Early childhood professionals are increasingly called upon to be responsive to children and families experiencing poverty. Such responsiveness requires consideration of ideologies of poverty, including beliefs and assumptions about poverty that are deeply embedded within educational policy and practice. This investigation explored how four Early Head Start home visitors enacted ideologies of poverty with 12 families of infants and toddlers through their decision-making talk with families during home visits. Drawing on Gee's D/discourse theory, ideological assumptions about poverty were identified through discourse analysis of home visit transcripts, and supplemented by qualitative analysis of home visit documents and individual interviews with home visitors and families. In emphasizing parents’ ability to redress poverty through personal responsibility and individual action, identified assumptions predominantly reflected individualistic ideologies of poverty. Findings offer insight into how ideologies of poverty constrained decision-making and subtly reinforced deficit-based messages about families, despite home visitors’ empathy.

人们越来越多地呼吁幼儿专业人士对贫困儿童和家庭做出回应。这种回应需要考虑贫困的意识形态，包括深深植根于教育政策和实践中的关于贫困的信念和假设。本调查探讨了 4 名早期启蒙家访者如何通过家访期间与家庭的决策谈话，向 12 个婴幼儿家庭灌输贫困意识形态。借鉴吉的D/话语理论，通过对家访笔录的话语分析，并辅之以家访文件的定性分析以及对家访者和家庭的单独访谈，确定了关于贫困的意识形态假设。在强调父母通过个人责任和个人行动消除贫困的能力时，所确定的假设主要反映了个人主义的贫困意识形态。研究结果揭示了贫困意识形态如何限制决策，并巧妙地强化有关家庭的基于赤字的信息，尽管家访者有同理心。