Boundaries of Disability Studies and Special Education Through a Personal-Legal-Philosophical-Sociological-Literary Lens

• In Event: Consilience-ing, Self-Study-ing, Radical Love-ing at the Boundaries of Disability Studies in Education and (Special) Education

Abstract

Synthesizing multiple disciplines' perspectives on the common boundary of Disability Studies and Special Education, as viewed through my own lived experience as a disabled person, advocate, and parent participating in the system, I will suggest means by which Special Education can be made more humane and effective.

The current emphasis on application of the minimal requirements outlined in regulations and standardized measurement within Special Education tends to reduce students to assessment scores (numbers) and objectify them. This result is antithetical to the relational model of teaching and learning presented by Freire and his emphasis on dialogue, critical views, and teaching as political process. This viewpoint leads to an adversarial process rather than a collaborative one in the construction of educational goals and plans, to nobody's benefit. A new path is needed.

The theory of consilience posits a unity among various academic disciplines in analysis of a problem or issue. Sociology, educational theory, literature, philosophy and law can all be applied to the problem of defining and increasing educational effectiveness, viewed through personal experience and introspection. Disability Studies informs Special Education by putting a face on the student – personalizing the student as Buber defines I-Thou, – in order for relationship to be possible, while Special Education, taking itself seriously as “science” viewing the student under a microscope, depersonalizes that student into an I-It non-relationship.

Through synthesis of theories of personhood and relationship presented in Buber's I and Thou, Saint Exupery's The Little Prince, Goffman' Stigma and Freire's works, applied to legislative history and procedures related to Special Education programs, new directions for praxis rooted in compassion, egalitarianism and humanity will be developed.

In this instance, data sources and evidence are the same, comprising literary, sociological and philosophical writings, legislative and judicial history, and personal history, axiology and ethnography. The basis of this work is in ethics as it relates to praxis.

The result is a paradigm shift, based upon the unintended consequence of dehumanization that results from the current positivist focus in Special Education.

The scholarly significance of this work is that already existing writings which have not hitherto been applied to this problem can direct us to improved communication and instructional effectiveness through increasing relational rather than positivist attitudes towards teaching. This can raise consciousness about veiled and overt violence in the intersection between Special Education and the mainstream. The parallel systems of support don't interact well, if at all, and this results in increased violence toward defined special education students over typical students, across milieus within the present structure and attitudes.

Author

• Jane Strauss, Square Peg Advocacy