselves, the danger of framing support for parents experiencing poverty using a banking model of education (Freire in: Pedagogy of the oppressed: 30th anniversary edition. Continuum, New York, 2000), and areas of alignment from which we can build towards dialogic understanding and collaboration.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abramovitz, M. (2012). Theorising the neoliberal welfare state for social work. The Sage handbook of social work, 33–50.
Apple, M. W. (Ed.). (2017). Cultural and economic reproduction in education: Essays on class, ideology and the state (Vol. 53). London: Routledge.
Barth, R. P., Landsverk, J., Chamberlain, P., Reid, J. B., Rolls, J. A., Hurlburt, M. S., et al. (2005). Parent-training programs in child welfare services: Planning for a more evidence-based approach to serving biological parents. Research on Social Work Practice, 15(5), 353–371.
Bevir, M. (2012). Key concepts in governance. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Bornstein, M. H. (2012). Cultural approaches to parenting. Parenting, 12(2–3), 212–221.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human: Bioecological perspectives onhuman development. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Chang, M., Park, B., & Kim, S. (2009). Parenting classes, parenting behavior, and child cognitive development in early head start: A longitudinal model. School Community Journal, 19(1), 155–174.
Cheung, J. C. S. (2017). A social work perspective on using social return on investment (SROI) in humanistic social care. Australian Social Work, 70(4), 491–499.
Claeys, A., Coussee, F., Heiden, S., Merckaert, A., & De Grande, L. (2001). Engaging the poor in policy-making on poverty and social exclusion in Flanders. Citizens as partners. OECD handbook on information, consultation and public participation in policy-making, 125–144.
Coll, C. G., & Pachter, L. M. (2002). Ethnic and minority parenting. In M. H. Bornstien (Ed.), Handbook of parenting volume 4 social conditions and applied parenting (2nd ed., pp. 1–20). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.
Corbin, J., & Strauss, A. (2007). Basics of qualitative research: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2007). Race, inequality and educational accountability: The irony of ‘No Child Left Behind’. Race Ethnicity and Education, 10(3), 245–260.
Darling-Hammond, L. (2015). The flat world and education: How America’s commitment to equity will determine our future. New York: Teachers College Press.
DeCastro-Ambrosetti, D., & Cho, G. (2005). Do parents value education? Teachers’ perceptions of minority parents. Multicultural Education, 13(2), 44–46.
Dubois, V. (2015). Doing critical policy ethnography. Handbook of critical policy studies, 462–480.
Epstein, J. L. (2018). School, family, and community partnerships: Preparing educators and improving schools (2nd ed.). London: Routledge.
Fernández, E., & López, G. R. (2017). When parents behave badly: a critical policy analysis of parent involvement in schools. In M. Young & S. Diem (Eds.), Critical approaches to education policy analysis (pp. 111–129). New York: Springer.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed: 30th anniversary. New York: Continuum.
Gillies, V. (2005). Meeting parents’ needs? Discourses of ‘support’and ‘inclusion’in family policy. Critical Social Policy, 25(1), 70–90.
Given, L. M. (2008). The SAGE encyclopedia of qualitative research methods. Thousand oaks: SAGE Publications.
Goodall, J., & Montgomery, C. (2014). Parental involvement to parental engagement: A continuum. Educational Review, 66(4), 399–410.
Gray, M., Dean, M., Agllias, K., Howard, A., & Schubert, L. (2015). Perspectives on neoliberalism for human service professionals. Social Service Review, 89(2), 368–392.
Harkness, S., & Super, C. M. (2002). Culture and parenting. Handbook of parenting, 2, 253–280.
Hart, C. H. (2007). Why are parents important? Linking parenting to childhood social skills in Australia, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States. In A. Scott Loveless & T. Holman (Eds.), The family in the new millennium: World voices supporting the ‘natural’ clan (pp. 227–247). Westport: Praeger Publishers.
Hogg, R., & Worth, A. (2009). What support do parents of young children need? A user-focused study. Community Practitioner, 82, 31–33.
Howard, T. (2013). Examining the crossroads: Interrogating poverty, race, culture in California schools. Workshop on Poverty, Inequality, and Education.
Innes, J. E., & Booher, D. E. (2003). Collaborative policymaking: governance through dialogue. In M. Hajer, M. A. Hajer, H. Wagenaar, R. E. Goodin, & B. Barry (Eds.), Deliberative policy analysis: Understanding governance in the network society (pp. 33–59). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ishimaru, A. (2014). Rewriting the rules of engagement: Elaborating a model of district-community collaboration. Harvard Educational Review, 84(2), 188–216.
Kemp, S. P., Marcenko, M. O., Lyons, S. J., & Kruzich, J. M. (2014). Strength-based practice and parental engagement in child welfare services: An empirical examination. Children and Youth Services Review, 47, 27–35.
Kohl, G. O., Lengua, L. J., & McMahon, R. J. (2000). Parent involvement in school conceptualizing multiple dimensions and their relations with family and demographic risk factors. Journal of School Psychology, 38, 501–523.
Koren, P. E., Paulson, R. I., Kinney, R. F., Yatchmenoff, D. K., Gordon, L. J., & DeChillo, N. (1997). Service coordination in children’s mental health: An empirical study from the caregiver’s perspective. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 5(3), 162–172.
Kumanyika, S. K., & Grier, S. (2006). Targeting interventions for ethnic minority and low-income populations. The Future of Children, 16(1), 187–207.
Lamb-Parker, F., Piotrkowski, C. S., Baker, A. J., Kessler-Sklar, S., Clark, B., & Peay, L. (2001). Understanding barriers to parent involvement in Head Start: A research-community partnership. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 16(1), 35–51.
Latunde, Y. C. (2017). Research in parental involvement: Methods and strategies for education and psychology. New York: Springer Nature.
LeVine, R. A., & New, R. S. (Eds.). (2008). Anthropology and child development: A cross-cultural reader. Hoboken: Blackwell Publishing.
Manz, P. H., Fantuzzo, J. W., & Power, T. J. (2004). Multidimensional assessment of family involvement among urban elementary students. Journal of School Psychology, 42, 461–475.
Marcenko, M. O., Lyons, S. J., & Courtney, M. (2011). Mothers’ experiences, resources and needs: The context for reunification. Children and Youth Services Review, 33(3), 431–438.
McKenna, M. K., & Millen, J. (2013). Look! Listen! Learn! Parent narratives and grounded theory models of parent voice, presence, and engagement in K-12 education. School Community Journal, 23(1), 9.
Milner, H. R. I. V. (2013). Analyzing poverty, learning, and teaching through a critical race theory lens. Review of Research in Education, 37(1), 1–53.
Moles, O. C., & Fege, A. F. (2011). New directions for Title I family engagement: Lessons from the past. In S. Redding, M. Murphy & P. Sheley (Eds.), Handbook on family and community engagement (pp. 3–13). Academic Development Institute.
Narayan-Parker, D., & Patel, R. (2000). Voices of the poor: Can anyone hear us? (Vol. 1). Washington, DC: World Bank Publications.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, & Medicine. (2016). Parenting matters: Supporting parents of children ages 0–8. New York: National Academies Press.
O’Donnell, J., & Kirkner, S. L. (2014). The impact of a collaborative family involvement program on Latino families and children’s educational performance. School Community Journal, 24(1), 211–234.
Olivos, E. M., Jimenez-Castellanos, O., & Ochoa, A. M. (2011). Bicultural parent engagement: Advocacy and empowerment. New York: Teachers College Press.
Onwuegbuzie, A. J., & Collins, K. M. T. (2007). A typology of mixed methods sampling designs in social science research. The Qualitative Report, 12(2), 281–316.
Rotheroe, N., & Richards, A. (2007). Social return on investment and social enterprise: Transparent accountability for sustainable development. Social Enterprise Journal, 3(1), 31–48.
Shapiro, C. J., & Harper Browne, C. (2016). Innovative approaches to supporting families of young children. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
Sherraden, M. S. (2014). Community economic development and social work. London: Routledge.
Shinn, M. (2010). Homelessness, poverty, and social exclusion in the United States and Europe. European Journal of Homelessness, 4(1), 19–44.
Smith, D. W. (2016). Teacher perceptions of parent involvement in middle school. Journal of School Public Relations, 36(4), 393–403.
Spera, C., Wentzel, K. R., & Matto, H. C. (2009). Parental aspirations for their children’s educational attainment: Relations to ethnicity, parental education, children’s academic performance, and parental perceptions of school climate. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 38, 1140–1152.
Suizzo, M.-A. (2014). Mexican American parents’ involvement in their children’s schooling. In Y. M. Caldera & E. Lindsey (Eds.), Mexican American children and families: Multidisciplinary perspectives (pp. 135–150). Routledge.
Suizzo, M. A., Jackson, K. M., Pahlke, E., Marroquin, Y., Blondeau, L., & Martinez, A. (2012). Pathways to achievement: How low-income Mexican-origin parents promote their adolescents through school. Family Relations, 61(4), 533–547.
Swick, K. J., & Williams, R. D. (2006). An analysis of Bronfenbrenner’s bio-ecological perspective for early childhood educators: Implications for working with families experiencing stress. Early Childhood Education Journal, 33(5), 371–378.
Tropman, J. E. (1998). Does America hate the poor?: The Other American Dilemma: Lessons for the 21st century from the 1960s and the 1970s. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group.
Valencia, R. R. (1997). The evolution of deficit thinking: Educational thought and practice. New York: The Falmer Press/Taylor & Francis.
Walker, J. M., Wilkins, A. S., Dallaire, J. R., Sandler, H. M., & Hoover-Dempsey, K. V. (2005). Parental involvement: Model revision through scale development. The Elementary School Journal, 106, 85–104.
Webb, G., Knight, B. A., & Busch, G. (2017). Children’s transitions to school: ‘So what about the parents’? or ‘so, what about the parents’? International Journal of Early Years Education, 25(2), 204–217.
Williams, T. T., & Sánchez, B. (2013). Identifying and decreasing barriers to parent involvement for inner-city parents. Youth & Society, 45(1), 54–74.
Yatchmenoff, D., & Powers, L. E. (2010). Community Engaged Research at the Regional Research Institute For Human Services. Regional Research Institute, 42.
Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
We have no conflict of interest.
Ethical Approval
All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Texas Institutional Review Board (IRB), and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
Informed Consent
Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in this study.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
McManus, M.E., Suizzo, MA. What Do Mothers Experiencing Poverty Need to Support Their Young Children? Parent, School, and Policy Perspectives. Child Adolesc Soc Work J 38, 239–254 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-020-00673-5
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-020-00673-5