The Troublemaker Project: Teaching and Learning DisCrit With High School Scholars

• In Event: 25.054 - Disability Narrative Reclamation: The importance of Raising the Voices of Disabled Students

Abstract

The Troublemaker Project represents a collaborative, school-based, local knowledge-making effort between high school students, general and special education teachers, School of Education faculty, and national disability justice activists. Informed by Shalaby’s (2017) work on learning freedom, this student led alliance promoted intersectional perspectives on dis/ability, race, and gender/sexuality by confronting how the label of troublemaker is used in schools. While this placeholder term has historically reinforced deficit-perspectives about multiply marginalized students, the high school scholars in this study employed the tenants of qualitative inquiry and DisCrit theorizing to examine the possibilities that exist within supportive contexts.

Authors

• Lauren Shallish, The College of New Jersey

• Bridget McManus

• Abigail Moor, The College of New Jersey

• Melissa Heintz

• Priscilla Sevilla, The College of New Jersey

• Lisbeth Disla, The College of New Jersey

• Ariana Rolon, The College of New Jersey

• Derek Tingle, The College of New Jersey