Teachers and Families: How Teacher Bias toward Diverse Families Relates to Social Constructions of Self

• In Event: 207 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Family-School Relationships

Abstract

Home-school collaborations are beneficial to both children and families during the early childhood years. Strong partnerships can both strengthen early childhood experiences and impact academic outcomes into secondary grades (Henderson, Mapp, Johnson, & Davies, 2007; Barnard, 2004). However, many classroom teachers have difficulty connecting with families, especially those of differing socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds than themselves. This study is situated within a graduate course in family engagement for working early childhood (prekindergarten to third grade) teachers. The course was designed to help teachers (graduate students) recognize their own biases about families that are different from their own and to better comprehend the relationship between understanding the perspective of the family and the formation of strong family-school partnerships.
This is a case study of four students in the family engagement course and their outcomes. Differences in outcomes were framed with Kegan’s (1982) constructions of self. We hypothesize that the differences in course impacts between the four students were related to the students’ constructions of themselves as teachers. We concluded that the graduate course was effective in helping the students to recognize their own biases but that exploring these biases can cause resistance, especially when students have previously constructed an understanding of themselves as teachers who are completely unbiased. However, the course did show potential in all four students to prompt at least the beginnings of more advanced self-constructions.

Authors

• Stephanie C. Smith, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Tina Smith-Bonahue, University of Florida

• Olivia Soutullo, University of Florida