"So Brave": Avoidance and Affirmations of Bravery as Microaggressions in Simulated Interactions

• In Event: Preparing Educators for Culturally Responsive Teaching

Abstract

This research study investigates how teacher candidates (TCs) attend to socially constructed perceptions of bodies during one live-actor clinical simulation. Results suggest that when TCs avoid critical issues or attempt to help bodies socially constructed as fat or medically classified as obese “fit in,” they reinscribe oppressive ideas about what healthy or acceptable bodies look like. Using theories of Fat Liberation and narratives of lived experience, this study concludes that avoidance and affirmations of bravery can act as microaggressions that reinscribe socially constructed body standards. From our analysis, we consider what resource pedagogies mean for diverse bodies, and how applications of culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining pedagogies might unsettle socially constructed perceptions of bodies.

Authors

• MaryBeth Yerdon, Syracuse University
  Presenting Author

• Benjamin H. Dotger, Syracuse University
  Presenting Author