"His Profile Would Not Match": The Discursive Construction of the Continuum of Alternative Placements

• In Event: 33.079 - Roundtable Session 12
  In Roundtable Session: 33.079-21 - Constructing Disability Discourse and Identity

Abstract

This study uses institutional ethnography and discourse analysis to explore how one district administrator creates the continuum of alternative placements for a student with autism. During the descriptions of special education classrooms that make up the continuum of alternative placements in this district, the administrator creates overarching profiles for students to dissuade the family from seeing these placements as viable for their son.

Author

• Erin McCloskey, Vassar College