From "Underdeveloped Dialogue" to Emancipatory Practice: A Literature Review of Disability Studies and Teacher Education

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: Collaborative and Multimodal Strategies for Constructing Inclusive Strategies

Abstract

Arriving at consensus for how to best prepare teachers to teach students with dis/abilities is a complicated and divisive issue. Preparing pre-service teachers to work with one or the other population is a divisive approach, validating the existence of a special-general education binary (Baglieri & Knopf, 2004) that perpetuates segregation, based on beliefs about who teachers teach, rather than how they teach. Despite efforts by a number of programs, teacher education still espouses a bifurcated model of special or general educator preparation. This paper traces the history of the relationship between Disability Studies and teacher education. It concludes with a proposed research agenda to unite the field by committed to critically reframing dis/ability within programs’ theory, curriculum, and practice.

Author

• Beth S Fornauf, University of New Hampshire