Toward Authentic Family Engagement with Counter-Narrative and Self-Determination

Education scholars have demonstrated that family engagement contributes to academic success for urban children. To date, engagement models have invited families into schools. This paper presents an alternative model that invites schools into communities where families use culturally- grounded counter-narrative and self-determination to establish meaningful instances of authentic family engagement. Derived from the Youth Resiliency Institute’s Journey Project (Wasserman, Sabater, and Hill, 2017), this paper grounds the model in the relevant literature and explores relationships between the model’s theoretical components.