The Keep Dreaming Summary Report

In late summer of 2020, Village of Wisdom extended an invitation and orientation to Black parents to serve as researchers in a community-driven project designed to illuminate the dreams of Black parents, Black students, and teachers of Black students amid the COVID pandemic and online learning environment. Five Black women’s parents emerged from the invitation and completed more than 40 hours of learning to prepare them to lead the research project. These VOW Parent Researchers increased their knowledge of ethical practices in research, question design, data collection, and analysis. The VOW Parent Researchers then facilitated 6 focus groups in the Fall of 2020 with Black parents, Black students, and teachers of Black students via Zoom. They worked alongside Dr. Rabiatu Barrie (from Adler University) to identify emergent codes and to develop themes from the transcripts. This report summarizes two emergent themes captured in the transcripts that align with the Keep Dreaming vision authored by VOW Parent Researchers.