Leading through a critical lens: The application of DisCrit in framing, implementing and improving equity driven, educational systems for all students

Abstract

PurposeThis article focuses on the strategic importance of framing cultural changes in special education through a critical lens. The article explores why cultural responsivity must be understood from a critical perspective that accounts for the historical sedimentation of racism that exists within special education organizational policies and practices. This sedimentation affects current and future organizational features that sustain historical, persistent and pernicious racial and ableist structures, relationships and outcomes.Design/methodology/approachBy examining the role of power within organizational systems, the authors trace its contribution to reproduction of these systems through special education leadership. Special education leaders along with their peers in general education can frame transformative change through a systemic lens designed to address structural, regulatory and cultural practices that perpetuate raced and ableist outcomes. The pernicious and sustaining structures and practices that have created unequal outcomes in our educational systems need strategic intervention, prevention and re-creation to create equitable supports and services programs.FindingsBy examining the role of power within organizational systems, the authors trace its contribution to reproduction of these systems through special education leadership. Special education leaders along with their peers in general education can frame transformative change through a systemic lens designed to address structural, regulatory and cultural practices that perpetuate raced and ableist outcomes.Practical implicationsWith clear outcomes that are responsive to all students, including those identified with dis/abilities, education leaders can make consequential shifts in access, opportunity and the distribution of social and intellectual capital throughout education.Social implicationsThe pernicious and sustaining structures and practices that have created unequal outcomes in our educational systems need strategic intervention, prevention and re-creation to create equitable supports and services programs.Originality/valueThe application of DisCrit to educational leadership practices offers an opportunity to frame leadership through a powerful equity lens.

Pursuing Justice-Driven Inclusive Education Research: Disability Critical Race Theory (DisCrit) in Early Childhood

“…As such, DisCrit helps illuminate how educational programs and reforms have functioned to label, sort, and “fix” multiply marginalized children based on white, middle-class norms, thereby undermining inclusive education and reinforcing inequities (Baglieri, 2016; Waitoller & Annamma, 2017). Finally, by illuminating interlocking systems of oppression that manifest in everyday standards and processes, DisCrit helps envision innovative practice, identifies new avenues for collaboration, and ultimately, advances justice-driven inclusive education (Kozleski et al, 2020).…”

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

“…This liberatory framework supports educators to conceptualize and achieve DisCrit-aligned teaching and learning. Although DisCrit frameworks have been developed for teacher recruitment programs (Kulkarni et al, 2021), school leaders (DeMatthews, 2019; Kozleski et al, 2020), and early childhood (Hancock et al, 2021; Love & Beneke, 2021), critically conscious teachers who seek to make DisCrit live in classroom spaces still need support and models to operationalize theory into practice. To facilitate enacting the constructs of DisCrit Classroom Ecology, scholarship must engage in dialogue with classroom teachers who have influence over the educational trajectories of multiply-marginalized students.…”

“…The 2009 Common Core Learning Standards’ initial promise of a unified approach to grade-level mastery has reduced students’ humanity through a racialized, limited focus on Eurocentric canonical texts and isolated literacy skills devoid of the diverse student bodies and histories currently served in schools (Cole, 2008; Moss, 2013; Paris, 2013). Even as education models like the following cotaught classroom gain traction in school programming, too many spaces continue to operate within “oppressive constellations” (Annamma & Handy, 2019) that claim inclusion but instead perpetuate ableist and racist curricula and pedagogy that sabotage teachers and subjugate multiply-marginalized students (Kozleski et al, 2020; Research Alliance for New York City Schools, 2018). With these systemic barriers in place, what is needed to imagine anew the middle-school ELA classroom as a functional DisCrit Classroom Ecology where all students cogenerate learning experiences?…”

The Effect of Principal’s Academic Supervision on Strengthening 21st-Century Literacy Culture in Junior High School PE Learning

“…The success factor in developing the leadership capacity of the principal lies in the leader who makes regular observations in the classroom, systematic tracking of student achievement and fostering a positive culture for learning, as well as the formation of a collaborative process that involves the community and peer learning groups of teachers [8]. For this reason, the next step for educational leaders is to provide guidance to their peers towards transformative change [9] Broadly speaking, there are two factors that affect the quality of learning, including 1) Supporting factors which include the principal's leadership, coordination and cooperation, and teaching skills in managing the classroom, 2) Inhibiting factors include facilities and infrastructure, education budget, or financing and quality. low educators [10].…”