Families of Children With Disabilities Informing Asset Pedagogies Through Family as Faculty Projects

• In Event: Sustaining Disability in Teacher Education Programs: A Symposium on Disability Studies Cross-Pollination With Asset Pedagogies

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight a Family as Faculty (FAF) approach centered on the expertise of families to address and transform deficit-driven ideologies of difference to asset-based ones in the preparation and formation of future special education teachers.
Perspective
Family as Faculty (FAF) approaches in special education teacher preparation programs, adapted from healthcare models, generally have two purposes: (1) to position family members of children with disabilities as co-educators or leaders in special education university/college courses (e.g., teacher preparation courses) and (2) to positively change pre-service special education teachers’ deficit-based understandings of students with disabilities and their families to asset-based ones. A common trend across FAF or family centered research in teacher education programs is to privilege pre-service special education teachers’ voices or perspectives. Findings generally focus on the ways that pre-service teachers’ dispositional understandings of families change over time as they begin to understand family involvement or participation through a more expansive lens (Forlin & Hopewell, 2006; Macy & Squires, 2009; Patterson, Webb, & Krudwig, 2009; Stoddard et al., 2011; Williams, 2012). Often missing in FAF literature, however, are family members’ accounts regarding their participation in FAF projects, their interactions with pre-service (or in-service) teachers, and processes involved in (re)telling their lived experiences as pedagogical tools for learning (Author, accepted). This paper addresses this gap by providing concrete examples of the ways that family members understand and articulate their experience with disability in relation to their children’s assets, with an emphasis on narratives shared by Black and Latina mothers.
Methods and Data Sources
Traditional qualitative methods are used to code for ways that parents speak about their children’s assets. A priori coding centered on ‘assets’ are used. Assets are operationalized to include culturally sustaining understandings of family’s cultural-historical legacies and traditions, the variance of abilities children with disabilities demonstrate in multiple settings, and other strengths-based descriptors. Consideration of language used by parents to describe ‘deficits’ (limitations/challenges) is also captured for comparative purposes. The author has implemented FAF approaches in a special education teacher preparation course on families since 2016. Data collected from 2016 – 2019 are analyzed from individual and focus group interviews and classroom presentations involving parents (n = 10) who participated in FAF projects embedded within the families’ course, with emphasis placed on Black and Latina mothers’ contributions.
Results
Families’ understandings of their children’s assets were layered and complex. Though they often focused on their child’s abilities and strengths as opposed to limitations, the author’s examination of the data reveals internal and external tensions related to racism and ableism that created additional challenges. For the Black and Latina mothers the intersection of race and dis/ability (as well as language and class) resulted in greater disparities in receiving appropriate services or in feeling unwelcomed by the school.
Significance
This paper provides educators with tangible examples from families of how disability is reframed and complicated through asset-based perspectives. Specific stories from Black and Latina mothers detail additional complexities as disability is often experienced at the intersections of race, language, or class.

Author

• Cristina C. Santamaria Graff, Indiana University - Indianapolis