Curriculum and Social Inquiry Commons^™

The Importance Of Narrative: Moving Towards Sociocultural Understandings Of Trauma-Informed Praxis, Noah Golden

Occasional Paper Series

Dominant framings of trauma-informed pedagogy are currently grounded in a purely biomedical understanding of trauma, often locating ‘problems’ to be solved in individual students or communities, and engendering ‘solutions’ that focus on discourses of self-regulation and control. While these framings are slowly giving way to broader environmental understandings of trauma and marginalized youth, a deeper understanding of ecologies of privilege, disposession, and relationships to/with trauma is needed to understand the role(s) that schooling might play in mitigating traumatic experiences and their effects on young people. In particular, many students of color who are working-class or experiencing poverty must navigate racialized, …