Critical Participatory Action Research as Framework and Methodology to Center Latinx Families in Special Education

• In Event: Contemplating Contextualized Decolonization, Intersectionality, and Antiracism: Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (U.S.); Hopi Country; and New Zealand Perspectives

Abstract

Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR), both a framework and methodology (Fox & Fine, 2015), asserts that those for whom research is designed “have the right to research” and to make decisions impacting their lives (Appadurai, 2006). CPAR is an active approach to intentionally set up and implement research designs aimed to dismantle decolonizing practices in research (Poohongthong & Supparerkchaisakul, 2017). These practices privilege dominant White patriarchal norms embedded in the ways we have been schooled “to do” research and, thus, interpret ‘findings’ through a White-dominant lens (Stoudt, et al., 2012).

As an act of resistance, I – a biracial Mexicana scholar – use CPAR to “privilege multiple forms of expertise” (Sandwick, et al., 2018, p. 478). In my research, this expertise is centered on families and predicated on the knowing that families of children with disabilities, specifically Black and Latinx families, are leaders in special education and should, as indicated in special education law, be full participants in the decision-making processes that impact their children’s educational and life trajectories (Author, in press). Over the past five years, I have integrated a Family as
Faculty (FAF) model into the special education courses I teach on families (undergraduate/graduate levels). FAF approaches are derived from healthcare models and adapted for special education teacher preparation programs that position family members as experts and leaders of their children with disabilities (Pattterson, Webb, & Krudwig, 2009). In traditional FAF work in education, family members present their stories to pre-service special education teachers to provide important insights into the ways they are active participants in their children’s education and are
committed to the advocacy of all children with disabilities (Macy & Squires, 2009; Stoddard, et al., 2011; Williams, 2012). In FAF literature, however, families of Color and other minoritized families are not explicitly considered.

In this paper, I address this gap in the FAF literature. I explain the ways I have expanded upon FAF to align it as a framework with CPAR to explicitly consider and to be informed by historically minoritized families. I use Essential Understandings (E.U.s) to frame families’ inherent expertise, educators’ positionalities, and uneven power relations existing between families and educators (Author 2, in press). In addition, I provide specific steps for educators to learn how to implement FAF as a methodology in special and general education teacher preparation programs. I
draw upon CPAR which depends upon a “nested set of relationships” (Kemmis, et al., 2014, p. 25) whereby “theories of research inform action” and practices of research impact theory. I explain how to design an FAF project based on “theories of research” informed by relational, contextual, and participatory approaches to working alongside families and teachers (e.g., “stakeholders”) (Freire, 1970/2000). Also, I describe specific activities to learn from stakeholders who become co-educators and “co-researchers” (Fals Borda & Rahman, 1991) who, through “practices of research” inform, shape, and deepen understandings of how to disrupt oppressive educational practices
while imagining new ways that their leadership can promote systemic and sustainable change.

Author

• Cristina C. Santamaria Graff, Indiana University - Indianapolis