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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Recent Submissions
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 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 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 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 Calcifying Sorting and Segregating: Brown at 60(Allen Press, 2014) Santamaría Graff, Cristina; Kozleski, ElizabethThe 2007 Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1. Supreme Court 5:4 decision suggests that the Court is divided in its interpretation of Brown and its intent in addressing racial segregation. Although Brown intended equal educational opportunities through desegregation practices, local attempts to achieve racial balance created microclimates for continued minoritization. The Parents Involved decision seems to have impacted Seattle's implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), suggesting seepage between limits on Brown and increasing disproportionality. Additionally, local school and housing policies collude with cultural practice to maintain a social and political order that continues to disadvantage students who belong to minoritized groups segmented by race, ethnicity, immigrant status, and language, often cloaked as a response to disability.Item ‘Build That Wall!’: manufacturing the enemy, yet again(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Santamaría Graff, Cristina C.The 2016 presidential campaign and the election of Donald Trump has amplified divisive anti-immigrant sentiment and has further positioned ‘Mexicans as enemy.’ Trump’s ‘Build That Wall!’ declarative has stoked nativist ire through manufactured narratives that rarely, if ever, consider the United States government’s role in the increase of undocumented immigrants residing in our country. In this essay, the author connects the current administration’s anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican proposals to historical legislation that, cloaked under the guise of ‘national security’ or a return to ‘American values,’ has aimed to maintain White hegemony. Additionally, the author examines anti-Mexican narratives that aim to criminalize Mexican immigrants’ behaviors to justify imperialistic and unjust policies that further serve dominant-White political elites and their constituents.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.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.