Transforming Minds, Engaging Hearts: Developing Critical Consciousness through Trauma-Informed, Asset-Based Approaches

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 5:10 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 4
  In Roundtable Session: Inclusive Teacher Education: Transforming Minds, Engaging Hearts, and Centering Queer Lives, Local Communities, and Transcultural Narratives (Table 4)

Abstract

With an increasing number of refugees in the San Diego region, a seminar course was designed to provide a dialogical space for teacher candidates (TCs) to engage with theory in praxis as they tutored refugee-background students in local high schools. A qualitative analysis of the interviews, questionnaires, and lesson portfolios revealed how students made sense of culturally responsive pedagogies in their praxis, while developing a sense of critical consciousness as they engaged with and learned alongside their tutees. The TCs also highlighted the importance of building relational trust with their tutees as foundational to their work. Most importantly, the TCs pointed to the continued harm experienced by their tutees in their schools’ policies, pedagogies, and practices and suggested pathways forward.

Author

• Sarina Chugani Molina, University of San Diego