Poverty-aware teacher education

ABSTRACT

Education is considered a path for escaping poverty. However, poverty and lack of success in school are closely linked. Understanding structural factors within society that cause poverty and their influence on learning and educational outcomes requires reshaping teacher education programmes. There is a need for programmes that adopt the social justice perspective and challenge prevalent deficit perceptions of people in poverty, through critical reflection. This article presents a qualitative study that analysed the responses of teachers in Israel who were exposed to life stories of people in poverty as a means of arousing poverty-awareness. Our experience shows that reflexive reading of life stories can challenge stereotypes, deepen teachers’ understanding of socio-economic disadvantage, and help sensitise them to school pedagogies and practices that exacerbate inequality. This change of teachers’ understandings and attitudes has the potential to develop a partnership-based relationship with families living in poverty and improve student’s educational achievement.

KEYWORDS:

• reflective practice
• teacher attitudes
• poverty-awareness
• initial teacher education
• in-service teacher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shoshana Steinberg

Shoshana Steinberg, PhD, is a Social Psychologist with many years of experience as a lecturer in undergraduate and graduate teacher training programmes at Kaye Academic College of Education in Be’er-Sheva. She also teaches inter-group relations in the Conflict Management and Conflict Resolution Program at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Her main research interests are the theoretical and practical aspects of inter-group relations, conflict resolution, poverty and education, and peace education.

Michal Krumer-Nevo

Michal Krumer-Nevo is a professor at the Social Work Department at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and activist in the field of poverty. She is also the honorary president of the Israeli Center for Qualitative Research of People and Societies. Her main areas of interest are poverty, social work practice, critical and feminist social work and qualitative emancipatory methodologies. She has developed the Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP) that has won international interest and been implemented by the Israeli Welfare Ministry nationwide. Her latest book isRadical Hope: Poverty-Aware Practice for Social Work (Policy Press, 2020).