Equity Education and Asset-Based Community-Mapping: Teacher Candidates and Sixth Graders Learning Critically Together

• In Event: 34.095 - MTCC Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: 34.095-1 - Community-Based Inquiry as Critical, Caring, and Transformative

Abstract

Asset Based Community Development provides a counter to deficit based assumptions about marginalized communities. As a part of a graduate level teacher education course, students engaged in asset-based community mapping utilizing a youth participatory action research model. Groups of graduate students collaborated with four sixth grade classes from a low income area in Toronto’s East end whose residents are primarily recent immigrants to Canada. Together they engaged in a series of asset mapping activities, identifying the school community's strengths, assets and resources. This paper sketches the key insights, with a focus on the development of an equity-oriented practitioner researcher stance in teacher candidates, and the deepening of community engagement and critical agency among sixth grade students.

Authors

• James William Hutchinson, University of Toronto

• Sabira Rizwan Manji, University of Toronto