Faculty and Student Reflections on the Liminal Positioning of Disabled Student Teachers

• In Event: Constructing Educational Possibilities: What Disability Art and Art Education Offer in Teaching Disabled Youth

Abstract

This paper explores the liminal space in which disabled pre-service educators find themselves during clinical experiences and provides faculty with considerations for supporting disabled preservice educators. We understand these liminal spaces as existing between university/college accommodations, which typically do not account for needs that arise during a field placement, and an ineligibility for workplace accommodations, as student teachers are not district employees. Field experiences are essential for supporting the transition between preservice teacher and professional. We contend that the representation of disabled people in our teaching force matters: Recent statistics suggest less than 5% of teachers are disabled (Walker, 2018), making it highly unlikely that disabled students, who make up 15% of students nationwide (NCES, 2023), see themselves represented in their teachers, despite the positive impact research suggests such representation has on students (Pritchard, 2010) and the perspectives a lived experience of disability may provide (Duquette, 2010; Tal-Alon & Shapira-Lishchinsky, 2019; Ware, et. al., 2022).

Drawing on a theoretical framework of critical disability studies, this paper views disability as a social construct and a cultural identity (e.g. Blandy, 1991; Goodley, 2017). Additionally, following Minich (2016) and Schalk (2017), we understand disability studies as a methodology that challenges normative ideologies of the body and advances disability justice (Berne, 2015). Reflecting specifically on university teaching, Schalk (2017) describes how disability studies as methodology shifts how students engage with the world around them, suggesting that employing disability studies in this paper is both about the specific experiences of disabled student teachers and about shifting the mindset of all preservice educators in ways that will make a material impact on the disabled students in their future classrooms. We situate this work within a justice-oriented lens, rejecting ideas about academic ableism which “privileges ability, while disadvantaging disabled students” (Long & Stabler, 2021, p. 2).

Following Long and Stabler (2021) we explore academic ableism using our own “personal experiences as testimonials to experiences that are often overlooked” (p. 2), embracing narrative inquiry as method. Narrative inquiry honors lived experiences as a source of important understanding and knowledge through the exploration of the stories that people both live and tell (Clandinin, 2013). Reflecting on our experiences as disabled students and teachers, and as faculty supporting disabled student teachers, we bring to light the problematic, nuanced, and complex ways that disabled students struggle and thrive in student teaching and clinical placements. In telling these stories, we engage in authentic forms of meaning making (Hendry, 2007); without storytelling “there is no identity, no self, no other” (Lewis, 2011, p. 505).

While the education field broadly recognizes the value of diversity in teacher recruitment across race, gender, and sexuality, limited attention has been given to increasing representation of disabled teachers (Ware, et. al., 2022) and disabled teachers are underrepresented in the literature (Neca, et. al., 2022). This autoethnographic, narrative inquiry adds to literature centering disabled teachers, issuing a clarion call for university teaching programs to do more in supporting disabled student teachers in the liminal space between student and professional.

Authors

• Lauren Newport, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Jenna Gabriel, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Shana Cinquemani, Rhode Island School of Design

• Lillian Lewis, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Courtnie N. Wolfgang, Rhode Island School of Design