Intersectionality and the critical role of context: The case of a Canadian School Board

• In Event: Politics of Identity-Based Data: Evidence Supporting the Development of a Critical Quantitative Community Data Hub

Abstract

In our examination of students’ trajectories through Ontario schools, we employ principles of critical quantitative methods (QuantCrit and DisCrit) framed by Critical Race theory and Critical Disability Studies. In doing so, we centre the intersection of racism and ableism – recognizing that these forces are systemically perpetuated and produced. Having worked with school boards and school board data for decades, we recognize the inherent risk in collecting and analyzing identity-based data in ways that harm historically marginalized communities. We also recognize the tremendous value in adopting critical quantitative methods that highlight institutional failure to ensure equity in both academic access and outcomes. Centralizing the intersection of racism and ableism as a driver of disproportionate results enables key conversations with members of schools, school boards, communities and governance bodies around system-based interventions. However, simply examining the role of racism, ableism and other forms of discrimination as related to particular student identities and outcomes can erase crucial contextual factors. To extend our argument, we draw on the concept of intersectionality based on its attention to context and its consideration of how a multiplicity of constructed identities operate in schools. In “Race and place: Social space in the production of human kinds,” Ronald R. Sundstrom (2003) argues that discussions of human categories often neglect the role of material conditions and social space, which are crucial for understanding the interplay between class, race, and gender. Furthermore, physical and social space has historically been used to construct race, ability and other facets of identity.

The objective of this paper is to highlight how a combination of QuantCrit, DisCrit and intersectionality offers a framework that provides important insights into the role context plays in shaping the educational lives of students. We reference a recent study in which the interrelationship between institutional identification through special education, the role of disability self-identity, race and gender was examined. Research has shown that there is significant overrepresentation of racialized, low-income and male students institutionally identified as disabled and participating in special education classes (Brantlinger, 2006; Domina, et al., 2017; Connor, 2017). Despite this historical overrepresentation, research have shown that these students are least likely to self-identify as having a disability (Authors, 2020). Drawing on program and administrative data from Canada’s largest school board, we will present an analysis that examines students’ intersecting identities and query the relationship between identity formation in relation to the conditions students encounter in school. Special education interventions have historically been marked by racial and class stereotyping, with racialized and low income students tending to experience more restrictive interventions, offering minimal access to future education opportunities (De Valenzuela, et al., 2006; Authors, 2023). Outcomes further highlight the need need to adopt a critical theoretical frame for quantitative analysis that centers both local and historical context of schooling and enables further insight into the construction of disability in already marginalized and racialized spaces.

Authors

• Gillian Parekh, York University

• Carl E. James, York University