Reconceptualizing "Assistance" for Young Children of Color With Disabilities in an Inclusion Classroom

• In Event: The Impact of Racism and White Supremacy on Children's and Teachers' Agency in the Early Grades

Abstract

Purpose: In this paper, we critically analyze how a group of early childhood educators approached assistance with young children of color with disabilities in a Head Start inclusion classroom. We demonstrate how child-centered assistance advances justice for young children of color with disabilities. We offer counterstories (Yosso, 2013) to traditional, ableist and racist teacher-directed forms of assistance that aim to change young children of color with disabilities to fit white, able-bodied standards, and describe assistance that contrastingly supports young children of color with disabilities to be more fully themselves.

Theoretical Framework: The guiding perspective for this paper is Disability Critical Race Theory (Annamma, et al., 2013), which argues that race and ability are co-constructed to otherize, isolate, and oppress individuals at their intersections. Rather than engaging in learning experiences that build on their many assets, knowledges, and curiosities, young children of color with disabilities often undergo surveillance in traditional, medical model-aligned schooling (Annamma, 2018). Resisting this model means creating space for children of color with disabilities to speak for themselves, define who they are, and direct their own learning (Gallagher, 2004).

Methods and Data Sources: We draw from data collected in an international comparative video-cued multivocal ethnographic study (Tobin, Hsueh, & Karasawa, 2009). The research team conducted participant observation for one academic year in three early childhood classrooms and filmed the classrooms for three full days. The main data sources of this paper are the inclusion classroom videos. As we watched the videos, we documented all of the interactions between the children of color with disabilities and others. We coded these interactions using assistance as an overarching code and two sub-codes: child-directed assistance and adult-directed assistance. Emergent themes were the basis of our results.

Results: The reimagined assistance we observed took three primary forms: assistance as giving time and space, assistance as centering the child, assistance as affectionate validation of emotions. The inclusion teachers assisted children of color with disabilities during transitions by giving the children time and space to make transitions in their own time and in their own way. Additionally, adults used their bodies and words in ways that supported the young children of color with disabilities to follow their desires and interests. Finally, teachers assisted children when they expressed frustration, anger, or sadness by using physical touch to soothe rather than constrict. They also listened to and validated children while giving them space to solve their own conflicts.

Significance: The reconceptualized assistance we observed in the Head Start inclusion classroom supported young children of color with disabilities to accomplish their own purposes and express who they are fully. These counterstories to the dominant narrative of assistance as changing children’s behavior to fit white, middle class, able-bodied norms - a form of assistance that sits at the intersection of racism and ableism prevalent in traditional, medical models of special education (Annamma, et al., 2013) - show that assistance can be anti-racist and anti-ableist if approached in a way that aims to honor the child rather than change them.

Authors

• Soyoung Park, Bank Street College of Education

• Sunmin Lee, Texas State University

• Monica Alonzo, The University of Texas at Austin

• Jennifer Keys Adair, The University of Texas at Austin