‘We Can Do Whatever We Want’: The Racialized Neoliberalism of Parent Organizations

Drawing on 26 semi-structured interviews with white mothers and mothers of color in New York City, this paper examines how racialized neoliberalism codifies the structure and operationalization of parent organizations like the parent association (PA) and the parent–teacher association (PTA) across varying public schools at the nexus of race, class, and gender. Deploying racialized neoliberalism as a theoretical framework, this paper argues parent organizations are an inherent mechanism of the racialized neoliberal landscape of schooling that enables the continued capital accumulation and decision-making power of white middle-class mothers while relationally disempowering and economically dispossessing working-class mothers and mothers of color.