Disrupting Power in the Teacher Education Process Through Collaborative Research

• In Event: Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: Power, Position, and Reflexivity

Abstract

Universities offer courses intended to provide students with a basic understanding of the characteristics and etiologies of disability, but too often these courses reify the marginalized status of people with disabilities and their families. Using a Disability Studies frame, I describe the use of portraiture research (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2005) and critical pedagogy in a course about the individual experiences of people with disabilities and their social contexts. Part of a broader study, this paper extends previous research by the author about families using portraiture and the influence of families on preservice teachers in both method and the diversity of the family participants. This paper focuses on how re-conceptualizing typical dichotomous roles of researcher and participant as collaborators can empower minority families.

Author

• Janet S. Sauer, Lesley University