What it means to be special: two sisters discuss their experiences

Abstract

Yaritza: You know a kid who needs extra help. I think of someone who doesn't understand, who isn't at the same level as everybody else. I see a kid who struggles more to comprehend what is being taught.

The Demon of Hope: An Arts-based Infused Meditation on Race, Disability, and the Researcher’s Complicity with Injustice

“…The statistical record demonstrates that Alysha's path through school is not unique. Black youth still comprise a disproportionate number of those who fail to graduate from high school and college (Casselman, 2014;Ginder, Kelly-Reid, & Mann, 2017;NCES, 2018), are mis-diagnosed with disabilities and isolated in self-contained classrooms (Annamma, Connor, & Ferri, 2013;Fellner, Comesañas, Duperoy, & Duperoy, 2017), are suspended, arrested, incarcerated (Merkwae, 2015;Orfield, Losen, Wald, & Swanson, 2004), and stigmatized in various ways (Fellner et al, 2017;Harry & Klingner, 2006;Kauffman & Badar, 2013) so that the fault for academic failure is seen as an individual one belonging to them alone. The evidence of black overrepresentation in all the categories listed above testifies to the continued legacy of anti-blackness that began with the Middle Passage and slavery (Sharpe, 2016) and was extended, after the Civil War, by means of Black Codes, chain gangs, prisons, forced contractual labor (Alexander, 2010;Davis, 2003;Hartman, 1997), housing projects, and ghettos (Rothstein, 2017).…”

You get tenure, what do I get?: Using art to interrogate a researcher’s dilemma

“…Black children are often presumed to be future criminals by teachers and are expected to underperform (Ferguson 2001;Dickar 2008). Furthermore, they often internalize the negative evaluation of their potential and are doubly stigmatized when labelled with disabilities (Steele 2003;Ho 2004;Holley et al 2012;Annamma et al 2013;Bos et al 2013;Fellner et al 2017). On a more macro level, black communities are systemically underfunded and under-served in a myriad of ways due to lack of health care (probably even more precarious since the weakening on the 2010 Affordable Care Act) (Lau et al 2012;Adepoju et al 2015); lack of employment (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2017); and educational condescension that privileges remedial education for students of lower economic class over critical and stimulating discourse (Anyon 1997;Orfield and Lee 2005).…”