Storying Trauma in Schools: Examining Teachers' Conceptions of Trauma-Informed Pedagogy

• In Event: Centering the Experiences and Needs of BIPOC+ Students in K–12 Teaching

Abstract

This paper examines the ways teachers understand trauma and trauma-informed pedagogy in two alternative high schools--one serving Mexican-American youth in a city and the other serving Native youth on a reservation. Analysis of 12 teachers’ narratives (6 from each setting) demonstrate storying practices that intermingle deficit and asset orientations, epigenetic and biomedical framings of trauma, and sociocultural positionings of marginalized youth. Findings include teachers’ understandings of ethno-racialized and socio-historical/political student identity work, teachers’ valuing of humanizing relationships to counteract biomedical framings, and teachers’ use of deficit-laden positionings of students. This analysis suggests the need to include sociocultural-historical understandings of trauma and identity within trauma-informed approaches to eschew teachers’ deficit positionings while supporting young people’s cultural ways of being.

Authors

• Noah Asher Golden, California State University - Long Beach

• Robert Petrone, University of Missouri - Columbia