Coaches Cultivating Pedagogical Resistance Through Critical Inquiry

• In Event: Equity and Inclusion in Special Education: Exploring Bias, Disparities, and Transformative Research

Abstract

Without critical pedagogical opportunities, educators can maintain education ecologies that perpetuate the deficit positioning and exclusion of multiply marginalized disabled students of color. This is exemplified by the continued disproportionate assignment of students of color to segregated special education classrooms. In the context of inclusive education reform situated within special education, there often lacks the necessary intersectional justice-oriented lens needed to disrupt this long-standing harm. Coaches working in such contexts are uniquely positioned to work towards transforming these dysfunctional education ecologies through pedagogical resistance. In this paper, I present a year-long participatory multiple case study that explores how a collective of four coaches engaged in critical inquiry to work towards more just and inclusive schools in their district.

Author

• Naomi Fair, Rutgers University - Camden