Disability Studies in Education – serie

With the passage of Public Law 94-142 in 1975, the learning disability construct gained national legitimacy. Feeding that political achievement, behind the very idea of a learning disability, was the development of a science that blended neurology, psychology, and education. This book tracks the historical creation of the science of learning disabilities, beginning with the clinical research with brain-injured World War I soldiers conducted by German physician Kurt Goldstein. It traces the growth of the two primary research traditions, the psycholinguistic theory of Samuel Kirk and the movement education of Newell Kephart, exploring how specific scientific orientations, theories, and practices led to the birth of the learning disability in the United States.

Law, policy, and practice in the United States has long held that students with disabilities – including those with intellectual disabilities – have the right to a free and appropriate public education, in a non-restrictive environment. Yet very few of these students are fully included in general education classrooms. Educational systems use loopholes to segregate students; universities regularly fail to train teachers to include students; and state regulators fail to provide the necessary leadership and funding to implement policies of inclusion. Whatever Happened to Inclusion? reports on the inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities from national and state perspectives, outlining the abject failure of schools to provide basic educational rights to students with significant disabilities in America. The book then describes the changes that must be made in teacher preparation programs, policy, funding, and local schools to make the inclusion of students with intellectual disabilities a reality.

Both Sides of the Table is a set of evocative, heartfelt, personal, and revealing stories, told by educators about how their experiences with disability, personally and in the lives of family members, has affected their understanding of disability. It uses disability studies and critical theory lenses to understand the autoethnographies of teachers and their personal relationships with disability. The book takes a beginning look at the meaning of autoethnography as a method of inquiry, as well as how it has been (and will be) applied to exploring disability and the role of education in creating and sustaining it. The title refers to the context in which educators find themselves in Individualized Education Plan (IEP) meetings for students with disabilities in schools. There, educators often sit on the other side of the table from people with disabilities, their families, and their allies. In these chapters, the authors assume roles that place them, literally, on both sides of IEP tables. They inscribe new meanings – of relationships, of disability, of schools, of what it means to be an educator and a learner. It is a proposal (or perhaps a gentle manifesto) for what research, education, disability, and a utopian revolutionary politics of social transformation could and should look like.

Incorporating scholarship that addresses the social, economic, cultural, and historical facets of the experience of disability in South Asia, this book presents the reader with a comprehensive, cogent, and nuanced view of the constructions of disability in this region. In doing so, it focuses on the lived experiences of people with disabilities and their families, analyzing such disabling barriers as poverty, caste, and other inequities that limit their access to education, employment, equity, and empowerment. It addresses the interpretations of disability within different South Asian contexts including policy, family, educational systems, films, and literary narratives. Situated in an interdisciplinary perspective that spans areas such as cultural studies, law, disability studies in education, sociology, and historiography, South Asia and Disability Studies presents a rich and complex understanding of the disability experience in South Asia. The organization of topics parallels the discourse in areas within disability studies such as identity construction, language, historical constructions of disability, and cultural representations of disability.

Incorporating scholarship that addresses the social, economic, cultural, and historical facets of the experience of disability in South Asia, this book presents the reader with a comprehensive, cogent, and nuanced view of the constructions of disability in this region. In doing so, it focuses on the lived experiences of people with disabilities and their families, analyzing such disabling barriers as poverty, caste, and other inequities that limit their access to education, employment, equity, and empowerment. It addresses the interpretations of disability within different South Asian contexts including policy, family, educational systems, films, and literary narratives. Situated in an interdisciplinary perspective that spans areas such as cultural studies, law, disability studies in education, sociology, and historiography, South Asia and Disability Studies presents a rich and complex understanding of the disability experience in South Asia. The organization of topics parallels the discourse in areas within disability studies such as identity construction, language, historical constructions of disability, and cultural representations of disability.

Inclusive education continues to grow in popularity and acceptance in the United States. However, most teachers – general and special educators – are poorly prepared to be successful in inclusive classrooms and schools. Undoubtedly, the challenge to professionals involves the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. But inclusion requires far more. It calls upon educators to trouble everything they think they know about disability, to question their deepest ethical commitments, to take up the work of the Disability Rights Movement in the public schools, and to leap headlong into the deepest waters of the rich craft tradition of inclusive teaching. This book offers educators the guidance and resources to become great inclusive educators by engaging in a powerful process of personal and professional transformation.

Inclusive education continues to grow in popularity and acceptance in the United States. However, most teachers – general and special educators – are poorly prepared to be successful in inclusive classrooms and schools. Undoubtedly, the challenge to professionals involves the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. But inclusion requires far more. It calls upon educators to trouble everything they think they know about disability, to question their deepest ethical commitments, to take up the work of the Disability Rights Movement in the public schools, and to leap headlong into the deepest waters of the rich craft tradition of inclusive teaching. This book offers educators the guidance and resources to become great inclusive educators by engaging in a powerful process of personal and professional transformation.

Practicing Disability Studies in Education: Acting Toward Social Change celebrates the diversity of contemporary work being developed by a range of scholars working within the field of Disability Studies in Education (DSE). The central idea of this volume is to share ways in which educators practice DSE in creative and eclectic ways in order to rethink, reframe, and reshape the current educational response to disability. Largely confined to the limitations of traditional educational discourse, this collective (and growing) group continues to push limits, break molds, assert the need for plurality, explore possibilities, move into the unknown, take chances, strategize to destabilize, and co-create new visions for what can be, instead of settling for what is. Much like jazz musicians who rely upon one another on stage to create music collectively, these featured scholars have been – and continue to – riff with one another in creating the growing body of DSE literature. In sum, this volume is DSE «at work.»

Disabling Characters provides detailed analyses of selected young adult (YA) novels and short stories. It looks at the relative agency of the disabled character, the behavior of the other characters, the environment in which the character must live, the assumptions that seem to be underlying certain scenes, and the extent to which the book challenges or perpetuates an unsatisfactory status quo. Class discussions about disability-themed literature, however well intentioned, have the potential to reinforce harmful myths or stereotypes about disability. In contrast, discussions informed by a critical disability studies perspective can help readers develop more sophisticated views of disability and contribute to a more just and inclusive society. The book examines discussion questions, lesson plans, study guides, and other supplemental materials aimed at students studying these texts, and it suggests more critical questions to pose about these texts and the positive and/or negative work they do, perhaps subliminally, in our culture. This book is a much-needed addition to college classes in YA literature, literary analysis, methods of teaching literature, disability studies, cultural studies, contemporary criticism, special education, and adolescent literacy.

Disabling Characters provides detailed analyses of selected young adult (YA) novels and short stories. It looks at the relative agency of the disabled character, the behavior of the other characters, the environment in which the character must live, the assumptions that seem to be underlying certain scenes, and the extent to which the book challenges or perpetuates an unsatisfactory status quo. Class discussions about disability-themed literature, however well intentioned, have the potential to reinforce harmful myths or stereotypes about disability. In contrast, discussions informed by a critical disability studies perspective can help readers develop more sophisticated views of disability and contribute to a more just and inclusive society. The book examines discussion questions, lesson plans, study guides, and other supplemental materials aimed at students studying these texts, and it suggests more critical questions to pose about these texts and the positive and/or negative work they do, perhaps subliminally, in our culture. This book is a much-needed addition to college classes in YA literature, literary analysis, methods of teaching literature, disability studies, cultural studies, contemporary criticism, special education, and adolescent literacy.

This edited volume discusses UNESCO’s contributions to inclusive education over the past 20 years, the normative and technical leadership roles this organization has been playing together with its peers and competitors in educational development, and the current status of this issue in academic debates, as well as conceptualizations from different cultures. The chapters reflect and critically discuss a range of positions on the relation between inclusive education, education for all, and special needs education and particularly express the role disability plays in these thematic contexts. The book brings to light that although the term inclusive education is commonly associated with people with disabilities, there are contexts – e.g., research strands on school development in the UK – in which inclusive education is considered as an approach in which the focus of special (needs) education is widened in terms of the target group, reaching out to the heterogeneity of learners, thus taking diversity as a starting point for educational theory and practice. This book highlights the differences in narratives of inclusive education in the United States and abroad and is intended to bridge the various approaches to the study of inclusive education and disability, particularly in the US, the UK, and the Nordic countries within Europe. Although academics and students in Disability Studies are the target audience, the book is also of high relevance to policy makers in the growing field of inclusive education, as well as being potentially interesting for practitioners in education and social work.

This edited volume discusses UNESCO’s contributions to inclusive education over the past 20 years, the normative and technical leadership roles this organization has been playing together with its peers and competitors in educational development, and the current status of this issue in academic debates, as well as conceptualizations from different cultures. The chapters reflect and critically discuss a range of positions on the relation between inclusive education, education for all, and special needs education and particularly express the role disability plays in these thematic contexts. The book brings to light that although the term inclusive education is commonly associated with people with disabilities, there are contexts – e.g., research strands on school development in the UK – in which inclusive education is considered as an approach in which the focus of special (needs) education is widened in terms of the target group, reaching out to the heterogeneity of learners, thus taking diversity as a starting point for educational theory and practice. This book highlights the differences in narratives of inclusive education in the United States and abroad and is intended to bridge the various approaches to the study of inclusive education and disability, particularly in the US, the UK, and the Nordic countries within Europe. Although academics and students in Disability Studies are the target audience, the book is also of high relevance to policy makers in the growing field of inclusive education, as well as being potentially interesting for practitioners in education and social work.

Edited by the leading scholars in the field, Vital Questions Facing Disability Studies in Education provides an overview and introduction to the growing field of disability studies in education, including the application of the interdisciplinary field of disability studies to inclusive education, teacher education, educational research, and educational policy development. While traditional special education research has focused on developing interventions aimed at increasing students’ functional capacities, disability studies scholars have asked provocative and probing questions about how communities and schools can value, include, and nurture disabled persons. This second edition continues the emphasis of the first edition on the central questions that drive this critical field of inquiry and social action, while broadening its scope to more fully address international educational issues. The first edition of this text has been widely adopted in undergraduate and graduate courses in disability studies and inclusive education.

Becoming a Great Inclusive Educator, Second Edition offers educators the guidance and resources to become great inclusive educators by engaging in a powerful process of personal and professional transformation.　 Inclusive education continues to grow in popularity and acceptance in the United States. But most teachers – general and special educators – are poorly prepared to be successful in inclusive classrooms and schools. Undoubtedly, the challenge to professionals involves the acquisition of new knowledge and skills. But inclusion requires far more. It calls upon educators to trouble everything they think they know about disability, to question their deepest ethical commitments, to take up the work of the Disability Rights Movement in the public schools, and to leap headlong into the deepest waters of the rich craft tradition of inclusive teaching.

Disrupting Schools: The Institutional Conditions of Disordered Behaviour represents an applied sociological address to the intractable patterns of educational exclusion of students diagnosed with "emotional and behavioural disorders." Starting with the finding that these students commonly share educational trajectories signposted by critical incidents and alienation, this book seeks a scientific solution to this problem via a more reflexive way of understanding these students’ practices in situ—in order to avoid critical incidents and foster inclusion. Pursuing this logic, Disrupting Schools uses Bourdieu’s theorising of practice and Sacks’ Membership Categorisation Analysis and Conversation Analysis to prise open the epistemological dynamics of exclusion by forensically dissecting an incident of classroom violence leading to exclusion. This produces the discovery that institutional conditions operating within teacher-student interactions ensure, via psychologically informed knowledge construction practices, the non-conscious substitution of reflexive understanding for a symbolic violence that underwrites both critical incidents and exclusion. The discovery unlocks the possibility of systemic inclusion based on a consciously controlled reflexive understanding suggested by these findings.

Disrupting Schools: The Institutional Conditions of Disordered Behaviour represents an applied sociological address to the intractable patterns of educational exclusion of students diagnosed with "emotional and behavioural disorders." Starting with the finding that these students commonly share educational trajectories signposted by critical incidents and alienation, this book seeks a scientific solution to this problem via a more reflexive way of understanding these students’ practices in situ—in order to avoid critical incidents and foster inclusion. Pursuing this logic, Disrupting Schools uses Bourdieu’s theorising of practice and Sacks’ Membership Categorisation Analysis and Conversation Analysis to prise open the epistemological dynamics of exclusion by forensically dissecting an incident of classroom violence leading to exclusion. This produces the discovery that institutional conditions operating within teacher-student interactions ensure, via psychologically informed knowledge construction practices, the non-conscious substitution of reflexive understanding for a symbolic violence that underwrites both critical incidents and exclusion. The discovery unlocks the possibility of systemic inclusion based on a consciously controlled reflexive understanding suggested by these findings.

Dismantling the Disabling Environments of Education: Creating New Cultures and Contexts for Accommodating Difference challenges assumptions that view people of difference to be "abnormal," that isolate attention to their difference solely in the individual, that treat areas of difference as matters of deficiency, and that separate youth of difference from the mainstream and treat them as pathologized. As outsiders to mainstream special education, the authors of this collection take a more social and cultural perspective that views the surrounding social environment as at least as problematic as any point of difference in any individual. Most of the scholars contributing to this volume work with preservice and inservice teachers and grapple with issues of curriculum and pedagogy. One of the primary audiences we hope to reach with this book is our colleagues and practitioners who have not made special education or disability studies the focus of their careers, but who, like we, are determined to engage with the full range of people who attend schools. Dismantling the Disabling Environments of Education: Creating New Cultures and Contexts for Accommodating Difference can be a valuable text for undergraduate and graduate courses in teacher education, as it addresses key issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, and differentiated approaches to educating the full range of students.

Dismantling the Disabling Environments of Education: Creating New Cultures and Contexts for Accommodating Difference challenges assumptions that view people of difference to be "abnormal," that isolate attention to their difference solely in the individual, that treat areas of difference as matters of deficiency, and that separate youth of difference from the mainstream and treat them as pathologized. As outsiders to mainstream special education, the authors of this collection take a more social and cultural perspective that views the surrounding social environment as at least as problematic as any point of difference in any individual. Most of the scholars contributing to this volume work with preservice and inservice teachers and grapple with issues of curriculum and pedagogy. One of the primary audiences we hope to reach with this book is our colleagues and practitioners who have not made special education or disability studies the focus of their careers, but who, like we, are determined to engage with the full range of people who attend schools. Dismantling the Disabling Environments of Education: Creating New Cultures and Contexts for Accommodating Difference can be a valuable text for undergraduate and graduate courses in teacher education, as it addresses key issues of inclusion, diversity, equity, and differentiated approaches to educating the full range of students.

Constructing the (M)other is a collection of personal narratives about motherhood in the context of a society in which disability holds a stigmatized position. From multiple vantage points, these autoethnographies reveal how ableist beliefs about disability are institutionally upheld and reified. Collectively they seek to call attention to a patriarchal surveillance of mothering, challenge the trope of the good mother, and dismantle the constructed hierarchy of acceptable children. The stories contained in this volume are counter-narratives of resistance—they are the devices through which mothers push back. Rejecting notions of the otherness of their children, in these essays, mothers negotiate their identities and claim access to the category of normative motherhood. Readers are likely to experience dissonance, have their assumptions about disability challenged, and find their parameters of normalcy transformed.

Constructing the (M)other is a collection of personal narratives about motherhood in the context of a society in which disability holds a stigmatized position. From multiple vantage points, these autoethnographies reveal how ableist beliefs about disability are institutionally upheld and reified. Collectively they seek to call attention to a patriarchal surveillance of mothering, challenge the trope of the good mother, and dismantle the constructed hierarchy of acceptable children. The stories contained in this volume are counter-narratives of resistance—they are the devices through which mothers push back. Rejecting notions of the otherness of their children, in these essays, mothers negotiate their identities and claim access to the category of normative motherhood. Readers are likely to experience dissonance, have their assumptions about disability challenged, and find their parameters of normalcy transformed.

Teachers are increasingly challenged by dilemmas of practice as they negotiate their commitments to equity for students from historically marginalized communities, including students with disabilities, against the demands of their school settings. This book seeks to understand the ways in which teachers’ engagements with their schooling contexts evoke varied forms of inclusive practice. It narrates the experiences of seven novice teachers who entered the field deeply committed to inclusive practice. It documents their conflicts, joys and struggles within the collectivities in which they were embedded. In doing thus, the book discloses the many unpredictable trajectories of practice that encompass the complex work of teaching for inclusion.

This book purposefully connects practice to research, and vice versa, through the use of deeply personal stories in the form of autoethnographic memoirs. In this collection, twenty contributors share selected tales of teaching students with dis/abilities in K-12 settings across the USA, including tentative triumphs, frustrating failures, and a deep desire to understand the dynamics of teaching and learning. The authors also share an early awareness of significant dissonance between academic knowledge taught to them in teacher education programs and their own experiential knowledge in schools. Coming to question established practices within the field of special education in relation to the children they taught, each author grew increasingly critical of deficit-models of disability that emphasized commonplace practices of physical and social exclusion, dysfunction and disorders, repetitive remediation and punitive punishments. The authors describe how their interactions with children and youth, parents, and administrators, in the context of their classrooms and schools, influenced a shift away from the limiting discourse of special education and toward become critical special educators and/or engage with disability studies as a way to reclaim, reframe, and reimagine disability as a natural part of human diversity. Furthermore, the authors document how these early experiences in the everydayness of schooling helped ground them as teachers and later, teacher educators, who galvanized their research trajectories around studying issues of access and equality throughout educational structures and systems, while developing new theoretical models within Disability Studies in Education, aimed to impact practices and policies.

Research related to transition and support needs for autistic adults remains limited. The purpose of this study was to understand the hopes, dreams, aspirations, challenges, and lived experiences of autistic adults. Academic literature has largely emphasized autism as a medical deficit, and use of first-person narratives to understand needs of people on the autism spectrum is rare. To fill this gap, this narrative study was conducted through a social model of disability lens and centered voices of autistic individuals. This research recognized that only someone who is autistic can be considered a true expert on autism; thus, it is imperative researchers consult with and collaborate with autistic individuals to develop the most useful support services possible. By including autistic people in research design, implementation, and support services, academics and therapists can learn from the neurodivergent about problems that the social and cultural worlds present them with, thereby moving toward a more socially just society. This study included both academic literature and autobiographies written by autistic authors. The coauthor in this study is also an autistic adult who presented his life experiences for a central narrative. In contrast to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which conceptualizes autism as a list of deficits, a number of powerful themes emerged from analysis of autistic authors’ lives: Isolation, Influence of Parents, Differences in Needs: Education and Employment, Empowerment, and Relationships. These themes were contextualized via theories of neurodiversity paradigm, monotropism theory, and the double empathy problem, to better understand autistic experiences and needs. “Mathur and Valerius provide an articulate view into the lived experiences of individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. As an ABA practitioner and scholar, it made me think deeply about how clinicians may go about the implementation of compassionate ABA services. This book is a timely and significant contribution relevant for anyone with that goal in mind.”—Adel C. Najdowski, PhD, BCBA-D, Program Director, MS Applied Behavior Analysis, Pepperdine University, Los Angeles, California “Adam and Sneha have created a beautiful and very much-needed book. Reading this book brings me hope. While my lived experience is different than that of Adam, I see so many recurring themes in my own life and in the lives of the learners who I support. The combination of narrative and research is engaging and makes a convincing argument for qualitative, lived-experience research. This work is mirrored by current and emerging research on Community-Informed Practice and Neurodiversity Affirming Practice. It is my opinion that this book needs to be included as essential reading for any person, autistic and allistic, who interacts with autistics (which really is everyone). But this book should be included in the required reading for any person who provides support for autistics in any setting.”—Brian Middleton, M.Ed., IBA, BCBA, LBA, The “Bearded Behaviorist,” Autistic Advocate “Dr. Mathur and Mr. Valerius have crafted a critical and engaging book that amplifies the voices of autistics through vibrant qualitative research. As a psychologist, I found this to be enlightening, highly educational and a vital contribution to the literature as it addresses the lack of representation of autistic voices. It’s an insightful and useful tool and an essential addition to any clinician's library. As a mother of an autistic child and consumer of ABA services, this encouraging book resonates with me on a personal level, and I believe it is required reading for anyone who loves, works with and supports autistics, particularly if ABA is part of their journey.”—Madeeha Mir, Ph.D., Counseling Psychologist and Instructor, New York University

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has achieved celebrity status in many Western countries, yet despite considerable effort to prove its existence as a «real» disorder, ADHD still suffers from a crisis of legitimacy. Nonetheless, diagnosis and prescription of medication has grown at a phenomenal rate since the late 1980s, particularly in Western culture. Numerous accounts exist explaining how the ADHD diagnosis functions as a convenient administrative loophole, providing schools with a medical explanation for school failure, medication to sedate the «problem» into submission, or the means to eject children from mainstream classrooms.This book provides a more holistic interpretation of how to respond to children who might otherwise be diagnosed with and medicated for «ADHD» – a diagnosis which, whether scientifically valid or not, is unhelpful within the confine of the school. Training teachers to recognise and identify «ADHD symptoms» or to understand the functions of restricted pharmaceuticals will only serve to increase the number of children diagnosed and the sale of psychoactive medications. Research has shown that such activities will not help those children learn, nor will it empower their classroom teachers to take responsibility for teaching such children well. This book seeks to provide school practitioners with knowledge that is useful within the educational context to improve the educational experiences and outcomes for children who might otherwise receive a diagnosis of ADHD.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has achieved celebrity status in many Western countries, yet despite considerable effort to prove its existence as a «real» disorder, ADHD still suffers from a crisis of legitimacy. Nonetheless, diagnosis and prescription of medication has grown at a phenomenal rate since the late 1980s, particularly in Western culture. Numerous accounts exist explaining how the ADHD diagnosis functions as a convenient administrative loophole, providing schools with a medical explanation for school failure, medication to sedate the «problem» into submission, or the means to eject children from mainstream classrooms.This book provides a more holistic interpretation of how to respond to children who might otherwise be diagnosed with and medicated for «ADHD» – a diagnosis which, whether scientifically valid or not, is unhelpful within the confine of the school. Training teachers to recognise and identify «ADHD symptoms» or to understand the functions of restricted pharmaceuticals will only serve to increase the number of children diagnosed and the sale of psychoactive medications. Research has shown that such activities will not help those children learn, nor will it empower their classroom teachers to take responsibility for teaching such children well. This book seeks to provide school practitioners with knowledge that is useful within the educational context to improve the educational experiences and outcomes for children who might otherwise receive a diagnosis of ADHD.