Variations in Experience and Meaning: Leadership Involvement and Identities With Special Education and Disability

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Positioning and Roadblocks in Special Education

Abstract

This study explored various ways former principals conceived of their leadership identity and accounted for their involvement in special education and with students identified or identifying as disabled. Employing a phenomenographic approach, findings were grouped into pools of meanings, labeled as categories of description, and presented in an outcome space. Findings revealed former principals accounted for their involvement through professional responses, risk-taking, and working toward the social transformation of their schools. Participants experienced involvement as active presence, critical reflection, advocacy, and resistance. Findings suggested involvement in special education was influenced by personal experiences with disability and relationships with individuals with disabilities. Furthermore, participants experienced identity through compassion, learning, spirituality, and dis/abled-ness.

Author

• Roderick Jones, University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire