Naming, Problematizing, Reimagining: Special Education Preservice Teachers Explore Injustice and Agency Through Critical Inquiry

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session 2
  In Roundtable Session: Preparing Special and Inclusive Educators to Promote Equity and Access

Abstract

As preservice teachers have been socialized in a society fraught with systemic oppression, they often bring unexamined ideologies into their teacher education programs that position multiply-marginalized Youth of Color through a deficit lens that normalizes their exclusion. Within the field of Special Education, this is exemplified by the prominence of segregated special education placements. Preservice teachers need opportunities to interrogate systems of oppression, engage in critical reflection, and take action in order to disrupt these dysfunctional education ecologies. In this paper, I present a qualitative case study, situated within special education teacher education, that explores how two preservice teachers name and problematize educational injustice and envision agency towards the transformation of special education through participation in a Freirean culture circle.

Author

• Naomi Fair, University of Washington