Browsing by Subject "Special education"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Co-Investigation and Co-Education in ‘Family as Faculty’ Approaches: A Repositioning of Power
    (Taylor & Francis, 2021) Santamaría Graff, Cristina
    Family as Faculty (FAF) approaches originate from family-centered healthcare models and have been adapted in special education teacher education programs to positively influence and impact pre-service special education teachers’ dispositional understandings of working and collaborating with parents/families. However, the majority of research centered on these approaches fails to address issues of equity, specifically uneven power relationships between teachers and families. This paper expands upon FAF approaches by integrating conceptual framings linked directly to critical pedagogy, such as co-investigation and co-education, as integral components in addressing power relations between future special education teachers and multiply marginalized families of children with disabilities. Deliberate repositioning of parents/families as co-investigators/co-educators within research and teacher education programs targets uneven power dynamics to further assist future teachers in critical self-reflection of their own power and privilege in relation to the students and families with whom they will work.
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    Examining pre-service special education teachers’ biases and evolving understandings about families through a family as faculty approach
    (Taylor & Francis, 2020) Santamaría Graff, Cristina; Manlove, Josh; Stuckey, Shanna; Foley, Michelle
    This paper centers on a participatory qualitative study in which 22 pre-service special education teachers (i.e., undergraduate students) experienced, wrote about, and reflected upon their perceptions of families of children with disabilities over a semester-long course built on a Family as Faculty (FAF) model adapted from the healthcare profession for special education, teacher education programs. The FAF approach used has been reconceptualized to include three essential understandings (E.U.s): a) families as experts, b) examining positionality, and c) analyzing power relations. In our iteration of FAF, parents of children with disabilities co-plan and teach specific classes within a teacher preparation course on families. The authors examine pre-service teacher responses to FAF-structured experiences. Though many pre-service teachers demonstrated growth in their understandings of family’s strengths and their participation in their child’s education, there were some who continued to view families through deficit lenses. Pre-service teachers’ reflections of families, though well-intended, often used cloaked language revealing underlying assumptions. FAF approaches that take a critical stance can unveil hidden assumptions and assist students with self-awareness and critical consciousness needed as foundations to transform individual and systemic biases.
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    Movement Toward Critical Consciousness and Humility Through Family as Faculty Approaches
    (Sage, 2024) Santamaría Graff, Cristina; Ballesteros, Melissa
    This qualitative study examined preservice special education teachers’ (PSETs) movement toward critical consciousness and humility in working with families of children with disabilities using a Freirean lens grounded in three phases of consciousness: intransitive, transitive, and critical consciousness. The authors expanded upon a Family as Faculty (FAF) framework integrating Freire’s understandings of consciousness applied to the ways that PSETs work with and learn from parents/families of children with disabilities. Using FAF-related activities, PSETs demonstrated varying levels of consciousness as operationalized through specific comments or behaviors. Eight PSET-Parent pairs participated in this study. The focus of analysis was on PSETs’ reflections. Findings indicated that though the majority of PSETs demonstrated movement or growth toward becoming more “conscious,” many PSETs remained in the transitive phase: they could identify inequitable and marginalizing practices impacting students but were not at a consciousness level where they connected these injustices to systemic issues.
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    Understanding online K-12 students through a demographic study
    (Contact Nord, 2014-12) Corry, Michael; Dardick, William; Ianacone, Robert; Stella, Julie; Technology and Leadership Communication, School of Engineering and Technology
    Online K-12 learning opportunities have proliferated, but much remains to be understood about the characteristics of participating students. This study presents a demographic profile of fulltime, K-12 online learners today and compares them with public school students nationwide in the United States. The data was collected from a parent survey that produced 119,155 valid responses/records for students enrolled full-time in online K-12 public schools in 43 states. The study shows that the online student population includes somewhat more females than males, and more middle school than elementary or high school students. White students are overrepresented among full-time online learners compared with their share of the nationwide student population, while Hispanic/Latino and Asian/Pacific Islander students are underrepresented. Gifted and talented students and English language learners (ELLs) are also underrepresented. These data provide a baseline for more detailed explorations and can assist practitioners, policy makers, and researchers in making important decisions about online education that have implications for all students.