Parents experiencing poverty are rarely consulted about their needs when it comes to supporting the development, well-being, and education of their young children. Furthermore, they are often overlooked as experts on their own needs by actors in positions of power and excluded from spaces and processes that aim to create resources, programs, and policies to support families of young children. Using an ecological systems framework (Bronfenbrenner in: The ecology of human development: experiments by nature and design. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1979), we conducted a qualitative interview study of mothers’ needs in a school community in Central Texas as perceived by multiple community members, including mothers themselves, teachers, school administrators, district leaders, and policymakers (n = 14). The findings show that the three mothers felt they needed more money, time, opportunities for self-care, and validation to support their young children in the ways they would like to. Actors in positions of power (teachers, school administrators, district leaders, and policymakers) however, primarily discussed mothers’ needs for education, training, and models of parenting. To a lesser extent, actors in positions of power also discussed needs that partially reflected those expressed by mothers, including a need for higher wages and more money, childcare to free up time, and emotional support or social capital to provide validation of mothers’ parenting. We discuss the importance of understanding mothers’ needs as they are expressed by mothers themselves, the danger of framing support for parents experiencing poverty using a banking model of education (Freire in: Pedagogy of the oppressed: 30th anniversary edition. Continuum, New York, 2000), and areas of alignment from which we can build towards dialogic understanding and collaboration.

中文翻译：

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经历贫困的母亲需要什么来抚养年幼的孩子？家长、学校和政策观点

在支持幼儿的发展、福祉和教育方面，他们很少咨询贫困父母的需求。此外，他们经常被当权者忽视为他们自身需求的专家，并被排除在旨在创造资源、计划和政策以支持幼儿家庭的空间和过程之外。使用生态系统框架（Bronfenbrenner 在：人类发展的生态学：自然和设计的实验。哈佛大学出版社，剑桥，1979 年），我们对德克萨斯州中部一个学校社区的母亲的需求进行了定性访谈研究多个社区成员，包括母亲本人、教师、学校管理人员、地区领导和政策制定者（n = 14）。调查结果显示，三位母亲觉得她们需要更多的金钱、时间、自我照顾的机会，以及以自己喜欢的方式支持年幼孩子的认可。然而，掌权者（教师、学校行政人员、地区领导和政策制定者）​​主要讨论母亲对教育、培训和养育模式的需求。在较小程度上，掌权者还讨论了部分反映了母亲所表达的需求，包括需要更高的工资和更多的钱、需要托儿以腾出时间，以及需要情感支持或社会资本来验证母亲的养育方式. 我们讨论了解母亲需求的重要性，因为它们是由母亲自己表达的，