Foster Placement, Ethnic Minority, and Dis/ability: Intersectional Formative Childhood Experiences

• In Event: Lived Experiences and Exceptional Futures

Abstract

Minorities and students with dis/abilities in higher education and may have additional program support, but students with a history of foster care are largely invisible in higher education. Using prismatic phenomenology paired with arts-based research, this study seeks to create a platform for the voices of adults in higher education who experienced the intersection of foster placement, ethnic minority, and dis/ability as children by focusing on the life story of one young woman. The goal of identifying these formative childhood experiences to better understand how to respond to the inequities experienced as well as develop equitable practices to support students, whether in the higher educational classroom, in the pre-service teacher classroom, or in K-12 educational arena.

Authors

• Kimiya Sohrab Maghzi, University of Redlands

• Marni E. Fisher, Saddleback College