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Despite the diversity of the American student population, the current teacher force and cohorts of future teachers are overwhelmingly white women from middle class backgrounds. In addition to the work around race, gender, and disability status, there is a clear need for us to help future teachers reconsider how they think about children experiencing poverty in urban schools and communities. Based on its use in an elementary education foundations course, this article provides a first-person accounting of how the pedagogical tool photovoice helped future teachers critically reflect on their perceptions of students from these backgrounds and offered their professor entry points for knowledge and skill development related to teaching students living in impoverished backgrounds.

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A significant percentage of students have families from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds, yet the experiences and practices of such students are often not reflected in the curriculum. To create more equitable literacy learning environments, students need opportunities to explore economic diversity and to challenge harmful discourses about people experiencing economic hardship. The authors discuss how picture books can be used in elementary classrooms to reflect economic diversity and to facilitate critical classroom conversations on economic hardship. The authors also discuss the importance of teachers attending to students’ economic backgrounds, highlight promising trends in contemporary picture books on economic hardship, and provide critical considerations for teachers when planning for student dialogue on economic inequity.

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