Movement Toward Critical Consciousness and Humility Through Family as Faculty Approaches

This qualitative study examined preservice special education teachers’ (PSETs) movement toward critical consciousness and humility in working with families of children with disabilities using a Freirean lens grounded in three phases of consciousness: intransitive, transitive, and critical consciousness. The authors expanded upon a Family as Faculty (FAF) framework integrating Freire’s understandings of consciousness applied to the ways that PSETs work with and learn from parents/families of children with disabilities. Using FAF-related activities, PSETs demonstrated varying levels of consciousness as operationalized through specific comments or behaviors. Eight PSET-Parent pairs participated in this study. The focus of analysis was on PSETs’ reflections. Findings indicated that though the majority of PSETs demonstrated movement or growth toward becoming more “conscious,” many PSETs remained in the transitive phase: they could identify inequitable and marginalizing practices impacting students but were not at a consciousness level where they connected these injustices to systemic issues.