摘要：This article discusses efforts underway through a university-community partnership to engage parents in the educational experiences of their children at a rural elementary school in the Pacific Northwest. There is a well-established literature base on the power of engaging parents in the school experience of their children (Chavkin & Williams, 1993; Dunsmore & Fisher, 2010; Henderson & Mapp, 2002; Hong, 2012; Warren, Hong, Leung Rubin & Sychitkokhong Uy, 2009). However, within this literature is rather unsettling insights into the lack of doing so. Study after study points to the relative ease of incorporating middle-class and affluent parents and caregivers into the school setting through such vehicles as Parent-Teacher Associations, Booster Clubs, and other volunteer opportunities that are more accessible to those who are privileged enough to have the necessary time, transportation, language fluency and social capital to invest into the school. There is a significantly higher degree of difficulty however, in developing practices of engagement for parents of lesser means, or who are encumbered by a disproportionate number of challenges to being involved (e.g., lack of flexibility in scheduling, inconsistent transportation, and history of oppression or subjugation by large systems, such as the schooling system).
