Dysconscious Ableism: The Continuing Miseducation of Teachers

• In Event: 60.083 - Roundtable Session 19
  In Roundtable Session: 60.083-14 - Disability Studies in Education: Perspectives on Teaching and Teacher Preparation

Abstract

This study draws upon King’s (1991) seminal concept of dysconscious racism, extrapolating from it the analogous conceptual device of dysconscious ableism. We report upon data drawn from our students’ writing in a teacher education course to better understand their conceptualizations of dis/ability, and their understandings of examples of educational segregation based upon those conceptualizations. We analyze these data through the conceptual lens of dysconscious ableism, embedded in a broader conceptual framework of Disability Studies in Education (DSE) literature. We make an argument for the necessity of engaging in studies of ableism in teacher education and for the usefulness of the specific conceptual device of dysconscious ableism as a central tool of social justice pedagogy in teacher education.

Authors

• Alicia A. Broderick, Montclair State University

• Priya Lalvani, Montclair State University