Disrupting Notions of Normalcy and White Supremacy: Radical Imaginations Across Educational Research

Session Type: Working Group Roundtable

Abstract

In this session, we examine and reject the ideology of normalcy that creates an exclusionary binary of ‘normal and abnormal’ (Annamma et al., 2013) bodies, practices, communication modes, curricular and research engagements, in US and Canadian educational institutions. We reflect, imagine and reconstruct new possibilities in education and educational research, learning with and from communities minoritized by these binaries. We explore ways to deconstruct ideals of ‘normalcy’ to subvert and disrupt racist, ableist, individualist neoliberal demands of education research and instruction with minoritized communities constructed as ‘other’. Our papers collectively articulate how refusal to accept normalcy as rigid and exclusionary creates possibilities for developing alternative modes of thinking and being, and emancipatory possibilities for early childhood to post-secondary educational research.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 2: Differences and Intersectionalities

Chair

• Natacha Ndabahagamye Jones, University of North Texas

Papers

• Questioning the Notion of Verbalness Through the Perspectives of Mothers of Children With Dis/abilities - Sunmin Lee, Texas State University

• Liberatory Practices From Margin to Center: Reimagining SEL (Social-Emotional Learning) Norms and Community Engagements With Black Children - Natacha Ndabahagamye Jones, University of North Texas

• Supporting the Agency of Young Children With Disabilities: An Autoethnography From an Inclusive Classroom Teacher - Monica Alonzo, University of Texas at Austin

• “That’s Just the Way It Is”: Troubling Normalcy of Researcher Neutrality in STEM Education Research - Nadia Qureshi, University of Toronto - OISE

• Challenging the "Normalcy" of Black History Week in Early Childhood Education - Amber T. Fowler, University of Texas at Austin