Family poverty and the passive curriculum of care: stories from unhoused families and insights from k-12 educators

Watson, Annie Marie Falor (2023) Family poverty and the passive curriculum of care: stories from unhoused families and insights from k-12 educators. Doctoral thesis, Northern Arizona University.

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Abstract

This qualitative study examines the material conditions and day-to-day realities of youth and family homelessness in the context of widespread economic oppression and rising inequalities in the United States. Using a critical ethnographic methodology, primary data sources included observations in Cinderville Unified School District and interviews with previously unhoused parents as well as K-12 school personnel. Their stories and insights expose how a passive curriculum of care operates—through compassionate distancing, responsive support services, and charitable efforts. Simultaneously, the ideologies of individualism and meritocracy—both strong in K-12 schools—reproduce harmful stigmas. The participants’ comments offer insight to the silence and secrecy around poverty, curricular avoidance, and the impact of middle-class biases. In addition, the data highlights existing strategies of support and persisting barriers to equity for unhoused youth. In part, the findings show how youth homelessness is institutionally handed off through McKinney-Vento programs. These liaisons offer wonderful and essential support that makes a difference for unhoused families, but because of the discrete nature of McKinney-Vento programs, youth homelessness is attended to outside of the daily view and concern of most educators and the public. When addressed behind the scenes, family homelessness does not stir outrage or cries of injustice within a community, thereby offering shelter to a reckless and violent capitalist system and protecting it from critique. This study centers a system critique while amplifying the voices of resilient and resourceful parents, through a methodological blend of portraiture and composite narratives, and the voices of concerned educators who want to talk about youth homelessness, despite the cultural and educational tendency to look away.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Publisher’s Statement:	© Copyright is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the Cline Library, Northern Arizona University. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author.
Keywords:	barriers; curriculum; econcomic oppression; family poverty; McKinney-Vento; youth homelessness; Unhoused youth
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
NAU Depositing Author Academic Status:	Student
Department/Unit:	Graduate College > Theses and Dissertations College of Education > Educational Specialities
Date Deposited:	29 Jul 2026 20:50
Last Modified:	29 Jul 2026 20:50
URI:	https://openknowledge.nau.edu/id/eprint/6333

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