"Playing the Disability Card": Untangling Race and Disability in Asylum-Seeking Children's Education in Rome

• In Event: Roundtable Session 4
  In Roundtable Session: Interrogating Race, Policy, and Dis/ability in Global Contexts

Abstract

This paper investigates the intersections of race and disability in relation to the educational experiences of asylum-seeking children in Rome. The paper explores initial findings from a qualitative doctoral research project that posed questions about the ways in which White Italian professionals in refugee organisations and other public institutions understand race and disability, and how these professionals negotiated the challenges of facilitating access to ordinary, desegregated schools and health services of asylum-seeking children, in the context of the radical educational policy of Integrazione Scolastica. A theoretical framework based on Dis/Ability Critical Race Studies is used to discuss how asylum-seeking children’s embodiment and positioning as non-White and disabled reveals the interdependent relationship between racism, ableism and White supremacy.

Author

• Valentina Migliarini, Università degli Studi di Roma