Rocking the Boat: Exploring Disabled Teachers' Practices of Tempered Radicalism Within Schools

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session One
  In Roundtable Session: Centering the Disabled Experience in the Research Process (Table 14)

Abstract

Disabled teachers have critically important lived experiences of navigating disability in education. In this study, disabled teachers experienced ableism, stigma, workplace discrimination, and systemic oppression in various educational environments. Addressing these inequities necessitates having a better understanding of teachers’ experiences and the intentional practices that they use to anticipate and respond to ableism in purposeful and strategic ways--as teachers, with colleagues in different positions of power, and on behalf of their students. Drawing on qualitative data from interviews and written letters, this study uses the framework of “tempered radicalism” as a means to organize the analysis and findings of how teachers act as change agents and the practices that they use to effect change from within education.

Author

• Michelle L. Damiani, Rowan University
  Presenting Author