ERIC Number: EJ1214098
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2019
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0951-8398
EISSN: N/A
Facilitating En/Counters with Special Education's Cloak of Benevolence in Professional Learning to Eliminate Racial Disproportionality in Special Education
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education (QSE), v32 n3 p323-340 2019
Despite the U.S. government's funding and provision of technical assistance as a prevailing approach to remedy special education racial disproportionality, and considerable research on the explanations, causes, and frameworks for addressing the phenomenon, there is little documentation of research or technical assistance efforts for actually doing so. As a white, non-disabled professor and executive director of a federally funded Equity Assistance Center, I theorize and offer for critique ways I have facilitated (mostly white, non-disabled) educators' en/counters with culturally historically embedded systemic and individual practices contributing to the construction of special education as a "cloak of benevolence" for white supremacy and ableism. Drawing from a theory of expansive learning, I illustrate how purposeful introduction of artifacts into the activity system of a technical assistance relationship brings educators in contact with contradictions between their expressed goals of eliminating disproportionality and their pathologization of children's differences at the intersection of race and disability.
Descriptors: Special Education, Disproportionate Representation, Race, Disabilities, Technical Assistance, Altruism, Whites, Racial Bias, Social Theories, Cultural Context, Professional Education, History, Minority Group Students, Students with Disabilities
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A