Counternarratives as DisCrit Praxis: Disrupting Classroom Master Narratives Through Imagined Composite Stories

Abstract

Background/Context: In disability critical race theory (DisCrit) Classroom Ecology, Annamma and Morrison (2018a) offered invaluable direction for teachers by proposing constructs that address racism and ableism within the foundational components of the classroom—curriculum, pedagogy, resistance, and solidarity. These liberatory lenses offered a critical framework to conceptualize and achieve DisCrit-aligned teaching and learning. However, as of yet, critically conscious classroom teachers who seek to make DisCrit live in spaces that serve multiply-marginalized students have no map to operationalize theory into practice. To support the enactment of DisCrit Classroom Ecology, scholarship must authentically partner with classroom teachers who are working with and who have influence over the educational trajectories of multiply-marginalized students. Objective: This article builds on lived practice and imagines liberatory praxis through the use of counternarratives as a methodological process. Presented in the form of three composite stories—a method of Critical Race Theory—practitioner-scholars and teacher-activists explore the potential of DisCrit Classroom Ecology constructs within literacy spaces across grade levels. Rather than asking how DisCrit informs classroom practice, these collaboratively developed composite stories explore how the praxis of teachers aligned with DisCrit can illuminate, operationalize, and expand theory. Participants: The three composite stories were codeveloped by six authors: three white practitioner-scholars and three activist teachers of color. Collectively, the pairs identified master narratives experienced in the teacher-activists’ actual classrooms, which each serve multiply-marginalized students. Research Design: This article applies counternarratives as both research methodology and a professional learning tool. Specifically, the coauthors developed three composite stories, based on participants’ lived experiences and relevant theory, to operationalize the constructs of DisCrit Classroom Ecology and interrogate master narratives surfacing in their classrooms. The six coauthors used the collaborative generation of composite stories to explore counternarratives as a tool for critically conscious praxis. Conclusions and Policy Recommendations: DisCrit affirmed actions rooted in solidarity and resistance that the teacher-activists hadn’t yet named as such and empowered them to apply the lens to more aspects of their practice. Teacher education and professional learning should include exploration of DisCrit and encourage the operationalization of DisCrit Classroom Ecology. Additionally, schools must resist the narrowing of curriculum and pedagogical rigidity that undermine solidarity with students served and reproduces deficit-oriented master narratives. Finally, education scholars need to reposition their research to not just include, but also actively learn from teachers, especially teachers of color whose lived experiences more often mirror the lived experiences of students with multiply-marginalized identities.

Expanding Critical Perspectives on Disability and Education

“…Engaging DisCrit as both a tool for analysis and a theoretical framework, contributors to TCR interrogated the deployment of racism and ableism: in norms and standards of early childhood education (Beneke & Love, 2022); in racialized perceptions of ability in higher education (Mireles, 2022); in barriers to the profession associated with teacher certification and licensure exams (Schwitzman-Gerst, 2022); in race-evasive perspectives and ideologies perpetuating discipline disparities in schools (Tefera et al, 2022); and in state learning standards (Clark et al, 2022). Authors engaged with DisCrit Classroom Ecologies and DisCrit Solidarity 2 —applying the former to literacy contexts (Locke et al, 2022) and the latter to disabled girls of color in a youth prison (Cabral et al, 2022, 2023). Several articles examined DisCrit within teacher education, including Beneke et al (2022), who revealed ways that teacher candidates weaponized emotions to uphold hierarchies of race and ability, and Perouse-Harvey (2022), documented ways that DisCrit and critical theory can provide preservice teachers with language to discuss and confront racism and ableism in schools.…”