Are We Still Doing This? Tracking Institutional and Relational Experiences of Ability Grouping

• In Event: Thinking With the Parenthetical, the Palimpsest, and the Practical: When Curriculum Studies Meets Disability Studies

Abstract

Objectives/Conceptual Perspectives
This paper shifts to the practical to demonstrate the materiality of the parenthetical and the palimpsest. One critical aspect of Disability Studies in Education is the study of how schools respond to disability through their enactment of policies and practices that implicitly or explicitly limit academic opportunities for students based on their perceived ability (Connor, 2017; Erevelles, Kanga, & Middleton, 2006; Slee, 2012). In many cases, schools respond to disability through the organization of students into special education, non-Academic or modified curricular programs (Brantlinger, 2006; De Valenzuela et al., 2006; Reid & Knight, 2006). As theoretical and empirical research continues to identify ability grouping as a barrier to future economic independence and access to post-secondary education (Mitchell, 2010; 2015), many educators and leaders in education are attempting to inspire system reform towards more inclusive practice. The Toronto District School Board (TDSB) is one such public district attempting to move towards a more inclusive system. One of the drivers of its system change is the continued evidence of conflation of disability and race (Author & others, 2018; 2019) resulting in the disproportionate representation of racialized students and students living in poverty within restrictive special education and non-Academic programs (Author, 2010). Drawing on a large-scale qualitative project within the TDSB, this study employs both critical race and critical disability theory to examine the ways in which students’ capacity is constructed and embodied.

Methodology/Data Sources:
Qualitative data was collected from eight Middle and Secondary schools across the TDSB that were engaged in re-structuring both their special education and Grade 9 academic tracking practices with the goal of including more students in higher academic programming. Interviews and focus groups were conducted with over 80 students, educators and administrators.

Findings:
Overall, the results were mixed. Students and administrators tended to favour more inclusive practices and identified benefits in students’ achievement and social experiences. Middle School educators were largely supportive of inclusion and spoke to observed improvements in student achievement, behavior, as well as the reduction of stigma and exclusion students experienced in school. However, the majority of secondary school educators involved in the study shared significant reservations around inclusion and program-based restrictions to their capacity to meet the perceived needs of all students.

How constructs of ability are used to justify the continued exclusion of students emerged as a clear theme. Conceptions of ability and schooling practices were inextricably linked. The relational experience of power and subjugation between students and educators derived, in part, through the practice of ability grouping. The relationship between programming and students’ self-concept of ability was also evidenced. Students spoke about their experiences of exclusion, of bullying, and how they believed racism, ableism and stigma related to their postal codes played a role in the limited opportunities they were afforded at school.


Significance:
This paper thereby demonstrates how the practical engages the parenthetical and the palimpsest.

Author

• Gillian Parekh, York University