"Sometimes It's Cute but Sometimes It's Annoying": Children's Emotional Experiences of Disability and Inclusion

• In Event: Hilton Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: The Things Kids Say: Dis/Ability Construction in Youth Talk

Abstract

In this paper, I present multiple readings of children’s talk about disability in the classroom through Disability Studies in Education (DSE) and psychoanalytic theories. Katie and Mike, two nondisabled students, reflect on their various relationships to Gina, a peer with Down Syndrome. I call attention to the possibility of seemingly harmful, ableist expressions to open a dialogue about children’s feelings of in/exclusion. Amidst contradictory expressions of love and hate, kinship and disaffection, acceptance and denial, I argue that these children express good impulses that we as teachers, and social critics, can build upon toward more inclusive spaces.

Author

• Alex Collopy, The Pennsylvania State University