Humanizing Students: Teacher Reflections Before and After Home Visits

Abstract

Background/Context:

Teachers often hold deficit-oriented views of culturally and linguistically diverse students, limiting the formation of trusting relationships essential for culturally responsive teaching. Relationship-building, asset-framed home visits offer a promising practice to help teachers recognize students’ and families’ strengths and move toward more equitable teaching.

Purpose:

This study examines how participating in asset-framed home visits influences inservice teachers’ perceptions of their students’ dispositions, interests, and family dynamics. By focusing on teacher reflections before and after home visits, we seek to understand the nature of insights that teachers gain from home visiting that might translate into teaching practice.

Objective:

The objective was to explore whether and how teachers’ understandings of their students became more humanized and asset-focused after conducting home visits. Specifically, the study aimed to identify shifts in teachers’ reflections about student characteristics and family contexts.

Research Question:

How did inservice teachers’ understandings of children shift after engaging in relationship-building, asset-framed home visits with children and their families?

Research Design:

Using a qualitative, inductive coding approach, we analyzed 631 excerpts from teacher logs before and after home visits from nine teachers in a school with a two-way Spanish–English dual language program (four kindergarten teachers, four second-grade teachers, and one fourth-grade teacher). Pattern coding was used to identify major themes regarding shifts in teachers’ perceptions of students’ assets, supplemented by member checking to confirm findings.

Conclusions:

Following home visits, teachers moved from focusing narrowly on students’ classroom dispositions to recognizing students’ family dynamics, interests, and broader strengths. The home visits enriched teachers’ understanding of students’ humanity and helped them view families as supportive partners in promoting children’s development.