Removed for Protection: A Critical Autoethnography of Schooling, Space, and Relational Pedagogy

• In Event: Intersectional Disability Justice Critical Autoethnographic Counter-Histories as Living Archive

Abstract

Objective
In this paper, I perform a critical autoethnographic study on the relationships among settler colonialism, pedagogy, and special education with the hopes of understanding how race and place serve to perpetuate behavior and emotions, and how these are entangled in settler colonial logics of space and property that are reproduced in public school spaces. Additionally, I consider how a pedagogy that considers place and relationality, beyond our corporeal physicalities, can disrupt “durable colonial logics” (Handy, 2024) that continue to shape how we view schooling spaces.
Perspectives
In this paper, disability is conceptualized using the psycho-emotional model (Authors, 2017; Seawright, 2014) which emphasizes how the labeling of ability differences create a negative sense of self, preventing those who have been labeled from participating in the classroom setting. I also draw on the boundaries created by schooling that are built from the legal model of disability (Yell & Bradley, 2024) which grounds the special education system in colonial logics of property, appropriateness, and space. I apply Disability Critical Race Theory to conceptualize how race and ability can be constituted as “property” by central practices in schooling, such as academic tracking and multi-tiered support service models (Annamma et al., 2013; Broderick & Leonardo, 2011). I look back on my educational experiences with intersections of space, bodies, and behavior to trace how “goodness” as ideological property has become a “durable colonial logic” that persists in schools (Handy, 2024).
Modes of Inquiry/ Data Sources
In this critical autoethnography, I apply narrative research traditions in order to first explore how the entanglement of race, behavior, and space is woven into teaching and learning in special education (Boylorn & Orbe, 2016; Ohito, 2019). Drawing on data collected from my journal entries, text messages, and photographs, I move between my personal experiences and broader political and theoretical issues embedded in these events. These artifacts have become the sources of data that I analyze and bring into conversation in this critical autoethnography.
Substantiated Conclusion
The findings will reveal how power is embedded in space in schooling, masks oppression under the guises of protection and social justice, and effectively silences and erases some students through processes of removal (Burdell & Swadener, 1999). The findings will underpin my call for educators to reimagine the spatial boundaries of learning spaces and how they impact the experience of learning for children perceived to embody challenging behavior.
Scholarly Significance
As I “unforget” my past experiences as a special education teacher and my present as a university supervisor of student-teachers in special education teacher preparation, I imagine opportunities to build relational spaces in the teacher preparation process that can humanize students who are perceived to embody problematic behaviors in schools. This paper calls for a reimagining of the university supervisor role and how to create more meaningful relationships between university and community in teacher certification processes.

Author

• Samantha Marie Jacob, University of Wisconsin-Madison