Navigating the Multiplicity of Disability in Schools: Prying Opportunities, Minimizing Harms

• In Event: 21020 - Section on Sociology of Education Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 5: Exceptionality in Education

Abstract

In this paper, I examine how families’ conceptualization of disability and special education, and how they understand their role in advocating for or resisting disability diagnoses and special education receipt, might shape – and be shaped by – inequality at the intersection of disability with race and class. I focus on families’ advocacy, using Tilly’s (1999) theory of opportunity hoarding to examine how their actions might create and exacerbate inequalities in special education access. I interviewed parents/caregivers of 67 children in 21 Wisconsin public elementary schools that were: a) suspected by their parent/caregiver or teacher of having a disability, b) struggling in school but not suspected of having a disability, or c) recently diagnosed with a disability. I find that race and class shape families' conceptualizations of disability and special education, and how they advocate for or resist disability diagnosis and special education receipt, and that current understanding of opportunity hoarding requires expansion to account for actions by marginalized families, or families advocating on behalf of marginalized students.

Author

• Rachel Elizabeth Fish, Smith College