Precarious, Debilitated, and Ordinary: Rethinking (In)Capacity for Inclusion

• In Event: 61.041 - Moving Disability Studies in Education Theory to Practice: Making the Theoretical Practical for Praxis

Abstract

This paper argues for an understanding of inclusion that can be responsive to the complex material-discursive conditions of schooling. Drawing on a series of ethnographically-oriented studies of inclusive practices in schools, I have extracted three canonical elements of schooling, namely: the durability of place and time in the discourse of schooling and inclusion; the centrality of learning need within conceptions of inclusion; and, the necessity for change agents to promote inclusion. Deploying an intertwined theoretical framework that includes critical disability studies, spatial theory, and writings of feminist of color, I argue that these elements collectively compel a (re)consideration of capacity within the construct of inclusion that can then evoke alternate imaginings of inclusive practice.

Author

• Srikala Naraian, Teachers College, Columbia University