Examining Paradoxes of Access: A Discursive, Material, and Emotive Analysis of the Least Restrictive Environment

• In Event: Sunday Roundtable Session 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Examining Inclusive Policies in Special Education (Table 11)

Abstract

We use theoretical pluralism to engage in a multi-level analysis aimed at understanding how the racialized segregation of students with dis/Abilities persists despite a commitment to inclusion via the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) provision embedded within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). We use critical discourse analysis, case study and vignette analysis, and critical autoethnography to understand how injustices are sustained across macro (legal), meso (school), and micro (student) levels of the school system through the LRE provision. We find that the LRE provision promotes ableism and fails to adequately address intersectionalities which sustain racialized educational inequities and injustices under a rights framework.

Authors

• Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Hunter College - CUNY

• Susan Larson Etscheidt, University of Northern Iowa

• David I. Hernandez-Saca, University of Northern Iowa