Preservice General Educators’ Conceptions of Disability: Toward Social Empathy and Disability Identity Development

• In Event: Friday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Disruptions: Perspectives on Teacher Preparation Informed by Disability Studies in Education (Table 1)

Abstract

This presentation describes the results of a naturalistic inquiry (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) study of preservice teachers’ conceptions of disability. We documented participants’ varied conceptions, the experiential sources of them, and their implications for prospective teaching practices. We subsequently developed a grounded theory of conceptions of disability most likely to advance inclusion and social justice and later expanded this theory by drawing from prior research on disability identity (Caldwell, 2011) and social empathy (Segal, 2011). We offer suggestions for improving teacher preparation of inclusive, social justice educators based on our findings.

Authors

• Zach A. McCall, University of Kansas

• Julia Leigh Taylor, University of Kansas

• Kylene Cosand, University of Kansas

• Charles T. Pittack, University of Kansas