Small Spaces, Big Moments: Understanding Spatial Experiences of Youth and Adults in Restricted Educational Spaces

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 26
  In Roundtable Session: Lived Experiences With Disability in Education

Abstract

This study inquires into the spatial dimension of restricted educational spaces to understand how they operate to both disable and provide moments of possibility for the youth and adults within them. Drawing on ethnographic methods and narrative inquiry this paper uses interviews and field notes collected at two separate restricted educational spaces, an afterschool program for youth who have been arrested and an independent school for youth labeled with disabilities.Using a Disability Studies in Education (DSE) orientation with the tenets of DisCrit in order to draw attention to the ways racism and ableism operate to always informing one another, this paper discusses key features of two separate restricted educational spaces to address how these spaces both are produced and experienced.

Author

• Katherine Newhouse, Teachers College, Columbia University