Exploring Spatiotemporal Dimensions of the Transition to Adulthood for Black Youth Labeled With Intellectual Disability

• In Event: Exploring Spatiotemporal Dimensions of Education and Inequity: Expanding Our Capacity to Build Equitable Educational Opportunity

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this study was to animate the spatial and temporal dimensions embedded in the experiences of Black disabled young adults and their families as they transitioned from school to adulthood. This endeavor is critical, both to addressing the void of literature on the experiences of Black families in transition planning and constructing liberatory transition education that centers the knowledges and contextualized experiences of Black disabled young adults and their families.

Theoretical Framework
The theoretical orientation drew from Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit; Annamma et al., 2013) and a socio-spatial dialectic (Soja, 2010) to frame how Black families experienced schooling in situated sociopolitical contexts. DisCrit afforded engaging data with dominant ideologies in systems—and spaces—that work to divest resources and opportunities from Black disabled youth. Furthermore, a socio-spatial ontology foregrounds how these processes have developed over time at the intersection of dis/ability and race.

Method and Data Sources
This study utilized a multiple case study design (Stake, 2006) to trace the schooling experiences of three Black families of young adults labeled with intellectual disability. Each of three families in the study had three participants, all of whom participated in up to three individual interviews and constructed Education Journey Maps (Annamma, 2017). Education Journey Mapping (EJM) is a methodology that uses mapping to expand the possibilities of participant expression, particularly in illustrating spatial and temporal dimensions through drawing. Data sources were 21 individual interviews and seven Education Journey Maps. Data was analyzed using a multi-phase process of unitizing, coding, refining codes, theming, and axial coding across cases (Saldaña, 2015).

Results
Results of this study indicated an organized disinvestment by schools in the educational lives of Black disabled young adults. Importantly, this disinvestment, defined as a lack of access to educational resources and the benefits of attaining an education, was animated by four overarching themes. One of the themes that emerged indicated rocky foundations from which high quality transition services should be afforded. These foundations were bereft of curriculum and instruction in literacy, communication and language, and self-determination—educational arenas that connect to legacies of anti-Black racism. Furthermore, the spaces in which these disinvestments occurred were organized in particular, exclusionary patterns, often under the guise of specialized instruction. Thus, this study illuminates the connectivity of transition education to the entirety of Black young adults’ educational opportunities, or debts owed to them.

Significance
It is imperative to attend to not only spatial dimensions in transition education, but to how student histories shape transition planning. In other words, while transition planning (mandated at age 16 for students with disabilities) is explicitly concerned with planning for the future, recognizing how past treatment of Black disabled young adults has impacted their futures offers critical insights into the spatiotemporal realities of Black disabled young adults and their families. This knowledge supports the transformation of transition education toward investments in Black disabled futures and simultaneously engages intersectional disability justice advocacy that recognizes the co-constructed forces of racism and ableism in special education.

Author

• Courtney Lane Wilt, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater