Power Dynamics and Positioning in Teacher Home Visits with Marginalized Families

Understanding Literacies in Latinx Families: Teachers Using Home Visits to Reimagine Classroom Practices

“…This requires what Ball (2012) calls generativity —a teacher's commitment to the ongoing and continual work of connecting their understandings of literacies to their teaching practice. For example, teachers need to reflect on the power dynamics present in interactions with non‐dominant families, understanding that the power dynamics may be invisible to them exactly because they hold power (Paulick, Park, et al, 2022). Simply creating space and time for families to share may not be enough; trust‐building with families who have had traumatic experiences with schools and teachers may be much slower.…”

Teachers Centering Families and Building Rapport During Home Visits

“…Previous research on home visiting has indicated that although it can be a promising family engagement practice across a variety of outcomes (Epstein & Sheldon, 2002;Henderson & Mapp, 2002;Meyer et al, 2011;Sheldon & Jung, 2018), little is known about how to enact home visits well. Furthermore, there is some evidence that even in home visits explicitly billed as relationship-building, teachers tend to center themselves and schools (Park & Paulick, 2021;Paulick, Park, & Cornett, 2022). The present study addresses both of those gaps by examining the discussions that constituted teacher home visits with families of early elementary children.…”

“…We can compare our findings to other studies of home visits that did not include this training, but we can say nothing conclusive about the training itself. In a study of home visits that employed the same observation protocol but did not include the training, researchers found very different power dynamics (Park & Paulick, 2021; Paulick, Park, & Cornett, 2022). Under those conditions, teachers talked more, listened less, and often described the visits and families in deficit terms.…”

“…Home visits that are intended to be relationship-building have the potential to be problematic if teachers are not explicitly trained to actively center families and seek assets. Park and Paulick (2021) and Paulick, Park, and Cornett (2022) found that dominant and nondominant elementary teachers in two states who were engaging in both PTHV and home-grown home visits with nondominant families generally centered themselves and schools, perpetuating oppressive power dynamics, despite the fact that the explicit objective of the home visits was to build relationships.…”

“…How home visits are enacted matters. In fact, if home visiting is not done in ways that center families, it can Teacher Home Visits perpetuate or even exacerbate oppressive power dynamics (Park & Paulick, 2021;Paulick, Park, & Cornett, 2022). Done well, however, home visiting may be one of a suite of spaces for building trusting relationships that undergird equitable collaboration across difference (Mapp & Bergman, 2021).…”