"Why Are You Like That, and I'm Like This?" Understanding Disability Identity Development

• In Event: Roundtable Session 33
  In Roundtable Session: The Complexities and Intersections of Dis/ability Identity in Political and Educational Contexts

Abstract

Identity development in students is a widely studied and complicated issue. Research has focused primarily on the connection between academic identity and academic outcomes for both students with disabilities. This literature review is concerned with understanding and synthesizing the research on disability identity development in three fields: disability studies, psychology, and special education, with a particular focus on stages or empirical models that chart development over time. 30 articles were reviewed across the three fields, representing a sampling of both high and low incidence disabilities from early childhood to adulthood. The different identity models are framed in context of larger assumptions and understandings of disability, towards a goal of conceptualizing disability identity development in adolescents.

Author

• Carlyn Mueller, University of Washington