Eupha Jeanne Daramola Explores the Power of Parents to Advance Racial Equity in K-12 Education
By Christine Byrd
February 11, 2025
February 11, 2025
Eupha Jeanne Daramola
The summer after she graduated from high school, Eupha Jeanne Daramola was tutoring other students for their college-entrance exams. What she saw shocked her. The students Daramola was tutoring were far less prepared for the exams and college-level work than she and her classmates had been. At that time, the only explanation she could find was that she had graduated from a predominately white private school, while they attended a predominantly Black public school.
“It was an eye-opening experience, and I became focused on the role of education, how it formed each of us, and how education is a significant racial equity issue,” said Daramola, who is an assistant professor at the UC Irvine School of Education.
Today, Daramola’s research explores K-12 education policy, racial equity, and the often underappreciated role that Black parents play in advocating for their children’s education.
Parental power
Daramola’s interest in the role of parents in education policy was sparked during the COVID-19 pandemic. While working on her Ph.D. in urban education policy at the University of Southern California, she heard parents on a podcast discussing their plans to prevent learning loss for their children – the dreaded “COVID slide.”
The parents had created a program to keep their children on track academically and then advocated for that program to be adopted at the district level. As Daramola followed the parents and their efforts, she eventually came to see their work as an example of “Black Imaginaries” – a theoretical framework in which Black people imagine what their world might be like without oppression, and then seek to make it a reality. This idea became central to Daramola’s dissertation, Fever Dreams: The Promise and Limitations of Parent Organizing During the 2020-2021, which won the 2023 American Educational Research Association Division L Outstanding Dissertation Award.
“These parents imagined that their kids’ education didn’t suffer due to the pandemic, so they created the program. It went well, so they imagined that more kids could get it,” Daramola explained. “These imaginaries can become galvanizing forces that actually lead to adopting new policies.”
Expanding imaginaries
At UC Irvine, Daramola continues her research on the role of parents in education policy – especially those from historically marginalized communities. With support from the Spencer Foundation, which funds education research, Daramola is exploring the impact of parents on the removal of school resource officers in the last five years. In response to a national outcry following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a significant number of U.S. public schools ended their practice of maintaining a law enforcement presence on campus. In collaboration with Taylor Enoch-Stevens, assistant professor of education at the University of Arkansas, Daramola is reviewing interviews, news reports and school board meeting minutes from 18 school districts to better understand the role community members and parents played in the policy changes across the country.
“Black and Brown parents have always tried to get their kids a better education, and they will be doing that forever,” she says. “It needs to be centered in policy discussion.”
Daramola is also embarking on work with local schools through the Orange County Education Advancement Network, or OCEAN, which will expand her work on Black Imaginaries to include more Latinx communities.
“Eventually, I would like to create a body of work that helps people see Black Imaginaries – and other groups, too – as a valuable and useful lens to look at K-12 policy reform,” Daramola says.
Classroom lessons
Prior to coming to UC Irvine, Daramola was an Associate Policy researcher at RAND and a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the Gevirtz School of Education at UC Santa Barbara. Her work has been published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, American Journal of Education, Urban Education and Teachers’ College Record.
Aspects of Daramola’s research then, as now, were influenced by her five years as a classroom teacher. After earning her bachelor’s from Northwestern University, Daramola joined Teach for America and taught English at a public charter high school in Philadelphia. She was on the faculty during a pivotal transition for the school, as mostly white campus leaders struggled to implement restorative justice policies and culturally relevant pedagogy for the predominantly Black student body. Daramola was left wondering why good educational policies so often fail at the point of large-scale implementation, and that question inspired some of her ongoing work on K-12 policy implementation. She believes community involvement, especially parental influence, can be a powerful instrument for implementing change in schools and districts.
“In our research, we can say that an implementation didn’t go well, but what’s the solution?” Daramola said. “I think it’s authentic community input in shaping policy in schools – especially Black and Brown communities.”
By continuing to explore the role of parents in shaping K-12 education, Daramola hopes to not only highlight their influence but also inspire more inclusive, community-driven policy reforms.
“I’ve seen and experienced the benefits of education equity policies in real life,” says Daramola. “I believe all students should have the opportunity to go to well-funded, good schools and be able – if they want – to go to college. I truly believe education can get you a better life and all students should have access to that.”
“It was an eye-opening experience, and I became focused on the role of education, how it formed each of us, and how education is a significant racial equity issue,” said Daramola, who is an assistant professor at the UC Irvine School of Education.
Today, Daramola’s research explores K-12 education policy, racial equity, and the often underappreciated role that Black parents play in advocating for their children’s education.
Parental power
Daramola’s interest in the role of parents in education policy was sparked during the COVID-19 pandemic. While working on her Ph.D. in urban education policy at the University of Southern California, she heard parents on a podcast discussing their plans to prevent learning loss for their children – the dreaded “COVID slide.”
The parents had created a program to keep their children on track academically and then advocated for that program to be adopted at the district level. As Daramola followed the parents and their efforts, she eventually came to see their work as an example of “Black Imaginaries” – a theoretical framework in which Black people imagine what their world might be like without oppression, and then seek to make it a reality. This idea became central to Daramola’s dissertation, Fever Dreams: The Promise and Limitations of Parent Organizing During the 2020-2021, which won the 2023 American Educational Research Association Division L Outstanding Dissertation Award.
“These parents imagined that their kids’ education didn’t suffer due to the pandemic, so they created the program. It went well, so they imagined that more kids could get it,” Daramola explained. “These imaginaries can become galvanizing forces that actually lead to adopting new policies.”
Expanding imaginaries
At UC Irvine, Daramola continues her research on the role of parents in education policy – especially those from historically marginalized communities. With support from the Spencer Foundation, which funds education research, Daramola is exploring the impact of parents on the removal of school resource officers in the last five years. In response to a national outcry following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a significant number of U.S. public schools ended their practice of maintaining a law enforcement presence on campus. In collaboration with Taylor Enoch-Stevens, assistant professor of education at the University of Arkansas, Daramola is reviewing interviews, news reports and school board meeting minutes from 18 school districts to better understand the role community members and parents played in the policy changes across the country.
“Black and Brown parents have always tried to get their kids a better education, and they will be doing that forever,” she says. “It needs to be centered in policy discussion.”
Daramola is also embarking on work with local schools through the Orange County Education Advancement Network, or OCEAN, which will expand her work on Black Imaginaries to include more Latinx communities.
“Eventually, I would like to create a body of work that helps people see Black Imaginaries – and other groups, too – as a valuable and useful lens to look at K-12 policy reform,” Daramola says.
Classroom lessons
Prior to coming to UC Irvine, Daramola was an Associate Policy researcher at RAND and a Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at the Gevirtz School of Education at UC Santa Barbara. Her work has been published in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, American Journal of Education, Urban Education and Teachers’ College Record.
Aspects of Daramola’s research then, as now, were influenced by her five years as a classroom teacher. After earning her bachelor’s from Northwestern University, Daramola joined Teach for America and taught English at a public charter high school in Philadelphia. She was on the faculty during a pivotal transition for the school, as mostly white campus leaders struggled to implement restorative justice policies and culturally relevant pedagogy for the predominantly Black student body. Daramola was left wondering why good educational policies so often fail at the point of large-scale implementation, and that question inspired some of her ongoing work on K-12 policy implementation. She believes community involvement, especially parental influence, can be a powerful instrument for implementing change in schools and districts.
“In our research, we can say that an implementation didn’t go well, but what’s the solution?” Daramola said. “I think it’s authentic community input in shaping policy in schools – especially Black and Brown communities.”
By continuing to explore the role of parents in shaping K-12 education, Daramola hopes to not only highlight their influence but also inspire more inclusive, community-driven policy reforms.
“I’ve seen and experienced the benefits of education equity policies in real life,” says Daramola. “I believe all students should have the opportunity to go to well-funded, good schools and be able – if they want – to go to college. I truly believe education can get you a better life and all students should have access to that.”
