Examining pre-service special education teachers’ biases and evolving understandings about families through a family as faculty approach

Abstract

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.