Positioning Disability at the Core of District Inclusion: Disability Studies in Education in Action

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 10:50 am
  In Roundtable Session: Collective Approaches to Confronting Disproportionality and Leading for Equity (Table 13)

Abstract

This qualitative research study reveals advocacy strategies and decisions seven special education leaders share about enactment of inclusive education. Connor (2012) calls for examples of “proactive models of special education administrators” who lead equitable schools where students with disabilities are educated in general education classrooms. Analyzed with a disability studies in education framework, strategies leaders use to cultivate inclusion are discussed. Findings demonstrate how leaders value disability at individual and environmental levels. Institutional elements of programs and spaces were changed as tactics to resist medicalized and traditionally marginalizing notions of disability. This study provides practical examples of leaders who disrupt the medicalization of disability in schools, create inclusive educational spaces, and embody what doing disability studies in education looks like.

Author

• Chelsea Tracy-Bronson, Stockton University