Labeled Lives: The Social Construction of Ability, Disability, and Youth Identity

• In Event: Labeling and Performing (Dis)ability in Education

Abstract

Disability labels and other social categories in school arise out of an educational system which often attributes learning problems, perceived weaknesses, and academic failure to individual students. Instead, this paper investigates how learning problems are produced and reinforced through cultural practices and perceptions of ability. Through a two-year, multi-sited ethnography of twelve high school students labeled with learning disabilities, we examine the personal, interpersonal, and institutional storylines which make labels relevant in certain contexts and shape whether they can fully participate. Using Harré’s positioning theory as our framework, we analyze the extent to which students’ beliefs about “who they are” are continually negotiated as they participate in the contexts of school, informal settings outside school, and family life.

Author

• AnnMarie Darrow Baines, San Francisco State University