A DisCrit Analysis of Special Education Teacher Beliefs About the Intersections of Dis/ability and Race

• In Event: 66.036 - Queering, Cripping, and Trans(ing) Education Inquiry

Abstract

This paper provided counter narratives of three special education teachers of color and their beliefs about dis/ability and race. Counter narratives were framed using DisCrit and the constructs of “smartness and goodness” as they related to participants’ experiences as raced/disabled in various educational spaces. Data was collected through course reflections and post-course interviews which captured changing beliefs over the course of a year. Counter narratives revealed how teachers’ educational experiences often led to beliefs of internalized racism and compliance and how courses centering dis/ability and race created shifts and opportunities for maps of resistance that informed their own classroom pedagogies. Implications for future research in teacher education centering dis/ability and race are discussed.

Author

• Saili S. Kulkarni, San José State University