Neoliberal Spatial Practices at the Intersections of Race, Class, and Dis/ability: A Case Study

• In Event: 34.037 - Neoliberal Education Reforms at the Intersection of Dis/Ability, Race, and Class

Abstract

Background & Objectives
On September 2014, in the small southern university town of Tuscaloosa the first of four community meetings was held by a private firm hired by the school district to collect demographic data in an effort to reorganize the already racially and class segregated city schools while purportedly being responsive to the needs of its diverse stakeholders. With the predominant focus on actual physical space, GIS (Geospatial Information Systems) data was utilized to re-draw school zones in order to maintain a veneer of diversity in some neighborhoods and race and class segregated spaces in others. Ominously excluded in these deliberations were the implications of restructuring for the students located at the intersections of race, class, and disability in the segregated special education school for students with moderate to severe disabilities and the Alternative High School that housed students who were suspended/expelled from regular education.

The objectives of this paper are to: a) investigate the role of neoliberal education reform in reproducing segregation at the intersection of dis/ability, race, and class; (b) examine how the GIS data has been interpreted by various social actors (i.e., parents, teachers, administrators, and academics) using the neoliberal discourses of market ideologies of choice, efficiency, and profit to reproduce and/or resist segregated practices along the intersecting axes of race, class, and disability.

Theoretical Framework
My analytic framework straddles the intersections of Critical Geography in Education with Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory (DisCrit). Lefebvre (1991) theorizes space as socially produced via “spatial practices (the perceived space of daily realities and routines), representations of practice (the conceptualized space of architects and planners), and representational practice (the experienced space of everyday life and its images)” (Christie, 2013, 77). According to Annamma, Ferri, & Connnor (2012), DisCrit describes racism and ableism as “normalizing processes that are interconnected and collusive” (p. 7). Using these frameworks, we examine the spatial practices of segregation (reinterpreting the GIS data via the DisCRit lens); the representations of practice (the neoliberal logic justifying these spatial practices) and representational practice (the implications of these practices for the stakeholders at the intersections).

Methods
Using the theoretical framework described above, this study conducted textual analysis of GIS data and presentation slides made available on the Tuscaloosa City School website, public discussions held on two Facebook discussion groups, letters to the editor in the local newspaper, and field notes from some of the community meetings.

Conclusions/Scholarly Significance of Study
Neo-liberal education reform has a profound impact on (non-ideal) students located at the intersection of race, class, and disability. There has been a dearth of literature examining the neoliberal organization of space at these intersections. This study attempts to fill that gap.

Author

• Nirmala Erevelles, The University of Alabama