Toward Affirming and Sustaining Disabled Students' Identity Development by Nondisabled Practitioners

• In Event: Disability Identities and Cultural Repertoires in Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies

Abstract

Purpose
This is a narrative self-study of our perceptions of the impact of our practices as a school psychologist and special education teacher, respectively, on students’ disability identity formation at intersections of race, and language. Acknowledging special education’s reliance on the medical deficit-based model of disability (Danforth, 2009), and literature on disability identity development (Forber-Pratt et al., 2017), we identify ways our practice may have reified, and at times, countered internalization of ableism for students with disabilities. We offer implications that respond to Forber-Pratt and colleagues’ (2017) call for non-disabled practitioners to understand disability identity formation as central to our design of pedagogy, practices, therapies and supports that affirm and sustain disability.
Theoretical Frame
Considerable research has shown the importance of disability identity development for people with disabilities (Darling & Heckert, 2010; Dunn & Burcaw, 2013; Gill, 1997; Forber-Pratt & Zape, 2017; Hahn & Belt, 2004; Putnam, 2005) as a “unique phenomenon that shapes persons' ways of seeing themselves, their bodies, and their way of interacting with the world (Forber-Pratt et al., 2017, p. 198). Some disability studies scholars have applied Gibson’s three stages of disability identity development theory and ohers have demonstrated a process that results in the replacement of stigma-based identity models with disability pride (Darling, 2003). In a recent literature review, Forber-Pratt and colleagues (2017) asserted that when individuals with disabilities have affirming school and clinical experiences with non-disabled service providers, disability identity development processes can be positive and liberating, rather than processes that internalize ableism in the context of ableist people and institutions (Charlton, 2002; Mullin, 2015).
Methods/Data Sources
We engaged in three ninety-minute semi-structured discussions about how our former practice fostered disability identity development for our students, and how our practices traversed medical and socio-cultural models of disability: set up students to understand disability as an internal deficiency or a difference to be valued and sustained. We applied disability identity development theories to the aims and perceived impacts of their practice with students with disabilities; therein, we open-coded the discussions separately, and then together.
Findings
To date, we have found that even in those instances where our actions were aimed at facilitating students’ acceptance of their disabilities, they were primarily focused at supporting students to understand their “weaknesses” so that they could better advocate for supports in their classrooms. Other actions focused on facilitating students’ understanding of their disability as a form of difference that educators needed to understand in order to improve educators’ teaching practices and support for students’ learning and success, but left understanding of one’s disability in relation to systemic ableism untouched. Additional findings are forthcoming.
Significance
Forber-Pratt and colleagues (2017) noted the potential of understandings of the processes and importance of disability identity development by non-disabled professionals for developing effective therapies and interventions. We provide suggestions for practice, including recommendations for curriculum, instruction, and affinity groups for students with disabilities, alongside professional learning implications for educators and related service providers that counter their educational and socialization into medical models of disability.

Authors

• Kathleen King Thorius, Indiana University - IUPUI

• Federico R. Waitoller, University of Illinois at Chicago