Pre-service+teachers'+service+learning+among+students+with+autism+spectrum

Anne Power, Senior Lecturer, University of Western Sydney [ am.power@uws.edu.au ]
 * Pre-service teachers' service learning among students with Autism Spectrum**



** Keywords ** : Pre-service teachers, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Bourdieu, symbolic violence

** Track ** : Community partnerships and reciprocity

** Format ** : Research paper


 * Date & time: **Friday 10:50-12:00
 * Location: ** Salon 12

** Summary ** : Internationally, the growing number of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) means pre-service teachers will encounter students in their classrooms. One service learning collaboration between Autism Spectrum Australia and the University of Western Sydney is situated in Social Clubs for adolescents to provide structured opportunities for positive peer interactions. Pre-service teachers learn there about establishing rapport with students with ASD and reflect on developing strategies for future classrooms.

This paper uses Bourdieu’s theory of social capital to analyze data drawn from surveys and reflections. Using this analysis enabled a focus on the pre-service teachers’ reflections on groups like students with autism being disempowered within the educational process. Bourdieu (1991) suggests that when schools take no account of the discourses and practices of marginalized groups they enact a form of institutionalized ‘symbolic violence,’ imposing limitations on those who do not have the social capital required to combat challenges, in this case imposed by the mainstream.

This research finds that pre-service teachers were able to observe the effect when students did not encounter ‘symbolic violence’ but rather the explicit instruction, repetition and structure that they needed. For the pre-service teachers the experience was a significant learning opportunity, discovering how to establish rapport with students with ASD. In working with students, they learned about adolescents’ frustrations with being seen as taking the teacher’s time in the classroom. They saw student satisfaction when the nature of the task was understood. For the future teachers, the Social Clubs provided hands-on experience that countered the effect of the negative ‘reputations’ that adolescent students with ASD may acquire. For the pre-service teachers, it was an authentic learning that enriched their preparation for the classroom, however multi-layered its student population might be.

** References ** : Bourdieu, P. (1991). //Language and symbolic power//. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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