(Pro)Claiming Intellect: How Young Women of Color Resist Ableism and Pathologization of Dis/ability

• In Event: Critical Examination of Race, Ethnicity, Class, and Gender in Education: Special Education

Abstract

This paper is an investigation of the ways in which presumptions of intellectual inferiority for adolescent Girls of Color—also called young Women of Color (WoC)—with and without a disability diagnosis shape their academic experiences and postsecondary trajectory/outcomes. Using a Womanist standpoint and strengths-based intersectional lens, we explore how adolescent GoC resist the pathologization of dis/ability and assert their agency in dehumanizing moments. This intersectional phenomenological analysis uses a multi-method approach and draws from two qualitative studies about young WoC across the United States. We find that although they are adversely affected by the pathologization of dis/ability, our participants enact self and sisterly love to support and guide each other through the academic and postsecondary process.

Authors

• Shena Sanchez, University of Alabama

• Mercedes Adell Cannon, Indiana University - Indianapolis