Eric B. Claravall - Böcker

The Handbook of Critical Special Education proposes a transformative framework that reimagines special education as dialogic, relational, decolonial, and justice oriented. Critical special education calls for methodological pluralism, epistemic humility, and the integration of social and embodied understandings of disability to dismantle oppressive structures and rebuild education as a site of collective liberation and equity. Across the volume, chapter authors situate critical pedagogy as a critique of traditional special education, problematizing race and power in educational research and practice. The text highlights anti-oppressive education and intersectionality, critiques ableism, and challenges hegemonic educational structures while supporting the centrality of culture as an equally important factor in shaping the minds and the socialization process of children with dis/abilities. It also advocates for visions of justice, equity, and wellness for communities and collectives. Through the lenses of critical pedagogy, cultural studies, and positive psychology, this book provides comprehensive coverage of the reconceptualization of dis/abilities in research, practice, and policy. It is essential reading for scholars, graduate students, and teacher educators in the field of special education.

The Handbook of Critical Special Education proposes a transformative framework that reimagines special education as dialogic, relational, decolonial, and justice oriented. Critical special education calls for methodological pluralism, epistemic humility, and the integration of social and embodied understandings of disability to dismantle oppressive structures and rebuild education as a site of collective liberation and equity. Across the volume, chapter authors situate critical pedagogy as a critique of traditional special education, problematizing race and power in educational research and practice. The text highlights anti-oppressive education and intersectionality, critiques ableism, and challenges hegemonic educational structures while supporting the centrality of culture as an equally important factor in shaping the minds and the socialization process of children with dis/abilities. It also advocates for visions of justice, equity, and wellness for communities and collectives. Through the lenses of critical pedagogy, cultural studies, and positive psychology, this book provides comprehensive coverage of the reconceptualization of dis/abilities in research, practice, and policy. It is essential reading for scholars, graduate students, and teacher educators in the field of special education.

Throughout history, silences have been an inherent process of historical production - privileged narratives masquerade as definitive history, and those deemed less worthy are mute (Trouillot, 1995). Because of this, our understanding of many events in the past is incomplete; and the way we frame our contemporary societies based on these events is, implicitly or explicitly, silenced by inherently racist structures. The editors of this volume define spaces of silence beyond the temporality and physicality of historical events. Spaces of silence exist within minds, emotions, systems, and places. For instance, we recognize ways in which settler colonialism historically and presently silences Indigenous sovereignty and rights to place.How do we, then, dismantle these spaces in a multi-racial society and globalized world? Dismantling these spaces of silence situates hopes and possibilities of decolonizing our ways of thinking, ways of acting, and ways of being. This volume seeks work that calls out the various spaces of silence and ways to dismantle these spaces.