EDC 410 Partnering with Families in the Early and Elementary Grades

3 Credit(s) DPDS

This course focuses on developing an understanding of strategies to engage in socially just partnerships with families across preschool-6th grade settings. Students will explore the ways in which dominant White, middle-class and heteronormative American ideologies about family structure and child-rearing practices influence educational policy, including special education law. Students will investigate power dynamics inherent in family/educator relationships and the potential for those power dynamics to result in deficit-based, oppressive family engagement practices. Strategies to create and maintain reciprocal, culturally responsive partnerships will be explored. Three lecture hours per week.