Achieving Inclusion in the Context of Committed School Leadership: Possibilities and Tensions

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 21
  In Roundtable Session: Breaking Down and Unlearning Abled/Disabled Binaries

Abstract

Given the challenges associated with dismantling the pervasive ability-based structures that underlie schooling systems, the efforts of urban school leaders to implement inclusive schooling offers an opportunity for educators to understand its possibilities. The study reported in this paper investigates the tensions and possibilities produced in three schools where building leaders actively made the inclusion of students with disabilities central to their school mission. Data disclosed that the commitment to inclusion and collaboration with families created learning environments that were deeply appreciated by families and teachers alike. It simultaneously produced unintended exclusions when family advocacy was not welcomed or when the discourse of “needs” inadvertently privileged normative forms of learning.

Authors

• Srikala Naraian, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Jaclyn Okin Barney

• Mary Ann Chacko, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Claire Feldman, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Tara Schwitzman-Gerst, Teachers College, Columbia University