Imagining different spaces and times: Experiences of children with disabilities in India

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 11:45 am - Gold 3
  In Roundtable Session: From ‘SPED’ to Solidarity: Unforgetting Exclusion and Imagining Disability-Just Futures in K-12 Education

Abstract

How do educational policies, that assign labels to children, shape the identity of youth and children with disabilities? This paper explores the experiences of children with disabilities assigned to segregated classrooms and curricula at one regular urban elite private school in India. Using sensory ethnography and research creation methods, I examined processes and cultural patterns through which children are identified as disabled and how the imagination and embodied expertise of children othered through these processes can serve as a site to create just disabled futures in education. This paper provides insights into how educational policies in India label children and influence the experiences of children with disabilities in schools and classrooms and how children with disabilities envision inclusive education.

Author

• Tanushree Sarkar, University of Missouri