When families and schools work together to achieve equity in advocacy, they are able to help students achieve powerful and lasting academic progress. Equity in advocacy involves more than helping a child. It is ensuring that systems operate and respond fairly to all children. Parents of students who are traditionally marginalized have an extra burden to advocate for their children (Davis, 2025). This is because those students often experience persistent gaps in academic achievement, access, opportunity, and outcomes. For these students, equity in advocacy is essential. In this article, we will discuss the role of families, the barriers they face, and strategies parents can employ that will lead to equitable outcomes.
Understanding Educational Equity Through the Lens of Family Advocacy
Whenever one discusses equity in education, it is important to distinguish equality and equity. When students are given equal treatment, they all receive the same thing. It does not matter if they need that thing or not. It doesn’t matter if they do not benefit from the thing they are given. Equity is something different. When students are treated with equity in mind, they get exactly what they need to succeed. Education is almost custom tailored when equity is the goal.
Educational equity happens when all families are able to access education in ways that benefit their children. It happens when students are given educational opportunities in ways that make it possible for them to take advantage of the opportunities. Educational equity also means that students get the support they need in order to get the outcomes they want to achieve. Advocacy can be a tool for equity because patents who identify their what their children need can advocate for those needs to be met. When parents raise concerns about their children and push their children to ger what they need, they are doing more than advocating. They are pushing for equity.
Equity-centered educational environments recognize that parents do not come to their children’s education empty handed. Parents come to their children’s education with cultural knowledge (Yosso, 2005). That cultural knowledge helps parents to fight against oppressive educational environments by using their linguistic, familial, navigational, aspirational, resistant, and social capital to push for the equitable education their children deserve. This cultural wealth is often overlooked by teachers and school administrators to the detriment of students.
The Role of Families in Supporting Successful Education Outcomes
It is important to point out the major roles families play in supporting successful academic outcomes for their children. A child’s first teacher is that child’s family. Family is also their children’s first observers. This means that families have important insights into their children’s learning styles, behavior, and strengths. When parents are able to freely share this information with teachers, school staff, and administrators, together they can achieve better academic outcomes for students (Davis, 2025).
Schools would be well served to see parents as partners on their children’s educational journeys. Parents support their children’s academic pursuits in many ways. Some of these ways include supporting homework routines, reinforcing skills, monitoring progress, and communicating with teachers. These activities take place outside of school and are often discounted by teachers and administrators who gauge parental involvement (Allen & White-Smith, 2018). However, these activities help students and families become more involved in school and foster a love of learning.
One of the most important roles parents play in their children’s education is that of advocating fairness and access. Children, particularly when they are young, do not have the ability to advocate for themselves in ways that are acceptable by teachers and school administrators. Children need their parents to step up and advocate for them. They need parents to make sure that they receive the appropriate support at school when it comes to 504s, IEPs, language services, etc. Parents must be prepared to step up and advocate for their children when something appears to be inequitable or unclear.
Barriers Families Face When Navigating School Systems
There are a wide range of barriers families face when navigating school systems (Davis, 2025). One of those barriers is the information gap. This barrier happens because school communications are often jargon-heavy. Additionally, parents often experience a lack of transparency when it comes to things like IEPS, school discipline, and class placement.
Another barrier involves time, access, and resource constraints. This is seen in issues like parental work schedules, access to transportation, and needs for childcare services. Some parents have limited access to technology which makes it difficult to communicate with their children’s schools. Still other parents face a language barrier and need translation services.
Families may face cultural or relational barriers. Families may experience feelings of dismissal and being ignored based on their culture or relationships with others in school. Cultural differences may lead to bias where certain parents are classified as not involved due to cultural ways of working with their children and the school. Cultural differences may also lead to feelings of power imbalances in meetings.
Emotional barriers are also something faced by parents. These barriers can take the form of fear of retaliation when parents speak up about inequities their children experience. Another source of emotional barriers may be found in parents feeling overwhelmed or intimidated by school systems.
Equity-Centered Advocacy Strategies Families Can Use
There are some equity-centered strategies families can use to get better educational outcomes for their children. Parents must be clear about what their children need and what their children’s strengths are. In order to keep their knowledge current in this area, parents can keep a journal detailing their advocacy efforts, results, and children’s needs and strengths. Advocacy can take the form of parents building collaborative relationships with their children’s teachers and school administrators. To accomplish this, parents must approach communication with teachers and school administrators with clarity and a desire for true partnership. This would include things like asking solution-oriented questions and seeking ways that families and teachers can work together to support children.
Parents must be careful to plan for meetings with teachers and school administrators with intention. They should review documents in advance and come to meetings with notes, examples, and questions. It is important for parents to understand what their rights are without being adversarial. It is important for parents to emphasize verbally that parents, teachers, and school administrators are all part of a team designed to get the best results possible for their children.
Parents must take care to center equity in every conversation. Children are unique. They do not need equal treatment; they need equitable treatment. That means parents must ask at every turn, “is this equitable for my child? Parents must be brave enough to call out disparity when they see it or suspect it. They must also advocate for culturally responsive practices that will help their children feel part of the school and that education matters to them.
Conclusion
In conclusion, parents must recognize that family advocacy is a powerful tool that can help achieve equitable outcomes for their children. Families must remember that they bring community cultural wealth with them in their interactions with schools (Yosso, 2005). Parental voice and expertise are an important part of a child’s educational journey. Parents can find comfort in the knowledge that when parents and schools work together, children can have better educational outcomes.
References
Allen, Q. & White-Smith, K. (2018). “That’s why I say stay in school”: Black mothers’ parental involvement, cultural wealth, and exclusion in their son’s schooling. Urban Education, 53(3), 409-435. https://doi.org/10.1177/0042085917714516
Davis, J. (2025). We love our kids too: Black parents supporting the academic success of their children in affluent, predominantly White school districts (Doctoral dissertation, West Chester University). West Chester University Open Commons. https://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/all_doctoral/328/
Yosso, T. J. (2005). Whose culture has capital? A critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. Race Ethnicity and Education, 8(1), 69–91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006
Further Reading
The Best Educators Strive to Create Equity-Centered Classrooms
Unlock Your Doctoral Success: Coaching & Resources That Work
Unleash the Fire Within: Maya Angelou’s Lifegiving Wisdom for Educators
About the Author
Dr. Janeane Davis is Founder and Principal Consultant at Janeane Davis and Associates: Educational Consultants. Her mornings begin with movement, meaning, and a well-lit desk where rituals become roadmaps. She writes to help educators build mornings that nourish their mission and sustain their momentum.
Sunrise near. Pages open. Always becoming.