Cristina Santamaria Graff
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Family as Faculty! A Project to Authentically Engage Parents, Students, and Community Partners in Meeting Common Goals
For over fifteen years, Professor Santamaria Graff's scholarship has focused on working with Latinx immigrant families of children with disabilities. "Family as Faculty!" is a healthcare approach to working with families of children with disabilities who, through this model, are positioned as leaders who share their expertise with those providing care to their children.
Adapted for education, and specifically for special education teacher preparation programs, "Family as Faculty!" is an innovative approach for family members to be co-instructors in university or college courses aimed to prepare future special education teachers. Latinx immigrant family members of children with Down Syndrome and Autism led preservice teachers in small group discussions about their child. These discussions were guided by hands-on activities we, as co-instructors, developed and led.
Professor Santamaria Graff's translation of research into beneficial health and educational outcomes for students with disabilities is another excellent example of how IUPUI's faculty members are TRANSLATING their RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE.
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Item Teaching Disabled Youth at the Intersections of Race, Ethnicity and Language: Best Practices for Student Success(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2024-10-15) Santamaría Graff, Cristina; Segarra Hansen, AllisonIn the United States success and best practices in education and, specifically in special education, have been constructed through a dominant, westernized epistemology that has and continues to privilege white, English-speaking, able-bodied individuals. In this chapter, we, two non-disabled Latina teacher preparation scholar-practitioners, begin by troubling the words success and best practices and their understandings for disabled youth at the intersections of race, ethnicity, and language as well as other marginalized identities. Through a critical and synthesizing review of the research literature, this chapter investigates the overarching question, “How have student success and best practices in special education been conceptualized and how are these understandings evolving in light of teaching disabled youth with multiple intersecting identities?” Using an inductive and deductive approach to data analysis, findings suggest that traditional understandings of student success and best practices focus on where the disabled student is positioned in relation to their peers and more critical understandings center on who the disabled student is and ways to support and advocate for them. Through a synthesis of findings, the authors propose two new definitions of student success and best practices. These definitions have implications for practice as they represent a pedagogical shift in the ways educators assess and evaluate disabled youth.Item Teaching Disabled Youth at the Intersections of Race, Ethnicity and Language: Best Practices for Student Success(Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2024-10-03) Santamaría Graff, Cristina; Segarra Hansen, AllisonIn the United States success and best practices in education and, specifically in special education, have been constructed through a dominant, westernized epistemology that has and continues to privilege white, English-speaking, able-bodied individuals. In this chapter, we, two non-disabled Latina teacher preparation scholar-practitioners, begin by troubling the words success and best practices and their understandings for disabled youth at the intersections of race, ethnicity, and language as well as other marginalized identities. Through a critical and synthesizing review of the research literature, this chapter investigates the overarching question, “How have student success and best practices in special education been conceptualized and how are these understandings evolving in light of teaching disabled youth with multiple intersecting identities?” Using an inductive and deductive approach to data analysis, findings suggest that traditional understandings of student success and best practices focus on where the disabled student is positioned in relation to their peers and more critical understandings center on who the disabled student is and ways to support and advocate for them. Through a synthesis of findings, the authors propose two new definitions of student success and best practices. These definitions have implications for practice as they represent a pedagogical shift in the ways educators assess and evaluate disabled youth.Item Engaging the Intersection of Language and Ability Differences Toward More Equitable Family-Centered Models(Velázquez Press, 2023) Santamaría Graff, Cristina; Artiles, Alfredo J.We center this paper in Dr. Leonard Baca’s scholarship focused on bilingual special education which he and his colleagues defined as: “the use of the home language and the home culture along with English in an individually designed program of special instruction for the student in an inclusive environment” (Baca, Baca, & Valenzuela, 2004, p. 18). Using Baca et al.’s definition, we consider core ideas and features of bilingual special education to teaching emergent bilinguals with disabilities and make connections to family involvement. Family involvement in bilingual special education relies on strong family-school partnerships where “active parent and community participation in the education of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students is necessary for a responsive and effective education system” (Valenzuela et al., 2004, p. 362). Through past and current scholarship involving emergent bilinguals with disabilities and their families, we demonstrate Baca’s initial vision (Baca & Cervantes, 1984) for creating equitable opportunities through two models of family involvement and their influence and continued importance in bilingual special education. Also see this description for more information about the book: https://www.colorado.edu/education/2023/12/04/new-book-highlights-incredible-legacy-cu-boulders-bueno-center-multicultural-educationItem Collaborating with a Latina Immigrant Parent in a Special Education Teacher Preparation Course: A Family as Faculty Snapshot(Information Age Publishing, 2023) Santamaría Graff, CristinaIn this chapter, I use my interactions with Lety (pseudonym), a Latina immigrant parent of a child with Down syndrome who is a co-educator of this course and an advocate for Latine families of children with disabilities, to illustrate how collaboration and co-creation improves the quality and relevance of educator opportunities to learn and listen with families. I also illustrate how an FAF approach helps pre-service teachers listen to and act on concerns and knowledge provided by families. (*Please note that final publication uses "Latine" rather than "Latinx" throughout).Item Family as Faculty as an Infrastructure to Engage Pre-Admission Teacher Candidates in Family-Driven STEM Learning(National Association for Family, School, and Community Engagement (NAFSCE), 2024-03) Santamaría Graff, Cristina; Price, Jeremy F.Item Sense(making) & Sensibility: Reflections on an Interpretivist Inquiry of Critical Service Learning(University of Georgia, 2023-04) Weaver, Laura; Warren-Gordon, Kiesha; Crisafulli, Susan; Kuban, Adam J.; Lee, Jessica E.; Santamaría Graff, Cristina; School of EducationCritical service learning, as outlined by Mitchell (2008), highlights the importance of shifting from the charity- and project-based model to a social-change model of service learning. Her call for greater attention to social change, redistribution of power, the development of authentic relationships, and, more recently with Latta (2020), futurity as the central strategies to enacting “community-based pedagogy” has received significant attention. However, little research has occurred on how to measure the effectiveness of these components. This reflective article expands upon and calls into question the ways in which critical service learning can be assessed. Utilizing focus groups, we ask the following questions: How do engaged scholar–practitioners operationalize Mitchell’s (2008) three tenets of critical service learning? What are ways to measure the outcomes and impacts of Mitchell’s three tenets of critical service learning?Item Journeys in Cultural Competency: Pre-Service U.S. Teachers in Mexico Study-Abroad Programs(Routledge, 2009) Santamaría, Lorri J.; Santamaría Graff, Cristina C.; Fletcher, Todd V.This study investigated pre-service and credentialed teachers at 2 universities in the Southwestern United States (N = 24), who participated in education-abroad programs in Mexico over 1 summer. This study examined the literature within a framework for developing cultural competence to describe and understand students' experiences. Following a discussion of research methodology, emergent themes are reported and discussed within the frameworks presented. The study concludes with a discussion of changes in teacher preparation programs required or recommended to improve academic achievement among English language learners of Mexican descent in U.S. schools.Item Latina Resilience in Higher Education: Contributing Factors Including Seasonal Farmworker Experiences(Sage, 2013) Santamaría Graff, Cristina; McCain, Terrence; Gomez-Vilchis, VeronicaMany Latina students overcome multiple obstacles to earn university degrees. Five married Latina women with children and seasonal farmworker backgrounds are the focus of this study which is analyzed through resiliency theory to understand factors contributing to their academic resilience. Variables connected to academic success are explored and include supportive familial networks, self-efficacy, and participants’ desires to instill the value of education in their children. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.Item 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, MichelleThis 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.Item Resistance and Resilience as Resource: Families’ Participation in Urban School Reform(Teachers College Press, 2014) Santamaría Graff, Cristina C.This comprehensive book is grounded in the authentic experiences of educators who have done, and continue to do, the messy everyday work of transformative school reform. The work of these contributors, in conjunction with research done under the aegis of the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI), demonstrates how schools and classrooms can move from a deficit model to a culturally responsive model that works for all learners. To strengthen relationships between research and practice, chapters are coauthored by a practitioner/researcher team and include a case study of an authentic urban reform situation. This volume will help practitioners, reformers, and researchers make use of emerging knowledge and culturally responsive pedagogy to implement reforms that are more congruent with the strengths and needs of urban education contexts.