Nowhere to be Found: Young, Black, Queer, and Disturbed- A Systematic Literature Review

• In Event: Black Youth Ingenuity as Disruption Towards Bright and Just Futures

Abstract

This systematic literature review examines how special education scholarship on emotional disturbance (ED) engages with the intersectional experiences of young Black Queer males (YBQM). Motivated by the disproportionate representation of Black males classified with ED and informed by the researcher's experience as a special education teacher working with YBQM, this review investigates the extent to which existing research addresses the convergence of Black identity, Queer identity, gender, and disability.

The purpose of this study is to identify how race, gender, and Queer identity are (or are not) operationalized within the field of special education when it comes to ED classification and intervention. Using data from the New York City Department of Education for the 2023-2024 school year (New York State Department of Education, n.d.). The data shows that Black males comprise 12% of the student population but 25% of students with IEPs; this study underscores the urgency of intersectional analysis within special education research.

This review employs critical disability theory (DisCrit; Annamma et al., 2018) as a framework that challenges deficit-oriented narratives and centers on structural violence, racism, and ableism as key forces in schooling. The review also follows PRISMA (Page et al., 2021) guidelines to systematically analyze peer-reviewed U.S.-based studies addressing themes related to race, gender, Queerness, and ED. An initial pool of 231 articles was screened based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, resulting in 11 studies for full-text analysis. While many of the studies address race, gender, and disability, none explicitly examine the intersection of Blackness, Queerness, gender, and ED classification.

This absence is itself a significant finding and reveals a glaring gap in the literature—one that not only limits our understanding of how ED is constructed and imposed but also exposes the normative frameworks that erase Black Queer male subjectivities in education research. The findings suggest that current scholarship often treats race, gender, Queer identity, and disability as discrete rather than entangled categories, leading to siloed analyses that fail to address how multiple marginalized students experience educational harm, limiting the field's ability to support students who live at these intersections.

This review contributes to the field by calling for future research that centers the lived experiences of YBQMs, incorporates Black-centered theoretical and Queer-informed frameworks, and challenges the normative assumptions shaping special education scholarship on ED. By highlighting this silence and advancing an intersectional critique, this study contributes to rethinking the exclusions that have shaped the field and pushes toward more just and imaginative possibilities for future educational research.

Author

• Jocardo E Ralston, University of Pennsylvania