Examining the Twists, Turns, and Textures of Education Policy: How and Why Context Matters in the Racialization of Disabilities

• In Event: 77.057 - MTCC Roundtable Session 35
  In Roundtable Session: 77.057-12 - Critical Disability Studies and Intersectionality

Abstract

In this study, the authors focus on educational stakeholders' responses to receiving a citation for racial disproportionality in special education. After conducting 30 interviews with district and school leaders, teachers, staff, and students in a northeastern school district, the authors demonstrate how policy travels - how it is understood, adopted, and resisted - across different people and geographical spaces. Using an interdisciplinary perspective focused on policy assemblages and critical space theory, we show how spatial assemblages shaped stakeholders' responses (and non-responses) to receiving a citation for disproportionality, thwarting meaningful shifts to practice and undermining equity aims. The authors discuss the importance of a deeper examination of how historical, political, and spatial contexts perpetuate inequities in everyday practices that weaken policy guidelines.

Authors

• Adai A. Tefera, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Touro College

• Alfredo J. Artiles, Arizona State University

• Alexandra Aylward, New York University

• Sarah Lopez Alvarado, Arizona State University