"Now I Want You to Trust Me?" Teacher Narratives of Practice With Students Experiencing Trauma

• In Event: Teacher Care: Working Toward Humanization for Others and the Self

Abstract

How do elementary and high school teachers narrate experiences of everyday practice with students who have experienced trauma? Utilizing a sociocultural, narrative analysis approach, we analyzed stories teachers told about students who had experienced trauma in eight elementary and five high schools. We find teachers: 1) took up a trauma lens to explain the causes of difficult student behavior; 2) narrated (sometimes ambivalent) care and support they provided for students and noted how institutional factors supported or complicated this care; 3) positioned students’ need to cope with trauma while in school differently at the elementary and high school levels. We suggest implications for growing trauma-responsive practice and policy in these complicated times.

Authors

• Elizabeth E. Blair, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater

• Helen Rose Miesner, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Annaliese Grant, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Maria Velazquez, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Chiara C. Packard, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Lyn C. MacGregor, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Eric Grodsky, University of Wisconsin