Neither Here nor There: A Neo-Institutional Interrogation of the Duality of the Individualized Education Plan as Tool for Inclusion and Exclusion

• In Event: Reframing the Narrative: Deconstructing Assumptions Behind Special Education Policies and Practices

Abstract

Through a critical autoethnographic examination, I interrogate the duality of the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) as an artifact of special education law as it serves to both protect and marginalize a Black first grader with an educational disability in the Midwest. I focus on my interaction, as a special education researcher, former special education teacher, mother of a Dis/abled child, and gentrifier of a disenfranchised neighborhood, with a school attorney, special education teacher, and parent during a state-guided mediation to address a complaint of violating the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) for this student's expulsion.

Author

• Maureen Negrelli Coomer, Colorado College