Disabled Childhoods: A Comparative Ethnographic Study of Inclusion Policies

• In Event: 52.063 - The Child in Question: Exploring Social Constructions of Childhood

Abstract

In the United States, the education of children with identified disabilities is conceptualized and organized through multiple policies that reflect culturally dominant discourses of childhood, development and normalcy. Concerns about educational exclusions of children with disabilities extend to “second-class” educational opportunities that contribute social, cultural, and economic inequities and isolation (Human Rights Watch, 2009; Office of Civil Rights, 2014).

In this paper, we draw on our ongoing ethnographic research at L’école Gulliver, an inclusion preschool in Paris (Authors, 2014; 2016). We propose that the policies and practices at Gulliver offer a comparative lens that allow us to analyze contemporary American inclusion policies and practices that may inadvertently give rise to and hide forms of systematic exclusion. We argue that progressive American inclusion policies often elide the way that conceptualizations of “disabled childhood” assume that the child is already in some sense foreign to the group, that their differences are problems to be overcome.

We ground this work in critical disability studies and critical ethnographies of childhood. We read across educational anthropology, psychoanalysis, childhood studies, disability studies and poststructural theories to develop core assumptions: (1) viewing childhood and disability as relational categories and spaces; (2) challenging assumptions of childhood and normality and the production of deficit/deviant perspectives of children and disability; (3) accounting for children’ s and teachers’ subjective perspectives, experiences and differences; and (4) considering subjectivity and inclusion or exclusion as a group phenomenon.

We draw from Tobin’ s video ethnographic methods (Tobin et al., 1989 ), working collaboratively with the preschool faculty to create ethnographic films of “a typical day” for use as video prompts for interviewing faculty, administrators and parents. Our interviews over two subsequent field visits were conducted with the goal of understanding explicit and implicit beliefs about disability, childhood, teaching and learning.

Data sources include 30 hours of film shot over two days at the preschool; written interview responses from faculty and administrators responding to the film; semi-structured interviews with faculty and administrators about interesting or puzzling moments in the film or issues that came up during previous interviews; and semi-structured interviews with parents of children in the film using the film as a prompt. All interviews were filmed, translated and transcribed by a research assistant who was a native speaker of French and fluent in English.

Subtle but important differences exist between conceptualizations of “the disabled child” and the goals and expectations for education between the Parisian site and what is present in American policies. We argue that such a comparison allows us to recognize and contend with implicit assumptions in inclusion policies which have concrete, material and ideological effects on the experiences, developing identities, and futures of disabled children and their parents. This study is significant for anyone concerned with the education of children with disabilities, providing alternative lenses for conceptualizing disability, childhood, and inclusion.

Authors

• Gail M. Boldt, The Pennsylvania State University

• Joseph Michael Valente, The Pennsylvania State University