Inequality in Family Advocacy for Disability Labels and Services

• In Event: (Re)Producing or Disrupting Inequality: Exploring the Utility of Opportunity Hoarding in Educational Research

Abstract

Disability is a major axis of inequality (Maroto et al., 2019), shaping stratification across social sectors. Schools are no exception. Yet while disability is a socially marginalized status overall, disability has a complex relationship with educational inequality. Special education services and disability labels can stigmatize and segregate students, lower teacher expectations, and reduce access to high-level coursework (Author, 2019; Owens, 2020; Shifrer et al., 2013). Yet special education also provides crucial supports, access, and legal protections, and (inequitably) improve academic outcomes (Metzger & Hamilton, 2020; Schwartz et al., 2021). A disability label can provide higher social status than “unexplained underperformance” through a medicalized explanation (Conrad, 1976; Fish, 2022), and can also provide access to symbolic capital, such as attendance at prestigious schools with accommodations (Holmqvist, 2020). Moreover, the extent to which disability and special education provide advantages and disadvantages depends upon the student’s race, class, gender, and category of disability (Author, 2022; Blanchett, 2010).

Special education policy and practice are designed to respond to families' advocacy (Blum, 2015; Carey et al., 2020; Voulgarides, 2021). Many families are “propelled . . . to become vigilantes” to acquire expertise and resources (Blum, 2015, p. 32). Yet this advocacy requires a variety of resources, such that families’ ability to successfully advocate for beneficial services and labels varies by class and race (Blum, 2015; Ong-Dean, 2009).

In this paper, I examine families’ conceptualizations of disability and special education, and how they make meaning of their roles in their children’s access to services. I ask how these conceptualizations, meaning-making, and actions shape – and are shaped by – inequality at the intersection of disability with race, class, and gender. I interviewed parents/caregivers of 46 children that were: a) suspected by their parent/caregiver or teacher of having a disability, b) struggling in school but not suspected of having a disability, or c) recently diagnosed with a disability. The sample includes racial, socioeconomic, and gender diversity, and includes families of children attending 25 Wisconsin schools. The interview protocol asked families to describe their child’s experiences in school, their child’s strengths and difficulties, to describe how they and the school are supporting the child. I am analyzing data by applying index codes based on the interview protocol, writing analytic memos, and applying analytic codes (Deterding & Waters, 2018).

Preliminary results suggest that White and socioeconomically advantaged families tended to conceptualize disability and special education as valuable resources that will support their children to achieve academically at high levels. Many of these families suspected disability when their children failed to over-achieve as expected. They also tended to expect schools to mobilize resources to support their child, sought to drive educational decision-making, and engaged in opportunity hoarding to access scarce special education resources. Some lower-income families and families of color suspected disabilities, but teachers did not listen to them; many others trusted teachers’ perceptions of whether a child might need special education. These findings show how race and class shape the meaning of disability and access to services.

Author

• Rachel E. Fish, New York University
  Presenting Author