Baber, Marlena Yvette. 1999 - Parent Involvement Perceptions and Practices in East Tampa: The Impact of Court-Ordered Desegregation in Hillsborough County, Florida Abstract: This study describes the ways that parent involvement practices in East Tampa, Florida, have adapted to court-ordered desegregation and busing. A guiding assumption is that African American parents in the inner city of Tampa are involved in their children's education in ways not recognized by the educatioal system. While they may not take part in school-based activities, parents are adapting their practices in response to the economic, social and cultural spheres in which they live. The first part of the study was an evaluation of a grassroots organization in East Tampa. This research described a group of people who, since 1991, have been "working together for the children." The study's analytical frameork was the cultural ecology model -- an explanation for ways African Americans relate to the school system. A guiding question was how the parents in East Tampa manifested Ogbu's (1990) characteristlics of secondary cultural discontinuity in their relationships with teachers and schools. The second part of the study identified types of parent involvement practices in four elementary classrooms. The goal was to see if perceptions and practices differ among the two groups of parents, using the taxonomy of parent involvement practices developed by Epstein (1994) as a framework. The study found that, in East Tampa, parents who are separated from the school by miles or social distance are unable to work closely with the school in the traditionally defined involvement opportunities and, instead, volunteer or access educational services through local level organizations. Although parents expressed pessimism about the level of care and concern that the School District had for their children and chose not to involve themselves in school-site activities, they have not turned away from the belief that a good education is necessary for upward mobility. They use pre-integration days as a paradoxical reference for how schools and education should be handled, and they see today's desegregated schools as less connected to the parents than the schools in the past. Desegregation did not bring about the desired equity because of the deeply ingrained system of privilege and power in the School District.