Theorizing to Transform Teacher Education for Disability-Inclusive Practices

• In Event: Sustaining Disability in Teacher Education Programs: A Symposium on Disability Studies Cross-Pollination With Asset Pedagogies

Abstract

Purpose
In this paper, I explore the under-examined role of theorizing in collaborative and inclusive teacher education research, practice, and reform. Collaborative teacher education for inclusive practices has prioritized, in large part, bringing special and general education teacher candidates to work together (e.g., Pugach & Blanton, 2009; Weinberg et al., 2019). These efforts have helped to disrupt the siloed dynamics of university-based teacher preparation (e.g., Waitoller & Kozleski, 2013). While a range of student differences are addressed by the inclusive education agenda, inclusive teacher education has largely privileged (fixing) disabilities over other types of difference—a focus often driven by local, state, and federal policies for students with disabilities (Alvarado et al., 2019; Blanton et al., 2018; Author 1, 2019). The focus on policy, structures, and pedagogy are important, but insufficient attention has been given to sustaining disability identities, the lived experiences of students with disabilities at the intersections of multiple sociocultural differences (Author 1, 2020), or the role theory and theorizing have in collaborative and inclusive teacher education (Pugach et al., 2020).
Perspectives
Drawing from curriculum theory (e.g., Erevelles et al, 2019), Black and Women of Color feminisms (e.g., Author1, 2019; Mitrano, 1989), and decolonial discourses (e.g., Subedi, 2013), this paper explores existing entry points to theorizing in disability studies (Annamma et al., 2013; Erevelles, 2011) and special education (Clark et al, 2005; Lambert & Tan, 2016; Sullivan & Artiles, 2011) to elucidate its potential for transforming teacher education for disability-inclusive praxis.
Methods and Data Sources
Reviews of inclusive teacher education literature reveal the tendency to focus on program components, assessments of candidates’ pedagogical skills, the organizing of general and special education candidates to work together, and partnerships between faculty members across different departments within schools of education (Pugach et al, 2014). Using examples from youth work focused on the experiences of girls of color with disabilities, I consider the role that theorizing about disability can play in transforming teacher education. Erevelles and colleagues (2019) ask: “How are educational practices that enact racism, sexism, and heteronormativity also complicit in the construction and removal of disabled bodyminds from educational space?” (p. 358). This paper answers this critical question in regard to what girls of colors with disabilities, as one example, can offer disability-inclusive teacher education praxis.
Conclusions and Significance
I suggest considerations for scholarly activity rooted in sustaining disability and curriculum theorizing in teacher education for inclusive and special education. There are implications for practitioners and researchers in teacher education and theorists who consider the onto-epistemic contributions of multiply marginalized people in ways that are congruent with sustaining disability. These approaches avoid the essentializing of individuals with disabilities, are transdisciplinary, and challenge preservice, in-service teachers, and teacher educators to consider embodied experiences as a starting point for understanding disability-inclusive and culturally sustaining pedagogies (e.g., Author 1, 2019).

Author

• Mildred Boveda, The Pennsylvania State University