Addressing Voice and Identity in Disability Studies in Education and Special Education

• In Event: Boundary Brokers at the Intersections of Disability Studies in Education and Special Education: Toward a More Radical Conceptualization and Enactment of Inclusive Education

Abstract

I believe the tensions between DSE and special education (SPED) are best captured by the fact that latter one remains one of the most enduring examples of patriarchal practices in society. The focus on deciding what’s in the best interest of others all but ensures abuse of power. In my workplace SPED faculty (most) serve to preserve this patriarchal impulse. The age-old critique of SPED serving to maintain ‘Regular Education’ in its pursuit of attainment and exclusion has not diminished over time. I believe it will be impossible to change these institutional structures unless alliances are formed between those who work at the intersections of DSE and SPED.

My academic identity is derived from the relentless critique of special education that I have published and presented on. I cannot recall a moment in my career—dating back to my years as a classroom teacher—that I was not critical of special education. As a classroom teacher, I read the work of Lous Heshusius (1981, 1989) before I started my doctoral program at KU. Her writing about the ways we need to view children with disabilities anchored my teaching in public middle schools. I initially planned to focus on cognitive science and educational technology—until I realized that Tom Skrtic was on the faculty of my doctoral program. Together their work, along with Doug Biklen, Steve Taylor, Sally Tomlinson and Len Barton collectively authored a broad critique of special education, which resonated with my teaching and my parenting experience as my son moved through public education. Later, this scholarship was characterized as “critical special education” (Ware, 2005). This is the scholarship, I argued needed to ground educational inclusion.

I strongly believe that the issue of voice and identity must be addressed in K-12 education. Children have to LEARN see themselves as full, and far from being mediated by a pathological lens. Teachers have to UNLEARN the impulse to read their students through deficiency, categories, and labels, and systems have to be vigilant in their desire to “bring out” their students with disabilities into full view as valuable individuals (Ware, 1995).

Any research that moves away from the quantitative reductionist paradigm is so overdue in special education, still. Ellen Brantliner and Doug Biklen and Steve Taylor had demonstrated this need and elaborated on its applied value. And whereas qualitative research is done in special education, actually more is produced compared to quantitative work—but too little is feature in policy work. Narrative research is a valuable tool in practice, yet there are even greater hurdles to surmount when researchers attempt to hand the “micro-phone” to disabled youth. Some years ago, Sue Snelgrove wrote a brilliant dissertation that led her to develop a remarkable consent form that enabled her non-verbal, deaf children to participate in the research. Janet Sauer has also embarked upon work that really pushes against Institutional Review Boards that assumes NO COMPETENCE when attempting to research youth with diagnosed disabilities.

Author

• Linda P. Ware, SUNY - College at Geneseo