"Damaged Goods": A Qualitative Exploration of Educators' Perceptions of Foster Youth

• In Event: 69.024 - That's How I See It: How Perceptions, Socialization, and Assessment Impact Opportunities for Equal Education

Abstract

Purpose
I argue that there is a stigma associated with being in foster care. Identification with this stigma may affect some students’ well-being, and the marginalization of these students may hinder their opportunities for equal education. Youth in the child welfare system may have academic needs that go unmet as a result of the perceptions that educators hold of this population. This study explores teachers’ ideas about foster youth, both as a population in general and the specific foster youth with whom they have interacted.

Theoretical Framework
Goffman (1963) defines stigma as a “deeply discrediting” characteristic. The issues of parents of maltreated youth—drug addiction, anger problems, poor resource management—that lead to CPS involvement are often transferred to the youth as somehow complicit to their situation. Thus society comes to view foster youth as irreparably damaged, causing stigma.
As adolescents explore their social worlds, their identities are strongly tied to the relationships they form (McMurry, Connolly, Preston-Shoot, & Wigley, 2010). Much socializing occurs in schools, so teachers can be valuable allies to youth as they develop positive relationships and navigate their academic priorities. Understanding how teachers perceive foster youth will inform ways educators can be sources of support.

Methods
This qualitative study uses a grounded theory paradigm (Corbin & Strauss, 2008) wherein interviews are coded to distill a central set of concepts that are “grounded” in the data. Interviews are recorded and transcribed then coded for key concepts, repeated themes, and salient features that coalesce into a theory.

Data Sources
Results are based on 15 semi-structured interviews. Average age was 32.6 years. Gender was split evenly, while 73% of participants were White. A variety of subject areas were represented. Average experience was 5.56 years, and participants were evenly split between middle and high schools.

Results
Results suggest low general and often negative knowledge of the child welfare system and foster youth who may be present in their schools as well as expectations of poor emotional and academic performance. Foster youth were equated, perhaps erroneously, to economically disadvantaged students as a whole. These youth possessed a stigmatized identity as irreparably damaged. In other words, the teachers felt that the characteristics of foster youth were enmeshed with the issues of poor and/or ethnic minority children, so they did not view being in foster care as an additional source of stigma or a status requiring additional support. This disregard means teachers likely are not offering the supports that foster youth need to be academically successful. Such negative perceptions were combatted with more accurate depictions of each individual student when educators took time to connect with students on a personal level.

Significance
Foster youth need strong support systems. School environments with well trained staff who provide opportunities for foster youth to discuss their situations allow for better emotional processing and more open, less marginalized treatment of their status. In this way, foster youth may better cope with the turmoil in their lives.

Author

• Alaina Elizabeth Flannigan, University of Texas - Austin