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Sharing My Privilege

Sun, April 24, 8:00 to 9:30am PDT (8:00 to 9:30am PDT), Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina, Floor: North Building, Lobby Level, Marriott Grand Ballroom 13

Abstract

Despite a consistent vision for multicultural education and family collaboration in teacher preparation programs for decades, educational inequities persist, and collaborative partnerships between culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families and their children’s educators remain elusive (Harry, 2008; Trent et al., 2008). As a professor, I teach about educational equity, inclusive education, and belonging. I emphasize the least dangerous assumption (Jorgensen, 2005), the social model of disability (Gabel, 2005), and culturally responsive family-school partnerships (Haines et al., 2017). I have become more explicit in naming racism, ableism, linguicism, and xenophobia, and inspiring students to better support and advocate for CLD students with disabilities and their families (Annamma et al., 2013; Blanchett et al., 2009). Overall, my students have seemingly embraced this content, and earned good grades in my courses. I am sure other professors would share similar descriptions. However, pre-service teachers and related service providers, who are still predominantly white women, struggle to discuss race (Young, 2016) and enact the medical model of deficit approaches to dis/ability (Broderick & Lalvani, 2017).

It is essential for educators to enact purposeful and individualized strategies to address these persistent problems (Author, 2017). What else do preservice educators need to learn and do in teacher preparation programs? How can we help them enact in practice what they appear to learn in our courses? How can we change our practices to result in the outcomes we desire? Preservice educators need as many opportunities as possible to interact with and learn from CLD families without judging them based on inherent biases (Author, 2012; Fenton et al., 2017). White professors and researchers need to do more than acknowledge our positionality; we need to approach all aspects of this work with cultural humility (Author, 2020). One example of this is to conduct research with not on people with disabilities and CLD families (Connor et al., 2019). We need to interrogate ourselves and our professional practices. Who benefits from the research or curriculum and in what ways? Continuing to engage in work that does not directly benefit people with disabilities and CLD families will perpetuate the inequities we seek to disrupt.

As a White, cisgender, temporarily able-bodied man, I strive to recognize and problematize the individual benefits I may receive in our discriminatory society. Yet, my true advantage is having grown up in my family with a Black stepfather, biracial sister, and brother with pervasive support needs. Beyond our familial bonds, I was able to learn at an early age that all people are people first, have inherent value, and belong as they are. Notably, I quickly saw that most others did not view my siblings and stepfather as I did. Because visible disability and skin color marked some of my family members as other and lesser, I recognized the need to fight against racism and ableism to achieve equity and actual inclusion in our schools and communities. Conveying this insider knowledge to preservice educators will be critical to our efforts.

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