Difficult Dialogues About Race and Poverty in Teacher Preparation

Abstract

Poverty continues to be a vexing problem in the United States. Despite the fact that many have recovered from the great recession of 2008, many people, disproportionately people of color still feel the effects of poverty. Perhaps, most troubling is the manner in which poverty affects children. US schools see the effects of poverty in many ways, from homelessness, lack of access to medical attention, lack of academic preparation, and limited parental engagement. The challenge remains that many educators are ill equipped to fully understand and respond to the harsh circumstances that poverty causes for children. In this chapter, the authors examine the racialization of poverty, discuss some of the pertinent literature around poverty, and then offer critical race theory and intergroup dialogue as analytical tools to help preservice and inservice teachers acquire the requisite knowledge, skills, and dispositions to adequately teach and talk about students living in poverty.