Indigenous Learning Lab to Address Racialization of Dis/ability and Discipline

• In Event: A Collection of Critical Race Counterstories: Disrupting Resegregation in Special Education Using QuantCrit

Abstract

Objectives
American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) students are notably overrepresented in special education and disciplinary actions in U.S. schools (NCES, 2023). AI/AN students with disabilities also have higher dropout rates and spend less time in regular classrooms compared to other racial/ethnic groups (OSEP, 2021). They face higher rates of exclusionary discipline, such as suspensions and expulsions, more frequently than their white peers for similar behaviors (Office for Civil Rights, 2018). In this paper, we present a localized solution to address racial disproportionality, developed by a diverse group of stakeholders at a rural high school in Wisconsin serving Indigenous Anishinaabe youth. Utilizing Indigenous Learning Lab (Authors, 2011; 2018) as a formative intervention, we detail the ground-up process of redesigning the behavioral support system by situating the issue of racial disproportionality within the racialized socio-spatial-historical contexts of the local school and community.

Theoretical Framework
We utilized cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) (Engeström, 2016) and decolonizing theories (Brayboy, 2005; Tuck & McKenzie, 2015) to center racial disproportionality as a tool and product shaped by cultural tools within disability identification and disciplinary processes.

Methods and Data Sources
Newhope High School (NHS) struggled with the overrepresentation of AI/AN students in school discipline and special education placement. American Indian students in NHS accounted for about 20% of the student population, but they received 64.3% of in-school suspensions and 52.2% of out-of-school suspensions (Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction, 2019).
ILL members comprised three parents/community members, five educators, three students, and three administrators. Members met monthly for an average duration of one hour and 30 minutes. For this paper, data consisted of transcripts from video recordings of the 10 monthly meetings.

Results
ILL was facilitated using an expansive learning model (Engeström, 1987; 2008), starting from group formation to implementation (Figure 1). This process-driven methodology enabled ILL members to design a new culturally responsive behavioral support system that addresses the historical, spatial, and political dimensions of racial disproportionality (Figure 2), moving away from individualized fragmented solutions. For instance, during the questioning and analyzing stages, members, especially white school administrators and teachers, developed a historical understanding of the racial disproportionality faced by the NHS. They acknowledged the historical legacies of settler colonialism inherent in special education and the school disciplinary system. These stages were foundational, allowing LL members to develop a common understanding of the problem—a prerequisite for the modeling and examining stages. In these latter stages, members moved beyond epistemic ignorance of the socio-spatial-historical components of racial disproportionality to design a system centered on trauma-sensitive approaches.

Significance
Enduring racial disproportionality in special education and school disciplinary practices serves as a significant marker to practitioners, researchers, and policymakers that the problem is a byproduct of settler colonial practices, oppressions, and discriminations that are entrenched in everyday schooling practices. The ILL methodology offers a potential for possible future imagination of addressing lingering educational problems such as racial disproportionality.

Authors

• Aydin Bal, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Dian Mawene, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Dosun Ko, Santa Clara University

• Linda Orie, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Jahyun Yoo, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Elizabeth Schrader, University of Wisconsin - Madison